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