Fighting Fantasy Quest - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - is coming to Gamefound

For over 40 years the Warlock has been waiting... for YOU!

Do you still have what it takes to brave Firetop Mountain? Prepare to face the perils of the Warlock together with 1-4 players in this richly illustrated true board game experience, coming to Gamefound soon.

Brave adventurers will delve into the twisting tunnels, death-trap chambers, and monster-haunted halls of Firetop Mountain, seeking the Warlock’s hoarded treasure - and the truth behind the legend. But danger waits at every turn: ferocious creatures, devious puzzles, and the Warlock’s dark magic threaten death.

Will you work together to survive or fall to the dangers of the mountain?

Old-school dungeon crawling, reborn. Simple but never easy.

Developed by Paul Toderas and Jan Wagner of Ulisses Spiele, Fighting Fantasy Quest combines the experience of old-school dungeon crawling, hair-raising twists and turns, and myriad challenges, with a new and elegant rules system, that allows for much more variety and deeper tactics. There is no handholding here, but rich rewards for those who master the mountain's dangers - though not everyone will live to tell their tale.

Paul Toderas demoed Fighting Fantasy Quest - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain at the Fighting Fantasy stand at the UK Games Expo earlier this year, and so did Paul Grogan of Gaming Rules! on YouTube.

Sir Ian Livingstone to attend Lucca Comics & Games 2025

Sir Ian Livingstone will be attending the Lucca Comics & Games festival in Italy, which is on from Wednesday 29th October - Sunday 2nd November 2025.

This year, attendees will also be able to enjoy FORGING THE MYTH: Art & Artifacts from the Workshop, an exhibition that tells the story of the company founded by Steve Jackson and Sir Ian, and that changed pop culture forever.

The exhibition will be held from 18th October 18th - 2nd November 2025, at the Palazzo Guinigi. There you will be able to see original paintings by John Blanche, Geoff Taylor, Jim Burns, Stephen Tappin, John Sibbick, Paul Bonner, Gary Chalk, Karl Kopinski, and Iain McCaig, who will also be attending the games fair. There will even be some personal items of Sir Ian's on display.

40 years of Appointment with F.E.A.R.

Another Fighting Fantasy gamebook celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2025 is Steve Jackson's superhero smackdown Appointment with F.E.A.R.

Back in 1985, Steve Jackson had not written a Titan-set FF adventure since The Citadel of Chaos and his fifth title in the series continued this trend. Appointment with F.E.A.R. (FF17) took as its inspiration the comic books Jackson had so loved as a child and involved more problem-solving as opposed to the item collection ‘shopping list’ approach of some gamebooks.

The action takes place in the suspiciously familiar sounding Titan City with the hero assuming the role of Jean Lafayette and his alter ego, the crime-fighting Silver Crusader.

The Silver Crusader does battle with such colourful characters as the Scarlet Prankster, the Serpent, and the Alchemists, as he struggles to discover the time and location of the next meeting of F.E.A.R. – the Federation of Euro-American Rebels – an evil organisation led by Vladimir Utoshski, a.k.a. the Titanium Cyborg.

It is the Titanium Cyborg who is the subject of the book’s cover art by legendary comic book cover artist Brian Bolland, while internal illustrations were provided by Declan Considine, who made his artwork look like panels from the pages of a comic book.

The Macro Brain, a super-villain from Appointment with F.E.A.R.,
by Declan Considine.

The adventure begins with the reader choosing one of four superpowers for the Silver Crusader from Super Strength, Psi-Powers, Enhanced Technological Skill (or ETS), and Energy Blast.

Appointment with F.E.A.R. also made use of a new HERO POINTS attribute. These points are awarded for every villain the Silver Crusader captures and every potential disaster he manages to avert. (Although it doesn’t necessarily affect the outcome of the game, it does allow players to compare performances from one read-through to the next.) Rather like Batman, the Silver Crusader is not permitted to kill his enemies, and any such deaths that may occur result in the loss of precious HERO POINTS. In one-on-one combat, when an enemy’s STAMINA score drops to 2 STAMINA points, the enemy simply surrenders.

It could be argued that Appointment with F.E.A.R. is only a science fiction adventure in as much as Spider-Man or Superman comics are science fiction stories. It is, in truth, a comic book superhero gamebook; nothing more, nothing less.

To date, Appointment with F.E.A.R. is the only non-fantasy adventure published by Scholastic, and the gamebook also exists now as a video game from Tin Man Games.

Will we ever see an Appointmentwith F.E.A.R. comic one day? We can but hope.

If you enjoy watching playthroughs of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, GoneHollowMedia have recorded their own attempt at tackling the adventure.

And if you want to learn more about the history of your favourite gamebooks, pick up Jonathan Green's YOU ARE THE HERO: An Interactive History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks today.

40 years of Seas of Blood

2025 marks 40 years since the publication of Seas of Blood (FF16). In a series of books in which YOU  are the Hero, in 1985 you got to play a bad guy for the first time.

The city of Tak is the greatest den of thieves, pirates and cut-throats that the civilized world has ever seen!

In this city of scum, there are two pirates infamous for their ruthless greed, their daring raids and their countless skirmishes with death. One of these villains is Abdul the Butcher. The other is YOU. Only one of you can be King of the Pirates. A wager is laid, a race is on. But which of you will win?

Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need for this rip-roaring adventure. YOU decide which course to sail, which dangers to risk and which monsters to fight.

The adventure was written by Andrew Chapman, who had already had two science fiction Fighting Fantasy adventures published - Space Assassin and The Rings of Kether.

Seas of Blood saw the hero take on the role of captain of the pirate ship Banshee, who undertakes a contest with rival buccaneer Abdul the Butcher. Whichever one reaches the island of Nippur within fifty days, and with the most gold, will be declared King of Pirates

The adventure is unusual because it allowed for combat between vessels, and between the Banshee and seas monsters, utilising both CREW STRIKE and CREW STRENGTH scores.

Seas of Blood was illustrated by Bob Harvey, his second of four contributions in the gamebook series...

... and bore a cover by the legendary album cover artist Rodney Matthews.

Matthews’ art medium of choice is pigmented acrylic ink: “I do it with those inks because they’re transparent, or at least translucent, and you can build up the colour gradually,” says the artist. “That’s why I use them, so you don’t overstate something, you can build it up and keep in control of things.”

But while the cover implies a Classical theme, the adventure itself (as older FF fans will know already) has a more strongly Arabian feel to it. And the reason for this mix-up? According to Matthews, it was down to a junior editor at Puffin misleading the artist when he was given the cover brief.

Despite this mix-up, Matthews is still proud of his involvement with Fighting Fantasy, however fleeting it might have been: “I enjoyed doing the cover. I think it probably enhanced the book, but a bit inaccurately.”

As with a number of locations from the other early Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, when FF editor Marc Gascoigne set about compiling Titan – The Fighting Fantasy World, the lands surrounding the Inland Sea, where Seas of Blood is set, were slotted into the newly-created continent of Khul.

However, the book’s author, Andrew Chapman, had already developed a more extensive geography and history for the lands of the Inland Sea which he would later go on to use in two more books – one of which, Ashkar the Magnificent, features the same map as appeared in Seas of Blood – as well as the unpublished FF adventure Deathlord.