40 years of Trial of Champions

When Deathtrap Dungeon became a publishing phenomenon, it cannot be over-exaggerated how high anticipation was for a sequel when Sir Ian Livingstone's Trial of Champions was published just two years later in 1986.

Number 21 in the original Puffin series, Trial of Champions wasn’t a direct sequel, but is set a year after the hero of Deathtrap Dungeon has beaten Baron Sukumvit’s deadly labyrinth for the first time.

All the familiar Deathtrap Dungeon tropes are there to be enjoyed, including a host of deadly monster encounters and lethal traps, as well as the other competitors who are encountered as the hero takes ‘The Walk’ through the dungeon - not to mention the massive cash prize for anyone who actually makes it through to the other end alive.

However, the story adds an element of sibling rivalry to the tale, with the hero having been taken captive by the Baron’s jealous brother Lord Carnuss and sent to Fang specifically to beat the dungeon and shame Sukumvit.

Author and creator of the Illmoor Chronicles, David Lee Stone, cites Trial of Champions as being one of his favourite gamebooks:

“House of Hell or Trial of Champions: both are absolutely brilliant fun, and classic examples of two authors completely focused on creating an atmosphere for the games they’re constructing. I couldn’t choose between them.”

Trial of Champions was the only time Brian Williams illustrated an FF gamebook, providing the striking cover art as well as the internal black and white illustrations (although he also illustrated The Riddling Reaver, published the same year). His clean line art and representations of the human form were exquisite.

Sadly, Williams passed away unexpectedly at his home in October 2010.

While not currently in print, adventurers can still tackle Baron Sukumvit's updated dungeon via Tin Man Games' Fighting Fantasy Classsics app.

Of course, Trial of Champions received its own sequel, of sorts, when The Dungeon on Blood Island was published in 2024, to coincide with Fighting Fantasy Fest 5.

Sir Ian Livingstone has written another new gamebook, this time to coincide with Fighting Fantasy Fest 6.

Tomb of the Golden Skull will launch at the event, on Saturday 5th September 2026, so make sure you've reserved your place at FFF6.

40 years of Sword of the Samurai

40 years ago today, Sword of the Samurai was published for the first time.

Written by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson*, the twentieth book in the series presented readers with the Fighting Fantasy version of Japan, in the form of the mystical land of Hachiman**.

The hero of the adventure is a young Samurai, Kensei, who is tasked with recovering the Dai-Katana - the Shogun’s great sword - which has been stolen by Ikiru, the Master of Shadows, who dwells deep in the Pit of Demons.

“At the time, the whole Samurai/Ninja thing was big and breaking out of the niche world it was in, into the bigger niche of gamebooks and RPGs, which had become substantially more popular than they had been for a long time,” says Thomson. “Still a niche, compared to cinema and even games like Monopoly and stuff, but a big niche.”

Sword of the Samurai was only the second time that Alan Langford had appeared on internal art duties at the time, while Peter Andrew Jones contributed his first cover since Talisman of Death***.

“I’ve been fascinated with the East ever since I read a book called The Earth is the Lord's by Taylor Caldwell,” says Langford. “It’s about the early life of Genghis Khan – Temujin – and that fired up my interest. The other source is Kubla Khan, and that was illustrated by Frank Frazetta. So Sword of the Samurai was quite an interesting job for me to do.”

Sword of the Samurai was translated into numerous languages, including Bulgarian, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese****, and, appropriately enough, Japanese.

We already know that Fighting Fantasy is big in Japan, but it is even bigger now that YOU ARE THE HERO: An Interactive History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks has been published in Japanese.

* Who had previously worked together on Talisman of Death.

** Which Marc Gascogine would later make part of Khul.

*** The Wizard Books' edition featured cover art by Mel Grant.

**** Sword of the Samurai - or A Espada do Samurai - is still in print in Brazil.

Happy New Year!

2026 marks the 40th anniversary of six Fighting Fantasy gamebooks - Demons of the Deep, Sword of the Samurai, Trial of Champions, Robot Commando, Masks of Mayhem, and the groundbreaking Creature of Havoc.

It is also 40 years since Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World and The Riddling Reaver were published, and the only two-player Fighting Fantasy gamebook, Clash of the Princes.

Over the coming year, the Warlock will be considering these much-loved publications, and doubtless they will be discussed at Fighting Fantasy 6, which will be taking place later this year in September.

40 years of Rebel Planet

2025 marks 40 years since the publication of the fifth Fighting Fantasy sci-fi title, Rebel Planet (FF18), by Robin Waterfield.

“I was working in the Penguin/Puffin copy-editorial department when the series began," Waterfield explains. "My desk was free to edit one of the books, and after that I became the default copy-editor for them all, having got the hang of them. Later, after leaving Penguin, I became the series editor from 1986-1988, when I handed over to Marc Gascoigne.

“By the time I wrote my first one, I had edited quite a few, and was already involved in reading (and rejecting) the countless submissions from hopeful kids. I knew how the games worked, and I’ve been a lifelong games-player (though I was not involved at all in the RPG world). So I didn’t find them too difficult to write. The first one I wrote was non-Titan (Rebel Planet), but that was because Philippa specifically asked me to do an SF one.”

In Rebel Planet, the leaders of SAROS (a secret Earth organization) are fighting to overthrow the alien Arcadian Empire. Having gathered together their last few resources, they send the hero on one last daring, and foolhardy, mission to strike at the heart of the Arcadian homeworld.

Rebel Planet was adapted to become one of a select group of FF computer games, available for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. The cover was provided by artist and colourist Alan Craddock with Gary Mayes producing the internal black and white illustrations, just as he would for the next two SF FF titles.

Robot, by Gary Mayes.

(© Gary Mayes, 1985 and 2025)

“If I remember correctly, the opportunity arose through the Games Workshop magazine, White Dwarf, and I think my name was put forward to the publishers Puffin, as a likely candidate,” says Mayes, recalling how he came to contribute to the Fighting Fantasy series. “In many ways it was a breath of fresh air to illustrate a whole book and particularly to work in black and white, something I had wanted to do for quite a while. My work at that time was varied and came from a number of different sources and this [Rebel Planet] gave me an opportunity to work within the fantasy/science fiction genre, which I had wanted to do since I had started drawing as a child.

“My early influences were illustrators like Frank Bellamy, Frank Kelly Freas, and numerous others that I had pored over as a teenager and inspired me to think about work of that nature. The FF books were a significant step along the way and provided an opportunity to develop my skill and method of working with a subject I loved.”

Alan Craddock’s cover rough for Rebel Planet, which at the time went by the title Emperor of Arcadion.(© Alan Craddock, 1985 and 2025)

But what of Craddock? Did he have a background in RPGs? “I had played Waddington’s Risk board game for many hours with my friends,” says Craddock. “During the Sixth Form school holidays we would play games which would last days at a time. So I knew the pleasure a good board game could provide. And when I had finished reading Tolkien I wanted more, and obviously a role-playing game could be a way of achieving that. But painting was my particular outlet. Once I became a professional artist in 1979 and got married soon after, those long balmy summer days of playing Risk for days on end were gone. I wanted to be the best artist I could be; no time for playing games. I also had to decorate and wash dishes!” 

Gamebook author Mark Lain is currently working with Gary Mayes on Rebel Planet: The Graphic Novel. To read an interview withM Mark about the graphic novel, follow this link.

To read more about the history of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, follow this link.

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.

40 years of Freeway Fighter

2025 marks 40 years since the publication of Freeway Fighter - the only Fighting Fantasy gamebook, to date, to be set in a dystopian world.

For his sixth solo contribution to the FF range, Ian Livingstone ventured into the realm of near-future (for 1985) post-apocalyptic science fiction. Clearly inspired by the Mad Max movies - and set in 2022 - Freeway Fighter (FF13) had the hero crossing the American wilderness in their heavily armoured Dodge Interceptor, to reach the distant oil-refinery of San Anglo so that they might return with vital supplies for the inhabitants of the peaceful town of New Hope. But success is far from certain since the wilds that lie between the scattered, fortified towns are the territory of lawless bandits and brigands.

Vehicular combat was a feature of this adventure with the Dodge Interceptor having both a FIREPOWER and an ARMOUR score to represent its offensive and defensive capabilities.

The Adventure Sheet for Freeway Fighter.

Like Starship Traveller (Steve Jackson’s one and only foray into hard sci-fi Fighting Fantasy), Freeway Fighter has fewer than the standard 400 references, coming in at only 380 paragraphs. How come? “Because 400 references was a guide,” explains Livingstone, “not an absolute requirement.”

The original US edition of Freeway Fighter.

The cover was by the renowned SF artist Jim Burns. When the book was republished by Wizard Books, the cover was reworked by Burns. However, this was not an original piece of artwork for the range - the illustration had already been used back in 1984 on the cover Games Workshop's Battlecars.

The interior art was by Kevin Bulmer. It was completed in only nine days, as a favour for Ian Livingstone after the original illustrations that had been commissioned were rejected at the last moment.

Kevin Bulmer’s illustrations for Freeway Fighter.

One of the early contenders for internal artist on Freeway Fighter was actually FF legend Iain McCaig, but other commitments meant that it simply wasn’t to be. However, we have an idea of how the book might have looked since McCaig did start work on an image for the book.

In 2017 Titan Comics published Ian Livingstone’s Freeway Fighter, a limited four-part comicbook series that was then collected as a trade paperback. It was written by Andi Ewington, with art by Simon Coleby, colours by Len O’Grady, and lettering by Jim Campbell.

Concept and cover art for the Freeway Fighter comic by Simon Coleby, with colours by Len O'Grady.

While Freeway Fighter is not currently in print as a physical gamebook, it is available as part of Tin Man Games' Fighting Fantasy Classics app.

Will Sir Ian ever return to the lawless hinterlands of America to write a pedal-to-the-metal heart-stopping sequel? We'll just have to wait and see...