Belgian Fighting Fantasy fan Gil Jugnot has mapped the Fighting Fantasy (or Défis Fantastiques) gamebooks, including the Sorcery! quartet and The Tasks of Tantalon, onto the maps of the three continents of Titan published by Scriptarium. And here they are.
Published in 1989, Vault of the Vampire was the 38th gamebook in the Fighting Fantasy series. Written by the late Carl Sargent, under the name Keith Martin, and illustrated by the late Martin McKenna, FF's riff on Dracula is a bona fide classic of interactive horror fiction.
Interestingly, despite blood-suckers appearing on a
regular basis throughout the previous thirty-seven titles, up until this point
no one prince of the night had taken centre stage and become the
Big Bad to be dealt with at the climax of an adventure.
Keith Martin rectified this by transporting the reader to Titan's version of Transylvania, set within the mountainous Old World realm of Mauristatia, replete with wolves howling at the moon, creepy forests, a headless coachman, and a sinister, bat-haunted castle.
The plot is also just what you would want from a story called Vault of the Vampire...
Martin McKenna, who was still only eighteen at the time, turned his hand to producing some very Hammer Horror-esque images for the book’s internal illustrations that have stood up to the test of time very well.
A blood-soaked sequel followed in 1995, entitled Revenge of the Vampire. This was the only occasion a direct sequel to a gamebook was written by an author other than the series’ co-creators Jackson and Livingstone.
Revenge of the Vampire (FF58) was Keith Martin’s seventh contribution to the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series. In the story, Count Reiner Heydrich returns from the dead once more to stalk the Old World in search of fresh blood and new slaves. It is up to the hero (who is not the same hero as featured in Vault of the Vampire) to put an end to him once and for all.
Count Heydrich, Vampire, is back from the dead!
A half-forgotten evil has arisen from the grave to stalk the Old World in search of fresh blood and new victims to enslave. Count Reiner Heydrich, undead Vampire Lord, is ancient beyond the reckoning of mortals. This time, however, there is someone on his trail, a brave hero who is determined that he shall not succeed in his evil plans. That someone is YOU!
As well as being written by Keith Martin, author of Vault of the Vampire, once again Les Edwards painted the stunning cover image while Martin McKenna came up trumps with the internals.
The story begins with the hero inadvertently enabling Nazek (another Warlock) to steal the Black Grimoire from its guardians at Rassin Abbey in the Old World kingdom of Ruddlestone. To make amends, the hero sets out to track down the villain in order to stop him from opening the legendary Casket of Shadows, and releasing the evil imprisoned within.
Art – both exterior and interior – was provided by Alan
Langford. It was the first and last time the artist painted a cover for the
series, despite having illustrated five FF adventures before Spellbreaker.
“They just asked me to do it,” says Langford, “which was
rather nice, because you get paid rather more for cover art than you do for
your inside work.” The image was produced using predominantly watercolours. “I
used a little bit of permanent white gouache as well, which is my normal
technique for watercolour.”
The Devilworm, which was inspired by the legend of the Lambton Worm.
One of the internal pen and ink illustrations provided by Alan Langford.
(© Alan Langford, 1993)
However, when Wizard Books republished the adventure in 2007, Martin McKenna was commissioned to produce a new piece of cover art, which was done digitally. (Green had been keen to have McKenna illustrate one of his FF adventures ever since being commissioned to write Spellbreaker, back in 1992.)
It was John Sibbick’s image of a dragon attacking a band of adventurers, determined to steal its treasure hoard, that appeared on the front cover of Dungeoneer, that inspired Green to write Spellbreaker in the first place, because he thought the forward-facing dragon was actually a demon!
First published on 2 November 1989, Dead of Night (copyright Jim Bambra and Stephen Hand) took as its setting the kingdom of Gallantaria. the adventure taking place after the events related in The Tasks of Tantalon. It helped complete the integration of the Old World into the wider Fighting Fantasy milieu, being the first solo gamebook to be set there since The Crown of Kings concluded Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series back in 1985.
Working together – rather like Jackson and Livingstone had
in the beginning – Bambra tackled the task with his standard approach to
writing fantasy scenarios, whereas Hand was keen to push the limits of what was
possible in a gamebook. Hand was also hugely inspired by pulp horror, such as
the kind produced by Hammer studios in the 1960s and ‘70s.
They agreed that their version of the Old World would be a grimly realistic place, a slice of a horrific medieval world in which politics would play its part too (as can be seen more clearly in Hand’s later, solo titles).
"On that first book, what happened was that Jim and I plotted all the scenes and characters together," Stephen Hand explained in an interview with AdvancedFightingFantasy.com. "Then we divided the different scenes between us, so I would write one area, and he would write another. When we finished, we actually swapped documents and edited each other's work. This may sound strange, but it worked and lead to a fairly even book written by two very different writers."
In addition to the regular attributes of SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, Dead of Night features an EVIL score, which start starts at zero. Throughout the adventure, the player may encounter people or creatures, or do things that will increase this score. As a result the player is asked to Test Your Evil at certain points in a manner similar to Testing Your Luck.
The gamebook was illustrated by Martin McKenna, with a cover
by Terry Oakes.
Dead of Night
remains both the first and last time that Bambra contributed an adventure to
the FF series, but what a memorable entry it was! Hand, on the other hand,
would go on to contribute two more Gallantaria-set adventures before quitting
the series - the equally impressive Legend of the Shadow Warriors and Moonrunner.
After slaying the demon I left the seer’s
cottage, which was now in flames, and chose to also ignore a group of peasants
and an opportunity to pray. When I arrived in the next village I chose not to
use one of my skills and narrowly escaped a swinging blade trap. Luckily I was
rescued by the locals who told me of the onslaught their village was under from
a swarm of Moon Demons. Rather than staying and helping the villagers – as any
proper Demon-Stalker would – choosing the second option had me again being
unhelpful and I abandoned them to their fate and walked outside, only to slip
in the mud and be torn to shreds by the swarm.
Of these three books, my shortest-lived adventure as the Second Swordsman was in Bloodbones. My starting SKILL, STAMINA,
and LUCK scores were good, I had a purse full of gold, and I was intrigued how
the addition of a time factor would play out. I had an early fight with some
pirates who might have been part of the possibly-undead Captain Cinnabar’s crew
and then headed for the gambling halls of the Port of Crabs – which is possibly
an even more perilous port than The Port of Peril. But then the process of choosing
every second option made me ignore the games of chance on offer and I left with
no more gold pieces than when I had arrived.
Spellbreaker was Green’s first FIGHTING FANTASY
book and with its opening scene of monks and a fight against a demon it created
an interesting Middle Ages atmosphere for the north-eastern part of the Old
World in which it was set. The adventure sets me up with a deadline of four
days in which I am to recover a stolen book that has been taken by a dark wizard
to a nearby town so that he can raise a monster. But it soon becomes apparent
that this adventure is not just about getting a book and that a larger evil is
at work. However, once I left the monks I ignored a lot of opportunities to
learn things – I didn’t escort a local noblewoman, I didn’t pay a jester at a
local tavern, I didn’t buy a beer at a different tavern, I hurried through several
small towns, and I didn’t take advantage of several opportunities to make offerings
to various gods and martyrs – although when I finally did do this, I gained
nothing.
And so to Stormslayer,
probably the most enjoyable FIGHTING FANTASY book I’ve used the Second Swordsman process in since Battleblade Warrior. In this adventure I
had some good starting scores, a decent supply of meals and gold, and a special
dragon-slaying sword. As with Bloodbones
and Spellbreaker this book throws you
into combat at the very start – within the first few sections I’d fought a
Manticore and an Ice Elemental. But these were not the only monsters I had to
defeat during this adventure – my tally at the end being 22 (the same number
that I faced in Battleblade Warrior).
There was a good balance amongst these, some were weak creatures, others much
stronger, and there were some melees (such as that against a trio of Naiads) that
really wore down my STAMINA and made me grateful for my supply of food.
While the Second Swordsman
met with universal failure in my escapades in the Old World, in these three
books by Jonathan Green it did provide me with some enjoyable adventures. I
didn’t make too many obviously stupid decisions; I didn’t miss each and every opportunity
to collect some valuable information or gain a special object; and, while I
still ignored a lot of chances to explore, this didn’t make the books boring. I’ll
look forward to trying the process on some more of Green’s adventures later on.
Although maybe not Knights of Doom –
I don’t fancy taking out another mortgage right now.