Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks on the Iphone!!

[Yui Is My Wife]

For those of you who are also nerds who grew up during the 1980's and 1990's, great news!!

Iphone in a moment of wisdom and clarity has decided to adpat the classic Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks as applications. Yay!!

For those of your too young to remember, Fighting Fantasy was a series of "chose your own adventure books", in which you chose which way the story will go. The main difference is you have to roll dice for combat and keep your scores (like Skill (Attack), Stamina (Hit Points) and Luck (exactly as it says)) on an "Adventure Sheet." Think of a Gameboy except without the electricity.

For the IPhone, you still get to roll dice, except you can either physically shake the phone to simulate the rolling or press the screen for the same result. Your "Adventure Sheet" is similarly electronic, and you can even press "Back" in case the decision you made was not quite what you wanted.

The following Gamebooks have been adapted so far:

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

Citadel Of Chaos.

City of Thieves

Deathtrap Dungeon

Creature of Havoc (Hint to beginners: DON'T download this unless you want to bang your head against your table in CONSTANT frustration).

As well as:
Sorcery! Book 1: The Shamutanti Hills (Don't download yet; has some BAD bugs in the Stamina system that will kill you no matter how high you roll your stamina. Should be corrected later in the year[/i]

May your dice always roll hiigh!!

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Yui Is My Wife

Think of a Gameboy except without the electricity.

Gamebooks were the video games of their day, back when a 20MB hard disk was HUUUUUUUGGGGGGGEEE and way before EGA-colour graphics made porn PC gaming compelling.

I was not as big a fan of the Fighting Fantasy series as I was of the Magnamund Lone Wolf and Grey Star series. Still, this is an interesting development. Hopefully, more such gamebooks get adapted into iPhone/iPad apps soon. :3

[Yui Is My Wife]

It would be nice with books like Lone Wolf and Sorcery! to allow you to carry stats from book to book, wouldn't it?

And better yet, allow you to keep the stats from the last book in case you die in the current one.

Cos there would be NOTHING more annoying than having to play book 2 again just to get the Summersword if you suddenly die in say, book 15, wouldn't it?

[Yui Is My Wife]

On a side note:

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was a nice idea, though it suffered from the same drawbacks the early DS King Kong did: forcing you to use the touchscreen to turn your character as well.

That aside, it was an enjoyable 3D romp. Hope they do a better execution for the upcoming 3DS.

Back to the iphone:

Really hope they do a "port" of the "Nintendo Hard" Ian Livingstone ones such as "Temple of Terror."

"Crypt of the Sorcerer" would be awesome so long as they DON'T make Razark an unkillable Skill 12 Stamina 20 invincible boss that killed you IN TWO BLOWS.

[Yui Is My Wife]

Just clocked the Iphone version of City of Thieves.

1) Wow, nice job coloring the original illustrations!! The Spotted Dog tavern scene is exceptionally atmospheric. The only thing I found a little odd was the editor's insistence on using the color green for goblinoids, even when they are described as "Brown Creatures" in the text, such as the case with the Bays. And Zanbar Bone's crown was described as "Golden", and yet shows up as black. Minor quibbles, not quite enough to take away from an awesome adventure.

2) For a "City of Thieves", the average skill ratings are so WEAK!! Within the city walls, you don't get to fight an enemy with a skill highter than 7 until you meet Sourbelly and Fatnose the Troll Patrol, who have skills of 10 and 9 respectively. The average monster/criminal in the supposedly dangerous Port Blacksand before them has a SKILL of 4, and 7 at BEST!! Roll high enough an initial score and this IApp is a cake walk.

Gonna try brave Creature of Havoc when I clock To Aru Majutsu No Index the PSP Fighting Game a month from now.