Hi again,

Thanks for the reply - it's nice to know a bit of FF history besides! I'll have a go at sending you my files. However, my e-mail yahoo! account has sometimes terrible trouble connecting (which can be annoying to say the least!) so let's see how we get on. Good job on making a backup of those files before Popp's site disappeared.

To Jupiter Jack: Ah, this sounds a very familiar story! Like you, I started collecting FF in the 80's (1987, to be more precise), and Crypt of the Sorcerer proved one of the most memorable adventures. It's an interesting point you bring up where first impressions are concerned;

SPOILER

END SPOILER

However, there is something to be said for maturity. It wasn't all that long ago I sat down properly and

SPOILER

END SPOILER

'Citadel of Chaos' was very good (which also included Magic) but for me, 'House of Hell' also turned out to be a fantastic read - one of Steve Jackson's best adventures, a true classic. However, commisioned authors also had their moments: 'Dead of Night', 'Vault of the Vampire', and 'Legend of the Shadow Warriors' - and many others - all brought something to the FF table.

In this regards, revisiting some of the earlier adventures can be a little disappointing; after the introduction of additional rules and attributes, besides some well-written adventures, even the classics appear a little jaded, and somewhat basic, to how we remember them. To be fair, 'Deathtrap Dungeon' (for example) was a great idea which endured for so long, nobody can take that away - but later adventures, with their colourful characters, and intriguing locations, at times even DD has its limits.

I'm a big fan of 'Rebel Planet', and some years ago I slated 'Sky Lord' as being (comparatively) too weird. However, you rightly pointed out that with age a person's opinion can change; Sky Lord has more unique qualities than I gave it credit for!

Jupiter Jack
Mon Aug 22 13:48:02 2011
General Chat

I was a great fan of Fighting Fantasy game books in the 1980s and early 1990s. I loved them passionately; collecting them all from one to fifty-nine and the extras like Sorcery! too. In my opinion, they were superior to other game books that existed at the same time, such as the Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger and Blood Sword series among other copycats.

I liked the sword and sorcery ones best, such as #6 Deathtrap Dungeon and #24 Creature of Havoc. However, I wasn't impressed so much by the sci-fi books in the series that weren't as good, such as #13 Freeway Fighter and #33 Sky Lord. They were okay, the best being #18 Rebel Planet, but the medieval/magic setting was always where Fighting Fantasy excelled.

My all-time favourite Fighting Fantasy title was the 1987 book #26 Crypt of the Sorcerer. For some reason, it left a big impression on me. It’s a epic quest to slay a evil sorcerer called Razaak involving finding allies who journey with you, Razaak’s old sword, cave fighting the Gargantis beast and a cool balloon ride! Great book that set the standard, although was quite tough and unforgiving if you took a wrong path.

Another I always liked was #2 Citadel of Chaos. The battle against Balthus Dire was cool and I liked the creatures in the courtyard and the Ganjees. I don’t know what the MIKs were about; is that supposed to be an acronym for something?

Special mention must go to #32 Slaves of the Abyss. This is a really cool book that I never appreciated at the time when I first read it and failed to solve way back in 1988. Since then, I've read it and finished it. It's a good book up there with Creature of Havoc for originality, but seems to be an unappreciated gem!

I went back to the series and read a few others again recently for the first time in many years, like #7 Island of the Lizard King and #25 Nightmare Castle. I was disappointed to discover they weren't as long, complex or as difficult as I remembered them to be!

I suppose that I shouldn’t moan. After all, I’ve changed over the past twenty years, but the books haven't. With this in mind, I can't criticise Fighting Fantasy for not being as cool as I fondly imagined it to be for all those post-80s years!

You can't recapture your childhood; once it goes; it's gone forever. Happy memories though!

Robert Douglas
Mon Aug 22 09:01:05 2011
General Chat

It took a bit of investigating - both 'Prison of Pestilence' and 'Snakeland Scorpion' are still available in the HTML version. You'll have to go to Titannica and click the link from there, if anybody's interested.

That's probably why Dave Holt hasn't posted them; not sure if net policy allows adventures to be posted on more than one site.

While certain websites close down, essays, articles, etc seem to be stored in archives. Even so, it's a shame that sites such as The Black Tower and Shadow Vault eventually slide into history - it's almost as if losing part of the community. On the other hand, there's always someone there to keep the flag flying!

When the Puffin series was discontinued in the mid-90's, I (like so many others), was at a loss. 'Snakeland Scorpion' was originally a submission sent to Marc Gascoigne (FF editor at the time) who replied they were interested. However, I don't believe it was quite up to FF's standards - and the timing wasn't great either. Six months later, 'Curse of the Mummy' turned out to be the 59th and final gamebook.

However, I enjoyed (and still enjoy) creating gamebooks; Mark J Popp's site provided a great outlet for fans and writers of FF. In turn, this was eventually replaced by various websites you can still find today. Two more recent gamebooks appeared earlier this year: 'The Curser of Drumer' and 'Below Zero Point'. I'm more than happy to keep writing and have them posted on-site.

However, is it possible to have them posted on more than one site?

If I hadn't stumbled across Mark J Popp's site back in 2003, I would not have thought to make this site. However, it seemed to be abandoned, and I thought it would be a shame if it disappeared and all the work was lost. So I made a backup, and when the site finally did vanish, I put this backup on the downloads page. The backup, of course, contains Snakeland Scorpion and Prison Of Pestilence.

Generally speaking, I would say that it's up to the author on which sites they would like their work to appear. Given that sites come and go, I would recommend as wide a distribution as possible. If you want anything on here then just email it to me (click on 'contact'). Also, people sometimes upload their gamebooks to the Yahoo! groups (see the links page), and they seem to have been around forever, so they look like a good bet.

Robert Douglas Wed Aug 17 18:44:27 2011 General Chat	Hi All! Has Dave Holt resigned as webmeister? I'm really not sure what's happening over there! I clicked on the above link posted by Craig and Adam and it took me straight to the FF site in question. Has there been a re-shuffling of ranks? If so, I hope Dave Holt isn't ill - he mentioned being unwell some months ago. Does somebody know what's happening?
	I don't know about Dave Holt's health, but I believe that the link above is to an unrelated site with a similar name to his old one.

Craig & Adam
Wed Aug 17 14:29:57 2011
Publicity

It has been a very long time comming, but I have finally gotten around to putting a forum on the Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2nd Edition web site.

http://www.advancedfightingfantasy.co.uk/

Enjoy

Craig

dark
Tue Aug 16 07:59:17 2011
Publicity

Hi.
A while ago I was having a discussion with a mad person on
audiogames.net calling himself Aprone, about the difficulties
of creating a gamebook with numbered sections to turn to
when you suffer from a lack of eyeballs and cannot therefore
use things like spider diagrams.
With his usual ludicrous speed, Aprone came up with the
solution, a program named Darkgrue, ---- somehoe because
of me ;d.
Darkgrue will let you create a number of standard text files
to be the sections of your book, linked by choices which
each lead to another section. You can use the arrow keys to
navigate around the pages, and do some clever things like
copy and paste different choices or create a separate title
for each section.
With all the navigation taken care of, you are then free to
use your imagination to open each file in notepad and come
up with the actual book text.
the program is self voicing, but also contains textual
information, so probably would be of interest to any potential
gamebook authors, as it could be a very useful tool.
I began a humerous test adventure with darkgrue basically
to test out the program. Being a simple game, it was to have
no dice rolling, and just feature choices based on the odd
item. As is often the case though, what was intended to be
a comedy litle romp through a dungeon grew into a 90 odd
section monstrosity with cast of monsters, puzles and
generalized insanity!
So here it is:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8vq939
For more about darkgrue, please go to Jeremy kaldobsky,
aka Aprone's site on
http://www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/
Hope people enjoy the insanity of the book, and also get
some fun out of darkgrue.
I do have plans (and have already started writing), for a far
more serious book next, which will also feature a unique
stats system including combat and character attributes, and
will be set in it's own rather distinct world.
stil, I hope people have fun with dungeons.
if you get stuck, please look in the readme for some general
hints, and if your extremely stuck, i'm willing to answer
questions, though I hope the puzles are all doable.
All the best,
dark.

Ulysses
Sat Aug 13 11:01:19 2011
Publicity

This is way off topic, except that it has prevented me from working on my gamebooks, so there is a connection there.
I have created a webcomic called Temporal Horizon which you can find at: http://www.temporal-horizon.com
If you enjoy it, tell your friends...

Gaetano
Tue Aug 9 05:56:27 2011
The Curse Of Drumer

Hello Robert, I thought using Fear the way you did was fine; some readers might prefer having had it the same way to maintain the flavor of the original, but it's just a matter of taste. However, one thing to consider is that when testing fear, the results should be the opposite of what happens when you test your luck. In other words, the desirable outcome should be from rolling two dice and rolling a number that is equal to or MORE than your current fear score. This would mean that the character has accumulated less fear throughout the game, and is therefore less likely to be scared to death from one event.

I agree that giving the character a backstory makes things a little more interesting than just a faceless "you" character. I also like how you connected the story to certain events from HOH (I did the same with my story). Also agree with introducing a new weapon to replace the Kris knife- something I also did.

Robert Douglas
Fri Aug 5 04:22:21 2011
The Curse Of Drumer

Hi Gaetano,

Thanks for giving COD a go - hope you enjoyed playing it! How far did you get? :-)

Yes, I decided to change Fear to the same procedure as Testing your Luck; I was never really happy with House of Hell's 'add 2 Fear points, etc'. It just seemed a bit too simplified.

I wasn't sure whether my introduction of guns would be a bit much, however. What do you think?

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Besides a few new faces, I had to connect COD to HOH, so

SPOILER

END SPOILER

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Gaetano
Thu Aug 4 22:16:10 2011
The Curse Of Drumer

Hello Robert,

For some reason, your email address is bouncing back as well, so I'll post a brief comment-

I had a go with your adventure, the Curse of Drumer. I think it's a very interesting and modern take on the House of Hell story. Given that it's a full 400 sections, whereas most of the amateur adventures seem to be around 50, it's a major accomplishment. Congratulations!

Robert Douglas
Thu Aug 4 15:53:12 2011
Gamebooks

Just a quick note on the US Steve Jackson: he's the author of 'Scorpion Swamp', 'Demons of the Deep' and 'Robot Commando'. Thinking about it, these three gamebooks actually have similar layouts, ie. going to a particular section, the ability to retrace your steps, etc. Paths in Scorpion Swamp were based on a compass-based system - and perhaps the easiest adventure to map!

There are fan-designed maps on the Official site. I had a brief look at one for 'House of Hell' - it's great,

SPOILER

END SPOILER

Makes me want to play House of Hell all over again!

Robert Douglas
Thu Aug 4 11:50:18 2011
House Of Horror

Hi Gaetano,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, my e-mail is robertsdouglasbookman@yahoo.com. Bit long-winded, but I wanted something that wasn't already chosen :-)!

Also, thanks for answering my question regarding the words you used. Very clever these anti-spoiler blocks - I highlighted the area.

If you google: 'Official Fighting Fantasy Website', then scroll down to Amateur Section, you'll find there 'Below Zero Point' and 'The Curse of Drumer' - or 'Robert Douglas and Fighting Fantasy' which will provide a direct link to what I've done; 'Titannica' has some info on my writing.

You can find Dave Holt's name listed on-site here: 'home' section, 'artwork' contributors - although, I'm not sure if it's actually him, or somebody with the same name! Remember how we all got confused with there being TWO Steve Jacksons involved in gaming? One invented GURPS (US) the other responsible for 'House of Hell', etc (UK).

Hope you find it okay :-)

Dave Holt has an artwork credit because according to Andrew Wright he made the map that accompanies Midnight Deep.

Gaetano
Thu Aug 4 00:51:46 2011
House Of Horror

Hi Robert,

I usually have no problem getting emails from people regarding the book. Are you sure you're sending it to pericles23@aol.com? I can send you a test email if you'd like to give my your address.

The room names are basically Italian words for real things, for example

SPOILER

END SPOILER

This site, to my knowlege, has no link to Dave Holt's site. I've not heard of Christmas in Hell. I am interested in hearing about your own adventure, though. Have you posted it anywhere?

Robert Douglas
Wed Aug 3 20:51:18 2011
House Of Horror

Hi Gaetano,

Made a foray into 'House of Horror' - I just couldn't resist that chess set! Oh well, never mind. I'll have another go later :-)

By the way, where did you get those room names from? Are they real words or the product of your imagination?

One annoying thing: I couldn't send you a message via email; so much to discuss...but couldn't very well reveal spoilers on here. Anyway, like you, I wanted to make a tribute to Steve Jackson's 'House of Hell' - and between us we've made a trilogy! Although, there's 'Christmas in Hell' by Jack Henseleit on the FF site run by Dave Holt.

Do the two sites work in tandem? It's a bit frustrating deciding which one I should contribute to! Will both gamebook lists be merged eventually?

May your Stamina never fail.

Stuart Lloyd
Wed Aug 3 07:51:30 2011
Windhammer Competition

I have just checked the deadline on http://www.arborell.com/windhammer_prize_2011.html and it is the 7th September, not the 7th August, so we have an extra month :).

Wayne Densley
Mon Aug 1 11:25:38 2011
Windhammer Competition

Just a reminder to anybody in the group who may be considering entering, the submissions phase for the Windhammer Prize starts from today. Entries will be accepted up to the 7th of August. All info regarding the prize can be found at http://www.arborell.com/windhammer_prize_2011.html

Regards
Wayne Densley

Ulysses
Thu Jul 28 23:28:14 2011
General Chat

@ Gaetano

Sounds like something I would have leapt at if it was on here. Anyway, let us know when one of your stories is available. Hopefully they will make their app available for Android soon.

Gaetano
Tue Jul 26 22:02:07 2011
General Chat

Thanks Heidi, glad you enjoyed the book.

@Ulysses As I recall, the gentleman who was starting up the company came on a forum (might have even been this site) and stated that he was looking for writers for a new project he was putting together. Several of the writers that have contributed to ffproject, besides myself, took him up on it. It's been a fun experience.

As far as your statement about online vs print books, I think you're mostly right, but I think there's still an audience for print books as well. (Heidi's request being a telling example). The Fabled Lands series, should it ever be completed, would sell very well in print. There's also a brand new printed gamebook that recently came out, called Destiny Quest, that has gotten rave reviews (not sure on the sales figures, but I it appears to have done well enough to warrant a sequel).

Heidi
Tue Jul 26 17:52:22 2011
House Of Horror

Thank you, Gaetano. That is a shame. Then I download it.
I love the story.

Ulysses
Mon Jul 25 23:51:28 2011
General Chat

Gaetano:

You mentioned a while ago that you were writing a gamebook for the GamebookAdventures people. How did you get involved with that?
I think in this day and age publishing to a smartphone app is probably the way to go for gamebooks rather than the traditional book form.

1981 to 2000 of 7470 | [next] [previous] | [first] [last] | [forward]