Fighting Fantasy

[chuckro]

A few years ago, my mother got a bunch of Fighting Fantasy books (RPG-style "Choose Your Own Adventure" books by Steve Jackson!) from one of her publishing contacts, and gave them to me. This weekend, I decided to actually play the first one, which involves roaming through a dungeon labyrinth and fighting monsters. It has a lot of jump-locations (400, most of them not full pages), and has you keeping a character sheet and inventory as you go through it. Also, I went through it for an hour and didn't find any endings, instant-kill or otherwise. It's amusing, though the combat quickly gets tedious and having an inventory isn't very useful if the book doesn't actually let you use it.

This all reminded me of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books I remember getting from my elementary school library many years ago. The one I remember most vividly was #97 Through the Black Hole by Edward Packard--partially because I don't think I ever found the "true" path through it. After getting caught in the event horizon a bunch of times and otherwise being distracted by various tangential plotlines, I started skipping around in the book and found the section where you emerged through a white hole, and then the possibilities for getting back (or dying horribly).

I also remember one that began with an elevator that stops at a floor that doesn't exist, but unfortunately the rest of the details are lost in the haze of memory. The door opens, someone hands you something and/or says something to you, then you have the option of pressing "Door Open" "Door Close" or the floor number button, and the story continues from there. I don't suppose anyone has any idea what book that was?

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

We had a bunch of Indiana Jones choose your own adventure books. Of course, in my house, each of these books had a map inserted, as my mother would diligently map out every possible route through the book. I always thought the goal was to get to the final page. Because that's where books end--on the last page.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

The Fighting Fantasy book benefits from drawing a map (and suggests you do so), partially because there's a dungeon you're exploring, and partially because there's apparently a "true" sequence through the dungeon, that will allow you to have the appropriate items in time to use them. Kinda like an FAQ for a computer game, actually.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

Some of the Fighting Fantasy books are just plain evil. Especially the ones by Steve Jackson - there are two Steve Jacksons who wrote these. One is the one you are thinking of. The other is not. There also exists a third category that has one or both of their names involved but were in fact written by someone else. Confusing!

The Lone Wolf books were kind of fun, as long as you don't mind a little cheating in some of the later ones that become ridiculous. You can carry so much gear and skills over from one game to the next that every encounter is either an easy one-shot combat or an instant death from rolling an old number instead of an even one. These are all available on Project Aon and have some software to run things for you.

There's also Fabled Lands out there, which was kind of a freeform CYOA RPG, the Morrowwind to Fighting Fantasy's Final Fantasy (that is an awesome sentence). Also has some software to automate things for you online.

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that the only Choose-Your-Own-Adventures I ever did were short, relatively lame versions in kids' magazines. I wish I had had the presence of mind to seek out more.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Well, you can buy them used for cheap on Amazon...