Game Books - Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf...

Liam (Ancient_of_MuMu) mentioned Fighting Fantasy in his latest blog . I have spent half the evening playing through The Shamutanti Hills. I've died about ten times in various horrible ways and I'm loving it. I think it must be about fifteen years since I've played a game book. I had thought that they were just for kids but I have been getting a little more involved in the stories than I'd care to admit.

The punishing difficulty level reminds me of those '80s video games that only had 20 minutes of game but took you about fifty plays to complete. I think I know what I need to do now. It is just a case of how to do it. I wonder if they are so tough because they expect most people to cheat.

I am going to be playing a fair few more of these I reckon. I also saw that Matt had interviewed Joe Dever of Lone Wolf fame and Ochobee had a blog entry about The Warlock of Firetop Mountain .

Awesome books. A couple days ago, I was at my parents' house for Labor Day and was going through some old stuff in the garage and found my collection of Lone Wolf books (the first 15 or so). It was awesome. My wife says I should keep them for when my son gets older.

You can always read Joe Dever's awesome books online at Project Aon:
www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home

They even have the first book in his post-apocalyptic (Mad Max-ish) series.

To get right to the book, with a java-based character sheet in a side pane, go here:
www.projectaon.org/en/statskeeper/

I've still got all 20 of the Lone Wolf books they released in the U.S., even though 13-20 are abridged. I'm also buying the Mongoose re-releases because my paperbacks are pretty worn out and I want my son to be able to read them when he gets older. I remember finding them for the first time when I was 12 and they're still great reads with a well-fleshed-out world.

I own all 59 of the origial FFGs. Some were childish, others (especially later ones) were quite mature.
I remember The Shamutanti Hills being easy though. The second book (City of Traps or something) is much harder.
There were some where cheating was 100% nessasary, but others were doable.

I had a nostalgia trip for these a couple of years ago and picked up a couple. I found the experience a bit disappointing, but maybe that was because the one I chose was a dud. It was 'Trial of Champions' and the only way I could complete it was to map out every choice I had made until I had pretty much the entire book done. Looking at the map showed me that the only way to complete that book was to get every choice exactly right (once you hit the dungeon anyway) as a wrong choice moved you ahead a bit in the map without key information.

I have to give some others a go in case that one was a dud, but I hated having to be so meticulous in order to finish it.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote:

I had a nostalgia trip for these a couple of years ago and picked up a couple. I found the experience a bit disappointing, but maybe that was because the one I chose was a dud. It was 'Trial of Champions' and the only way I could complete it was to map out every choice I had made until I had pretty much the entire book done. Looking at the map showed me that the only way to complete that book was to get every choice exactly right (once you hit the dungeon anyway) as a wrong choice moved you ahead a bit in the map without key information.

I have to give some others a go in case that one was a dud, but I hated having to be so meticulous in order to finish it.

I liked trial of champions, but it was years ago when I last read it.
Most people hate the games with the 'one true path' (which is what you are complaining about here) but for some reason they were always my favourite. I liked that they were like a puzzle that you had to solve and took lots of attempts to do so. The more open ones I found boring. Its how I like my PC games too.

I have all of the Lone Wolf gamebooks but the first five are the best.

Some time ago I bought a reprint of House of Horrors (or whatever the English title is). Kinda Lovecraftish, takes place in modern times and is a hoot to play. But my favourite was (and is) Creature of Havoc that was just hellishly difficult and required you to actually solve some puzzles. You couldn't just say: "yeah, of course I have a diamond" as you could in Deathtrap Dungeon and those were the ones I liked the best. However the book felt shorter than I remembered.

I also bought An Appointment With F.E.A.R. which I'm soon going to try. It's not litterature, but it's a lot easier than setting up a solo game of Arkham Horror.

Other favourites were Thieves' Apprentice (again, I might have the English title wrong). I almost grew mad waiting for it to come out after having seen the cover, but even though it has a very cool mood, it was just a bit too easy.

I remember reading Grail Quest when I was a kid. Great pen and paper fun. I should see if I can still find these kinds of books locally.

mads b. wrote:

Some time ago I bought a reprint of House of Horrors (or whatever the English title is). Kinda Lovecraftish, takes place in modern times and is a hoot to play. But my favourite was (and is) Creature of Havoc that was just hellishly difficult and required you to actually solve some puzzles. You couldn't just say: "yeah, of course I have a diamond" as you could in Deathtrap Dungeon and those were the ones I liked the best. However the book felt shorter than I remembered.

I also bought An Appointment With F.E.A.R. which I'm soon going to try. It's not litterature, but it's a lot easier than setting up a solo game of Arkham Horror.

Other favourites were Thieves' Apprentice (again, I might have the English title wrong). I almost grew mad waiting for it to come out after having seen the cover, but even though it has a very cool mood, it was just a bit too easy.

Creature of Havoc felt short? Wasn't that the longest one ever published?
Appointment with FEAR is rather hard (gathering th clues is kind of random) but it is aces.
The Thief book was Midnight Rogue.

Ahhhh... I still have a bunch of those Fighting Fantasy books somewhere in the kudzu. Most of them are pretty worn out. Appointment with FEAR is one that pissed me off from time to time. I'd swear I'd end up with the clues but they ended up wrong because I had the wrong superpower.

I enjoyed the handful of Car Wars books that came out. Those could be frustrating of the dice hated you, but were fun to do. Moderate difficulty, brain-dead easy compared to the FF series.