Friday 29 May 2020

Arion Games' YouTube Channel

Fans of Advanced Fighting Fantasy Second Edition will no doubt already be familiar with the name Arion GamesArion Games is Graham Bottley's RPG publishing company, and current holder of the Advanced Fighting Fantasy licence.

The good news is that Graham has recently set up a YouTube channel to discuss up-and-coming RPG projects from Arion Games, but this will mainly have an Advanced Fighting Fantasy focus. One of the first videos Graham has posted on his channel explains how Advanced Fighting Fantasy Second Edition came to be.



So the Warlock would encourage you to check out the Arion Games YouTube channel here, and click the subscribe button to be notified of new Advanced Fighting Fantasy content on a regular basis.

You will find Arion GamesAdvanced Fighting Fantasy products for sale through DriveThruRPG here.


Friday 22 May 2020

Happy Birthday, Steve Jackson!*

Steve Jackson was born in Manchester, in 1951, but his family moved to Canada when he was four years old. However, they returned to the UK when he was 11 and he joined Altrincham Grammar School for Boys. And it was here that he met fellow pupil Ian Livingstone.

In the years since then he not only co-founded Games Workshop and co-created the legendary Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, he was also one of the co-founders of Lionhead Studios, and went on to become Professor of Games Design at Brunel University.

Happy Birthday, Steve, and may your STAMINA never fail!







* For yesterday.

Friday 15 May 2020

Blast from the Past! Scorpion Swamp

When the Fighting Fantasy series first started to take off in the early 1980s, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone simply could not keep up with the demand for new gamebooks.

"It’s funny, really, that when The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was first published, Puffin were not very enthusiastic about it," says Livingstone. "Within a year they wanted to publish a new book every two months! We needed help and got it." And so the 'Presents' series was launched.

"As it happens, our first ‘Presents’ series author was Steve Jackson – the American one, designer of GURPS – who had come over to the UK to talk business with Games Workshop," explains Steve Jackson, the British one. "So the book was: Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone Present: Scorpion Swamp… by Steve Jackson. Very confusing!”

“I was visiting London,” explains US Steve, who was already known to the UK Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone since Games Workshop was distributing his games on this side of the Pond. “They described their travails in creating FF books, and the difficulty of flow-charting. I sat down and wrote the first third of Scorpion Swamp, and they liked it.”

There are still people to this day who do not realise that the Steve Jackson who wrote Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep and Robot Commando, and the Steve Jackson who wrote such classics as The Citadel ofChaos, House of Hell and Creature of Havoc are two completely different people.

“Occasionally I am presented with a copy of one of UK Steve's books to sign,” says US Steve. “I always explain, and if they really want me to, I will sign it ‘The wrong Steve Jackson’.”

Published in 1984, with a cover and internal art by Duncan Smith, Scorpion Swamp sent the hero into the fetid fens of the title with nothing but his sword to defend himself, and a magic Brass Ring that detected evil as well as letting the hero know which way was north.

Unlike other Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, Scorpion Swamp allowed the player to choose one of three quests, from a selection of patrons who are Good, Evil and Neutral. The gameplay was non-linear in design, enabling the hero to revisit locations and explore the swamp as he so desired, and a direct consequence of US Steve’s background in RPGs.

But how did Duncan Smith come to join the esteemed ranks of Fighting Fantasy illustrators? “My mate Iain McCaig had been doing some for Puffin and suggested me to the art director as they were looking for artists for another few books,” explains Smith. “Our styles were quite similar and so they liked my work and that's how it came about.”

The artist cites the illustrations of Poomchukker and the Giant as being his favourites from the book. “I actually like Scorpion Swamp,” he says, referring to the work he did on the title, “though I'd do it very differently now.”

Scorpion Swamp was the first adventure to bear the now infamous green zigzag Adventure Gamebooks banner and the fondly-remembered Fighting Fantasy logo, which was also green at the time. Even though the zigzags only remained in use until Creature of Havoc, the spines of FF gamebooks stayed green until the end of Puffin Books’ run in 1995.

Thursday 14 May 2020

Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks in the NME

When the Warlock was but an apprentice wizard back in the 1980s, Fighting Fantasy gamebooks were a publishing phenomenon. Do you know what else was a phenomenon? That's right - the New Musical Express.

So it seems somehow appropriate that today Fighting Fantasy gamebooks are featured on NME.com. You can read James McMahon's piece about how video games took him back to the golden age of Fighting Fantasy here.


Friday 8 May 2020

Fighting Fantasy Post Match Analysis

For many people Fighting Fantasy gamebooks are all about the monsters, and the world of Titan is populated with more than its fair share of grotesque and mythical creatures. However, Fighting Fantasy fan Matt Rainbow has taken his love of monsters to another level, comparing the various adversaries that appear in the earlier books in the original series.















It is plain to see, thanks to Matt's meticulous analysis, that some adventures are filled with weaker foes, but lots of them, while other books have fewer, but more highly skilled, adversaries.

Have you conducted your own analysis of any aspect of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks? If so, let us know in the comments below, or email info@fightingfantasy.com.

Saturday 2 May 2020

Beyond the Pit - Set VIII

Arion Games have just released their eighth set of paper miniatures for the Beyond the Pit compendium of Fighting Fantasy monsters.

The set contains Titan-specific beasties such as the Kalamite, Khuddam and Maijem-Nossoth, as well as old favourites including Lizard Men and the Kraken.

You can download the paper miniatures via DriveThruRPG, where you will also find the other sets in the series, and which can use to enhance your tabletop games of Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

Friday 1 May 2020

Assassins of Hungary

As some of you brave adventurers will no doubt already be aware, Ian Livingstone's latest Fighting Fantasy adventure, Assassins of Allansia, is now available in a Hungarian edition, published by Chameleon Comix.


Chameleon Comix have gone with an old school look for the book, featuring Karl Kopinski's cover art for the special edition hardback on the cover, and even going so far as to give Allansia Bergyilkosai a green spine!



The gamebook features brand new internal illustrations by Krisztian Balla.





Assassins of Allansia has been very well received in Hungary, which is good news because Chameleom Comix are planning on releasing further titles in the future.