[FanIn80]

For my next pick, I'm going to delve into my childhood a bit here. I used to read these books in grade 6 or 7 or something. They were awesome and a few of my friends and I used to trade them back and forth.

In the Fantasy category... The Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston!

Overview

British writers Steve Jackson (not to be confused with the US-based game designer of the same name) and Ian Livingstone, co-founders of Games Workshop, authored the first seven books in the series, after which point the writing stable was expanded.

There were 59 books in the core series, beginning with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (Jackson & Livingstone, 1982) and concluding with Curse of the Mummy (Green, 1995). Three new books, Eye of the Dragon, the long-lost adventure Bloodbones and Howl of the Werewolf have been published by Wizard, bringing the total up to 62. Additional books include the four-part Sorcery! series, by Steve Jackson.

The Fighting Fantasy gamebooks were similar to other interactive gamebooks that were being published at the time — most notably the Choose Your Own Adventure series — in that the reader takes control of the story's protagonist, making many choices over the course of the story and turning to different pages in order to learn the outcome of their decisions. The Fighting Fantasy series distinguished itself by the use of a dice system to resolve combat and other situations, not unlike that used in Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games, though far simpler.

The action in a Fighting Fantasy gamebook is split into small sections, ranging from a paragraph to a page, at the end of each of which the character usually must make a choice or roll a die. Each page features several of these sections, each headed with its number in bold. Where the page number would appear in an ordinary book, a Fighting Fantasy book gives the range of sections appearing on that page, much as some dictionaries do for the words listed on a page. Most of the early books in the series had 400 of these sections, with the optimal ending being number 400. Some later books had more than 400 sections, and some concealed the optimal ending somewhere in the middle of the book to make it harder for the reader to find. A few books contained less than 400 references.
With the notable exception of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! miniseries, all entries in the series are stand-alone and do not assume any prior knowledge on the part of the player. That said, many of them take place in a single world known as Titan, and the three books which deal with the wizard Zagor, (namely The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Return to Firetop Mountain and Legend of Zagor), are undoubtedly more rewarding if played in sequence, as are the books Deathtrap Dungeon, Trial of Champions and Armies of Death.

Typically, a Fighting Fantasy gamebook follows the "collect w, x and y to reach z" approach. This means that the player can only reach the end of the book by following the correct path and finding all the items (keys, gems, rings or even pieces of information) that let him or her proceed to the final confrontation. Later books sometimes varied this formula, allowing multiple routes to success.

Other Media

In 1984 a number of Fighting Fantasy videogames were released for the Commodore 64, Amstrad, BBC, and Sinclair ZX Spectrum. They were based directly on specific Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, specifically The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Citadel of Chaos, The Forest of Doom, Temple of Terror, Seas of Blood, Appointment with F.E.A.R. and Rebel Planet.
In 1985 Steve Jackson wrote a picture gamebook with the title Tasks of Tantalon, in which the player was required to solve a series of puzzles set by the wizard Tantalon, which were presented as large, full colour pictures containing hidden clues to be located and assembled.

1986 saw the release of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain boardgame from Games Workshop, followed in 1993 by a second game based on the Legend of Zagor novels.

In 1998 Eidos Interactive published the Deathtrap Dungeon videogame for the PC and PlayStation.

On December 5, 2006, it was officially announced that Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, co-creators of Fighting Fantasy and also co-founders of game studio, Games Workshop, are planning to release a new series of video games based on the Fighting Fantasy series for Nintendo DS and Sony's PSP.

Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks

1 The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
2 The Citadel of Chaos
3 The Forest of Doom
4 Starship Traveller
5 City of Thieves
6 Deathtrap Dungeon
7 Island of the Lizard King
8 Scorpion Swamp
9 Caverns of the Snow Witch
10 House of Hell
11 Talisman of Death
12 Space Assassin
13 Freeway Fighter
14 Temple of Terror
15 The Rings of Kether
16 Seas of Blood
17 Appointment with F.E.A.R.
18 Rebel Planet
19 Demons of the Deep
20 Sword of the Samurai
21 Trial of Champions
22 Robot Commando
23 Masks of Mayhem
24 Creature of Havoc
25 Beneath Nightmare Castle
26 Crypt of the Sorcerer
27 Star Strider
28 Phantoms of Fear
29 Midnight Rogue
30 Chasms of Malice
31 Battleblade Warrior
32 Slaves of the Abyss
33 Sky Lord
34 Stealer of Souls
35 Daggers of Darkness
36 Armies of Death
37 Portal of Evil
38 Vault of the Vampire
39 Fangs of Fury
40 Dead of Night
41 Master of Chaos
42 Black Vein Prophecy
43 The Keep of the Lich Lord
44 Legend of the Shadow Warriors
45 Spectral Stalkers
46 Tower of Destruction
47 The Crimson Tide
48 Moonrunner
49 Siege of Sardath
50 Return to Firetop Mountain
51 Island of the Undead
52 Night Dragon
53 Spellbreaker
54 Legend of Zagor
55 Deathmoor
56 Knights of Doom
57 Magehunter
58 Revenge of the Vampire
59 Curse of the Mummy