Ha!
D&D is a far out game, there’s a 4th Edition, and Cry Havoc has a dedicated site.
Now I discover that another, er, childhood favourite, has undergone a renaissance: Fighting Fantasy.
For the benefit of those who’ve never heard of them[?!?], Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks would consist of around 400 short numbered passages of text. Typically they would tell a Tolkein-like story, but the reader / player would be given options as to how they wanted the story to develop. This involved presenting a choice of numbered passages to read next.
There were also other rules, generally to do with rolling dice at appropriate moments: to determine the outcomes of fights, or the performance of difficult physical feats.
As a kid, I read several Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. Many years later, while teaching myself CGI programming, I remembered them and felt that Fighting Fantasy would make an interesting subject to practice on. As a programming exercise, I wrote the software featured on this website.
The idea is that the software should be able to drive any Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, so long as the rules don’t deviate too far from the basic system. It’s just a question of adapting the books into the correct format. I have done this with several amateur gamebooks, this website is the result.
The BBC has a neat-o summary of the history of the series here. I used to have copies of the first few titles — The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982); The Forest of Doom (1983); Island of the Lizard King (1984) — and if I didn’t, my mates did. I also collected Warlock magazine and the Sorcery! series.
So there.
Honourable mention: Illuminati, produced by Steve Jackson Games (US not UK).
They’re all around us. Secret conspiracies are everywhere, and where can you find the only truth? Certainly not in the game of Illuminati. Fnord.
The object of Illuminati is to take control of the world. The phone company is controlled by creatures from outer space. The Congressional Wives have taken over the Pentagon. And the Boy Sprouts are cashing in their secret Swiss bank account to smash the IRS! Two to six players compete to grab powerful groups and increase their wealth and power. No ploy is too devious, no stratagem too low, as you scheme your way to victory.
