Fighting Fantasy

[Treguard]

Yep, Warlock magazine, have a few of those. I've got a massive gamebook collection. Full set of Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger, Falcon, Blood Sword, Dragon Warriors, Fabled Lands, Virtual Reality, Car Wars, Grailquest, Golden Dragon, Freeway Warrior, Knightmare (naturally), Cretan Chronicles... the list goes on. I'd probably say more of my spare cash goes on my gamebook collection than my game collection. Used to go to a second-hand bookstore in Batley with my Grandma every Saturday in the 80's to buy them, fond memories. Guess I've carried on from there

The Virtual Reality books are by the doyen of gamebook writers Dave Morris and Mark Smith/Jamie Thomson, which means they're well written, but unusual in that they don't have any real combat. Heart of Ice is superb, set in a post-apocalyptic Ice Age world, and Twist of Fate has a great Arabian Nights setting. Unfortunatley they had limited print runs and so they're pretty pricey when they do come up on ebay. Anyone who enjoyed Lone Wolf might be interested in the fact that they're being re-issued by Mongoose Publishing as hardback collectors editionshttp://www.mongoosepublishing.com/novels/lonewolfsolo.html?p=1 (i know, they're pricey!). They're up to 17 so far, and they've got a deal with Joe Dever to publish books 29 through 32, that never made it out before the original series was cancelled.

[nokgod]

I think I still have Titan, the guide to the Fighting Fantasy world. There was also a short lived magazine, with short games, features and introductions to other role playing games

Hell yes! I still have that up in my loft somewhere, i'm sure! I used to draw the pictures out of that book all the time. I drew the map of the Warlock of Firetop mountain as i played it. Looked good iirc....wonder what i did with that?

[tachi]

Yep, Warlock magazine, have a few of those. I've got a massive gamebook collection. Full set of Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger, Falcon, Blood Sword, Dragon Warriors, Fabled Lands, Virtual Reality, Car Wars, Grailquest, Golden Dragon, Freeway Warrior, Knightmare (naturally), Cretan Chronicles... the list goes on.

More than me it seems lol
I have Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger, Lone Wolf, Falcon, Freeway Warrior, Forbidden Gateway and Transformers.
Never liked Grail Quest or Blood Sword =o(
I also spent a ridiculous amount of money but I think mine was in a much shorter period of time, about 3 months.
For about a month I had 5 or 6 parcels arriving and I actually had to run to get the door to hide as many as I could as Mr Tachi was not impressed with how much I was wasting.

[boggyb68]

I have got practically all of them.. Only missing a handful of the later ones which go for alot on Ebay..

Best of all was meeting Ian Livingstone at the Gerk festival here in Margate on Wednesday..

B.

[Shinobi]

Yep, Warlock magazine, have a few of those. I've got a massive gamebook collection. Full set of Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger, Falcon, Blood Sword, Dragon Warriors, Fabled Lands, Virtual Reality, Car Wars, Grailquest, Golden Dragon, Freeway Warrior, Knightmare (naturally), Cretan Chronicles... the list goes on.

More than me it seems lol
I have Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger, Lone Wolf, Falcon, Freeway Warrior, Forbidden Gateway and Transformers.
Never liked Grail Quest or Blood Sword =o(
I also spent a ridiculous amount of money but I think mine was in a much shorter period of time, about 3 months.
For about a month I had 5 or 6 parcels arriving and I actually had to run to get the door to hide as many as I could as Mr Tachi was not impressed with how much I was wasting.

Did you have Book 7 of way of the Tiger? Somebody lent me the Way of the Tiger books in school, Avenger being the first can't remember the others title.. Book 6 ended on a cliff hanger with the Ninja being stuck on the Black Widows web, can't find any mention of a seventh book - what a cop out if thats true

[Treguard]

Yep, Warlock magazine, have a few of those. I've got a massive gamebook collection. Full set of Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger, Falcon, Blood Sword, Dragon Warriors, Fabled Lands, Virtual Reality, Car Wars, Grailquest, Golden Dragon, Freeway Warrior, Knightmare (naturally), Cretan Chronicles... the list goes on.

More than me it seems lol
I have Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger, Lone Wolf, Falcon, Freeway Warrior, Forbidden Gateway and Transformers.
Never liked Grail Quest or Blood Sword =o(
I also spent a ridiculous amount of money but I think mine was in a much shorter period of time, about 3 months.
For about a month I had 5 or 6 parcels arriving and I actually had to run to get the door to hide as many as I could as Mr Tachi was not impressed with how much I was wasting.

Did you have Book 7 of way of the Tiger? Somebody lent me the Way of the Tiger books in school, Avenger being the first can't remember the others title.. Book 6 ended on a cliff hanger with the Ninja being stuck on the Black Widows web, can't find any mention of a seventh book - what a cop out if thats true

Yeah, the series got cancelled by the publisher after book 6, so no conclusion to the story. Smith and Thomson didn't have much luck with actually finishing off any series, it's like they had a problem with 7- Falcon only made it to six books and has no proper ending, Fabled Lands was planned for 12 books but only made it to six, although 1-3 have been reissued recently, so there's a possibility if they sell well the rest may get done.

[Treguard]

Yep, Warlock magazine, have a few of those. I've got a massive gamebook collection. Full set of Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger, Falcon, Blood Sword, Dragon Warriors, Fabled Lands, Virtual Reality, Car Wars, Grailquest, Golden Dragon, Freeway Warrior, Knightmare (naturally), Cretan Chronicles... the list goes on.

More than me it seems lol
I have Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger, Lone Wolf, Falcon, Freeway Warrior, Forbidden Gateway and Transformers.
Never liked Grail Quest or Blood Sword =o(
I also spent a ridiculous amount of money but I think mine was in a much shorter period of time, about 3 months.
For about a month I had 5 or 6 parcels arriving and I actually had to run to get the door to hide as many as I could as Mr Tachi was not impressed with how much I was wasting.

I sell gamebooks on ebay, so maybe you spent some of it on funding my purchase of retro games if that makes you feel any better about it...

Blood Sword is one of my favourites- some of Dave Morris's best work although book 5 has a kind of bizarre ending- not many gamebook series end with The Rapture... Grailquest can get annoying with a lot of wandering round in circles, but it's worth it for the surreal humour at times- where else would you fight an evil vampire carrot?

[Shinobi]

Yep, Warlock magazine, have a few of those. I've got a massive gamebook collection. Full set of Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Way of the Tiger, Falcon, Blood Sword, Dragon Warriors, Fabled Lands, Virtual Reality, Car Wars, Grailquest, Golden Dragon, Freeway Warrior, Knightmare (naturally), Cretan Chronicles... the list goes on.

Did you have Book 7 of way of the Tiger? Somebody lent me the Way of the Tiger books in school, Avenger being the first can't remember the others title.. Book 6 ended on a cliff hanger with the Ninja being stuck on the Black Widows web, can't find any mention of a seventh book - what a cop out if thats true

Yeah, the series got cancelled by the publisher after book 6, so no conclusion to the story. Smith and Thomson didn't have much luck with actually finishing off any series, it's like they had a problem with 7- Falcon only made it to six books and has no proper ending, Fabled Lands was planned for 12 books but only made it to six, although 1-3 have been reissued recently, so there's a possibility if they sell well the rest may get done.

Wasn't Falcon also a Commodore 64 game about a Time Traveller? I still own Commodore 16 Way of the Tiger, the cover art seem to be based on the books.. I'm certain the book Avenger had very similar if not the same cover art..

A really vague question but a friend lent me two books with a fantasy setting mid 90s... Your character was the last surviving member of some kind of Warrior Monk, the only bit I remember was one of the Death scenes(choosing the wrong page) you could either follow the Woman who helps you or except the quest, if you followed her into the bed chamber she turned into a Vampire or a Spider.. Some of the enemies you fought where Goblins and shape changing ghosts..

I remember the Knightmare books with the Skeleton/Spider hybrid on the cover (Catacombyte probably spelt wrong) Again I vaguely remember the first half being a novel and the second half being the choose your own adventure.. Tregard was pretty hardcore in the books, the bad guy I remember was a black Knight who had his soul ripped out put inside his armour.. I'm sure my friend had several of these which featured the bad guy from later in the series..

[Treguard]

[quote="Shinobi] Wasn't Falcon also a Commodore 64 game about a Time Traveller? I still own Commodore 16 Way of the Tiger, the cover art seem to be based on the books.. I'm certain the book Avenger had very similar if not the same cover art..

A really vague question but a friend lent me two books with a fantasy setting mid 90s... Your character was the last surviving member of some kind of Warrior Monk, the only bit I remember was one of the Death scenes(choosing the wrong page) you could either follow the Woman who helps you or except the quest, if you followed her into the bed chamber she turned into a Vampire or a Spider.. Some of the enemies you fought where Goblins and shape changing ghosts..

I remember the Knightmare books with the Skeleton/Spider hybrid on the cover (Catacombyte probably spelt wrong) Again I vaguely remember the first half being a novel and the second half being the choose your own adventure.. Tregard was pretty hardcore in the books, the bad guy I remember was a black Knight who had his soul ripped out put inside his armour.. I'm sure my friend had several of these which featured the bad guy from later in the series..[/quote]

Yeah, Falcon was a series where you played a Time Agent policing rogue time travellers, it was pretty original when most books were going all swords and sorcery. It was madde into a C64 game, as was Way of the Tiger, to which Avenger I think is the sequel. There was also a Lone Wolf game called The Mirror of Death for the Speccy by Audiogenic, it's just been released as part of the Audiogenic collection on the Elite ZX app for the iphone. There was also a rubbish version of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and a bizzare game based on Fighting Fantasy 16, Seas of Blood, which I've only ever played on emulator and is completely confusing.

I'm not sure of the series you're talking about. It sounds like a Tunnels and Trolls scenario, but they don't have pre-defined characters usually. The Kai from the Lone Wolf series were sort of warrior-monks, but didn't usually have such graphic death scenes. If you have any more info, it'd help otherwise I'm just guessing.

If anyone is interested in reading the Lone Wolf books again, check out Project Aon http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home. Books 1 through 25 available as downloads, not sure if they're Kindle friendly. Also for those with a certain brand of smart phone, Tin Man Ganes have a series of really good gamebook apps, the last of which was written by Johnathon Green, one of the best Fighting Fantasy Authors. They're not that expensive, but be warned book 2 is ridiculously difficult. Theres also an app version of Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson's Fabled Lands, which is an open-ended 'sandbox' style gamebook. It's pricy though, and a massive memory hog.

[SJ_Sathanas]

I can recall renting from the libray an adventure book in the FF style which had a kind of Ancient greece fantasy theme. The reason I can recall it was there were a system where you had to anticipate events - you would have to add 18 or something to the quoted paragraph number to get the alternative conclusion from a given situation.
The first book I read entailed attending the player charicter's marriage ceremony where he would get killed by cdreatures of somekind, or you could choose not to attend by doing the anticipation thing. I didn't rent anymore and I've no idea what the series was.....

[JazzFunk]

The very best for me was House Of Hell...like being trapped in a Vincent Price movie, scared the cack out of me, probably the most atmospheric book I ever read as a child. Don't think I ever played these books *properly*, what with the dice n' stuff n' 'proper dying', always just turned back to the page I'd been on previously and selected the other option instead.

Had a West Indian mate who was *heavily* into these, he was like a wizard or summat, so many he had. Even made his own mini FF-style book, took a photo of me and stuck it on the back, 'cos I was a fat specky tw@t at school and he said I 'looked like an author'.

Pretty sad how Deathtrap Dungeon turned out on PS1, though, think I went off Ian Livingstone as a 'brand' after that, even though it wasn't the bloke's fault(!!)

[Treguard]

I can recall renting from the libray an adventure book in the FF style which had a kind of Ancient greece fantasy theme. The reason I can recall it was there were a system where you had to anticipate events - you would have to add 18 or something to the quoted paragraph number to get the alternative conclusion from a given situation.
The first book I read entailed attending the player charicter's marriage ceremony where he would get killed by cdreatures of somekind, or you could choose not to attend by doing the anticipation thing. I didn't rent anymore and I've no idea what the series was.....

That's The Cretan Chronicles by John Butterfield, David Honigmann and Philip Parker. Wears it's Greek tragedy origins on it's sleeve. that series does. The ending is very depressing.

[Shinobi]

[quote="Shinobi] Wasn't Falcon also a Commodore 64 game about a Time Traveller? I still own Commodore 16 Way of the Tiger, the cover art seem to be based on the books.. I'm certain the book Avenger had very similar if not the same cover art..

A really vague question but a friend lent me two books with a fantasy setting mid 90s... Your character was the last surviving member of some kind of Warrior Monk, the only bit I remember was one of the Death scenes(choosing the wrong page) you could either follow the Woman who helps you or except the quest, if you followed her into the bed chamber she turned into a Vampire or a Spider.. Some of the enemies you fought where Goblins and shape changing ghosts..

I remember the Knightmare books with the Skeleton/Spider hybrid on the cover (Catacombyte probably spelt wrong) Again I vaguely remember the first half being a novel and the second half being the choose your own adventure.. Tregard was pretty hardcore in the books, the bad guy I remember was a black Knight who had his soul ripped out put inside his armour.. I'm sure my friend had several of these which featured the bad guy from later in the series..[/quote]

Yeah, Falcon was a series where you played a Time Agent policing rogue time travellers, it was pretty original when most books were going all swords and sorcery. It was madde into a C64 game, as was Way of the Tiger, to which Avenger I think is the sequel. There was also a Lone Wolf game called The Mirror of Death for the Speccy by Audiogenic, it's just been released as part of the Audiogenic collection on the Elite ZX app for the iphone. There was also a rubbish version of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and a bizzare game based on Fighting Fantasy 16, Seas of Blood, which I've only ever played on emulator and is completely confusing.

I'm not sure of the series you're talking about. It sounds like a Tunnels and Trolls scenario, but they don't have pre-defined characters usually. The Kai from the Lone Wolf series were sort of warrior-monks, but didn't usually have such graphic death scenes. If you have any more info, it'd help otherwise I'm just guessing.

If anyone is interested in reading the Lone Wolf books again, check out Project Aon http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home. Books 1 through 25 available as downloads, not sure if they're Kindle friendly. Also for those with a certain brand of smart phone, Tin Man Ganes have a series of really good gamebook apps, the last of which was written by Johnathon Green, one of the best Fighting Fantasy Authors. They're not that expensive, but be warned book 2 is ridiculously difficult. Theres also an app version of Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson's Fabled Lands, which is an open-ended 'sandbox' style gamebook. It's pricy though, and a massive memory hog.[/quote]

Yes it was 'Lone Wolf' and the Kai where the warrior monks as they all died at the beginning with the exception of your character, and he took the name Lone Wolf.. That Vampire Woman was a death scene, if you choose to follow her over the person who gave you the mission,, Back in 1995 I think that was so my Memorys hazy, looking up Lone Wolf there was shape changing undead called Helghast so she could have been one of them

[Treguard]

Lone Wolf was impressive in that it had a contnuous storyline running through the entire series, most gamebooks were pretty much adventures in themselves, credit to Joe Dever, but to be honest I think I prefer his Freeway Warrior series, set in a kind of Mad Max post apocalyptic future of the kind that only could have been thought up in the 80's. Steve Jacksons Car Wars was similar too (that's the other Steve Jackson, from TSR games who invented GURPS, not the Fighting Fantasy one, although he did write some books for that series, including Robot Commando). Even though it's set in the future it's kind of nostalgic if you know what I mean- CB radios are the height of technology etc.

[SJ_Sathanas]

I'm feel suddenly compelled to re-read Steve Jacksons Sorcery!. I use to cheat with them, too. "CDH 345" ? SEH 312 ? WTF ? Where's that spells book again ? lol

Generally I think I prefered the standalone episodes of FF. Some of the sci-fi theme books had a touch of noir, IIRC.