There are rules to follow, internal logic to adhere to. Waypoint loves all kinds of games! (We've covered tabletop stuff in the past, for example, and will certainly continue to.) And Fighting Fantasy books are games, most definitely.
SWORD FIGHTING FANTASY BOOKS SERIES
The Port of Peril will be, by my count, the 60th main series Fighting Fantasy book in total.īooks? I thought this was a video games site? Of course, many readers-myself included-cheated their way through the books more often than we played them properly, but as Livingstone's OK with that, there's no need to feel guilty about it.Īs of 2017, marking the series' 35 th anniversary, Fighting Fantasy is returning via publisher Scholastic UK, with a brand-new story penned by Livingstone incoming, titled The Port of Peril. The writers and designer spoke to us on the UK podcast last year ( listen to it here), and teased the possibility of a new book, so it's great to see that actually happening.
When I was 10, 11, around that age, I adored these things.Īnd so, Fighting Fantasy was born: stories in which you not only make decisions as to your course through the fiction, but also engage in dice-rolling combat and trials of luck and skill. Long before I properly understood video game role-players, I was devouring Fighting Fantasy books by the dozen. Instead of that, though, the pair decided to take some of the mechanics of D&D and its peers and incorporate them into a book. They'd been approached by a publisher to produce a book on the fantasy (tabletop) gaming world, what with Dungeons & Dragons blowing up in popularity. Warlock was written, collaboratively, by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, British fantasy fans who'd, back in 1975, founded Games Workshop. All have their means of undoing your quest, be that through death, traps, or something less immediately painful but equally final. Others have multiple conclusions, some better than others. Some books have one ending, which can be reached by various paths. Each option carries with it a corresponding chapter number: So, perhaps that'll be turn to 202 to attack the skeleton, 347 to run in the other direction, or 118 to attempt to reason with it.