Anyone into Fighting Fantasy?(not Final Fantasy)

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I just got into the series. Being in the US, Figting Fantasy is very unknown, but luckily, they turned the first book in the series into a DS game. I learned about the DS game over the summer and it picqued my interest. So, I did some research and found out about the actual book series that it's based on. I tried to buy one at bookstores but I never could find them. But luckily, when I bought Fighting Fantasy a few days ago, I noticed that the game came bundled with the book. I've been trying both the book and the game and I have to say I'm impressed.

Well, anyways, I'm here to talk about the book because I'm sure not very many Americans know of it(It was big in Britain in the 80's, but I'm not sure about now). Fighting Fantasy is a book series set in fantasy world(the name escapes me). Each book usually has a different protagonist and sometimes multiple in one book, but you assume them. The book plays out like a dungeon crawler video game but book style in which you make the choices of what to do or where to go. Ultimately, you are supposed to reach some sort of goal(You also have to pick up important items on the way) and many times, choosing the wrong path could get you wounded or killed. You also fight in the game with a pair of dice and you can also equip different weapons and armor as well as cast spells like in a normal pen and paper rpg or a video game. They are quite fun and are not always restricted to the fantasy setting. There is a Sci-fi one, a horror one, a post-apocalyptic MadMax-esque one, there is even a fantasy one where you actually assume the persona of a monster.

the books are difficult(to play, they are easy to read), but the system for everything in the game is addictive and simple. It feels like a video game in a book, a portable one at that(there is a randomizer system in the book that functions in place of dice, otherwise you need a few pieces of paper and a few pencils to play ). Also, the choosing your own path thing makes them highly replayable as well because you won't always encounter the same things in one playthrough. Anyways, that's all I'll say for now.

Also, If anyone was wondering, the DS game for Fighting Fantasy is amazing. It's remniscent of The first couple of Elder Scrolls games as well as Metroid Prime Hunters(a little) and has very, very good graphics for the DS.

I've got a few books (lost one of them), I really like them, but sometimes it's really tempting to cheat when you keep getting bad rolls

How many books do you have? Kind of sucks that you have to start out with Warlock of Firetop Mountain, because that book is so difficult, I never could beat it

Really liking the DS game a whole lot, I'm definitely going to have to buy it (or at least ask for it for Christmas). It reminds me more of Ultima Underworld, which I know is where the Elder Scrolls games all came from, but I never really could get into those much =/

Yeah, I heard the first one is really difficult but so far I've been doing good. There is some sort of maze in the middle that is like impossible to get out of and I know I'm not gonna be able to solve that because I'm not one for that kind of stuff. But anyways, I'm planning on getting other ones if I can.

I loved these books when I was younger. So much better than dealing with reality! Never finished a single one though, I think the closest I got was nearly beating the second last guy in one. I can still remember the buzz of getting that far. And yeah, the warlock of firetop mountain was lethal, I tried that one so many times and never got anywhere. I've noticed the DS game, don't own a DS and doubt I ever will but I've marked it down in case I ever pick one up cheaply second hand.

There any rules about reviving a four-year-old topic?

A while back, I posted this in a Random Discussion topic:

Luckily, through a little more research I discovered the Fighting Fantasy books. I've acquired four so far: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Deathtrap Dungeon, City of Thieves, and House of Hell.

I've never played Dungeons & Dragons; I once watched a YouTube video of someone explaining the basics, and it all seemed so convoluted and obtuse that my brain stopped working after about 15 seconds. The simpler mechanics of FF is a little more to my tastes; not to mention they're single-player, which, to my knowledge, D&D isn't.

I'm just getting started, so there's every chance I'll end up hating these things and swearing them off forever (my general pack of enthusiasm for Lord of the Rings-style fantasy settings makes that a distinct possibility) but I'm digging it so far.

By the way, these things seem much more prominent in the UK than they do in the US. I found only one being sold by Amazon; the rest I got from private sellers on Amazon Marketplace located in the UK. Luckily, new copies can be found pretty cheap, typically no more than the cover price.

Edit: deleted

Last edited by SabbraCadabra on 13 Jun 2013, 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well that was weird. I definitely spent time replying to you and I guess the forum decided to waste my time =(

I guess I'll try typing it up again, though I'm not going to be very happy about it...

I don't see what's so bad about "necro posting". I'd rather see an old thread pop back up than have new posts show up all the time with everyone saying the same things that had already been discussed to death.



It depends on how you play, which edition you play, and who you play it with. Originally, the game was much simpler, and Gygax added tons of optional "Advanced" rules for tournaments to refer to...nowadays most people play as close to what the rulebooks say as possible.



You might also be interested in Tunnels & Trolls, which was a big inspiration for FF. It's much simpler than D&D, and a good majority of the modules for it are designed for solo play.

It's not easy to get a hold of a (non-bootleg) copy for a decent price, but there's a free PDF of the abridged 5.5 rules, which are supposed to be enough to play solo:

http://www.tunnelsandtrolls.com/ruleboo ... tion.shtml

You can also get a PDF of 4th edition for dirt cheap:

http://www.tunnelsandtrolls.com/ruleboo ... tion.shtml



If you take a look at Hell House, you'll see that FF encompasses many different genres

^ Strange. I was wondering what happened.

I also get annoyed when people post new topics about the same thing over and over. I got tired of posting "there's already a topic for this" in all the various "do I have AS?" topics and finally gave up. I probably could have increased my post count significantly had I continued.

Thanks for all the info. (And retyping it. I hate when that happens. ) I'll look into Tunnels & Trolls.

I've read that House of Hell is unique in the series (being more horror-themed than fantasy-themed, and apparently the only book in the series to take place on modern-day Earth) and recommended for anyone who doesn't really like fantasy. That's one of the reasons I bought it. It's also supposedly one of the best in the series.

I should note that I don't have any serious dislike for traditional fantasy -- elves and dwarfs and mages and potions and wizards and spells and trolls and hobgoblins -- I'm just not a hardcore fan. You won't find me in a World of Warcraft addiction support group any time soon, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, I've just started delving into one of the books, so I can't say much about the experience right now, but I should have more to say soon. That is, if I can manage to juggle both this and the other game I just discovered. Thanks again.

I haven't tried the DS game, but I still have about a dozen of the FF books I bought as a kid. They were actually really popular back then, I remember everyone reading them and being hard to catch at the library. They were sort of an evolution of the previously equally popular "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, that were basically the same thing but without the RPG dice element (I also still have a few of these from my childhood).

I always liked the idea of being able to "choose your own adventure" in those books, and be able to try to lead the story yourself... I wish more videogames would follow this idea and would have multiple paths and endings in them (I know some games do, but I want MORE ).

I like it a lot. It's not quite like the book though, it's more like Ultima Underworld lite, kind of.

Time for an update, I suppose. I'm enjoying House of Hell well enough. It reminds me of Shadowgate on the NES, only as a book. Which is nice, since I loved that game. (Also Deja Vu. Never played the third part of the trilogy, Uninvited.) I can't say I'm a huge fan of the dice element since I don't like leaving so much up to chance, but through my research into these books I've found that cheating at them it very common, so I'm not going to feel too bad about re-rolling if I roll snake eyes. The writing is a bit better than you'd expect (nothing amazing, but solid) and it's puzzling to me that the books are categorized under the condescending "Children's" label. Anyway, I'll be looking forward to the other three I bought after working my way through this one.

Uninvited is awesome, but always scared the crap out of me as a kid. Also, there's a fourth game, Deja Vu II...as well as two sort-of sequels to Shadowgate (one for TurboGraFX, and one for N64). And there was a kickstarter for a new Shadowgate, I haven't been following that one.

I'd recommend getting the vMac emulator running so you can try the original Macintosh versions. There's no music, but they're uncensored, uncut, better UI, better graphics, etc. and you can use a mouse