Ian Livingstone on how to write a Fighting Fantasy gamebook. 2019 Fighting Fantasy event report!

[@jarnopp]

📢Did you attend Fighting Fantasy Fest 3? If you didn't, tell me your all-time favourite Fighting Fantasy book and explain why! 🧠 Build and test-drive your own online community on the amazing Skool platform, with a free 14-day trial: bit.ly/skoolrefer 👻 Join my free Skool community for writers, Phantasia Writing Lounge: www.skool.com/writing 📌 WATCH NEXT: The scariest Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks ever kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpTaaYewlt-Jo5o

[@ArrozMisto]

Without a doubt, City of Thieves. It was my first FF book and my first foray into gamebooks; the art is amazing and the experience itself was unique. I managed to get a couple of FF books when I visited the UK and some Portuguese editions but unfortunately in Portugal we don't have a thriving used book/charity shop habit so collecting FF is pretty hard and/or expensive so collecting them for me is slow and very sporadic. Thanks for the video!

[@jarnopp]

@@ArrozMisto Ah yes indeed - I also think of City Of Thieves as having been one of the best. Zanzar Bone was a great villain and the world felt so real. Glad you enjoyed the video - thanks for watching! So how many FF books have had Portuguese editions and how is your collection going? :)

[@ArrozMisto]

@@jarnopp FF alone, in Portugal, 39 books; i've collected about 12, hard to come by them since there were no reprints AFAIK: gamebooks.org/Series/517/Show

[@floyd75dylan]

Titan is my all time favourite FF book, it had fantastic & beautiful illustrations, & I used to re-read, and closely look at it for ages. I used to try & copy the artists work as well.

[@jarnopp]

floyd75dylan Cool! So, did you ever think of the dragon on the cover as a shape-shifting wizard? 🤔

[@davidbull7210]

That was great. Delighted that Steve Jackson is working on a new book, his first for over 30 years. Looking forward to a video on the best covers in the series! Best in the series? Probably Warlock as it was the first one I did, but obviously Deathtrap Dungeon is a classic. Best cover? So many to choose from. The second version of Citadel of Chaos is great, as is Deathtrap Dungeon. Other brilliant ones are Lizard King, Freeway Fighter, Daggers of Darkness and Vault of the Vampire. Worth mentioning too are the two special editions of Port of Peril and Assassins of Allansia. They are very special indeed, quite superb.

[@jarnopp]

David Bull Thanks very much David - glad you enjoyed the video! And yes, I’d love to see a new FF book from Steve too. And good gamebook/cover choices! 👌🙂

[@holden6104]

Best covers for me are House of Hell, Sword of the Samurai, Creature of Havoc, and Caverns of the Snow Witch.

[@SprocketWalker]

I love the nostalgia found on your channel! Thank you for reporting on this event! (If you're interested, I made a video of a play-through of an Endless Quest D&D book you may enjoy.) Thank you for all you do, and keep the videos coming!

[@jarnopp]

Thank you very much! You're welcome. And I love Endless Quest, so will indeed check out your video.

[@kathygarry9717]

Long live the Dog Ape & Ape Dog Guards at The Citadel Of Chaos!

[@kcsnipes]

thank you for making this available

[@jarnopp]

Hi there! You're very welcome. Thanks for watching and commenting! What's your favourite FF book? :)

[@gtg_vicki4768]

This was great :) Especially loved Ian describing how he writes his books. Hope to be at FF Fest 4

[@jarnopp]

Ah great, thanks Vicki - I'm so glad you enjoyed! And yes, I'd love to attend another of these myself.

[@andreasjames1956]

These needs to hit the stores again

[@jarnopp]

Yes, always good to have the Fighting Fantasy books out there! It's good that they're still out in the UK, though.

[@1neinate0]

Thanks for sharing this information 😊👍

[@jarnopp]

You're so welcome! 🎲 🎲 😊👊

[@ceironbounds2907]

As you don't seem to love us very m ch on the metal channel I thought I''d check this one out. Commenting on old videos, sad right? 😁 Anyway, this one is cool, I was there, shame we didn't bump into each other! Have you done more fighting Fantasy vids?

[@jarnopp]

Argh, I know, I must get back on the metal! And commenting on old videos is awesome. 👊 Weirdly this is my only Fighting Fantasy video... so far.

[@johncollie4997]

Sword of the Samurai for me. A couple of different routes of varying difficulty through the book along with your choice of 4 abilities at the beginning give it fantastic replay value. Also, the Japanese-horror theme is fantastic. Thomson and Smith (along with Jonathan Green) are probably the best gamebook writers around. I assume playtesting isnt a big thing for Livingstone when writing a gamebook. Some of his books are flat out broken. Is it even possible to beat books like Crypt of the Sorcerer or Blood of the Zombies without cheating? If not, there is a serious problem with your book.

[@jarnopp]

John Collie Thanks for dropping in, John! Must admit, I’ve never played Sword Of The Samurai but you make a convincing case for it. 👌

[@holden6104]

Loved Thomson and Smith's approach to game design, as employed in Way of the Tiger, and also applied in Sword of the Samurai. These books would have multiple paths to the ending conflict, each of which have certain items or goals that need to be obtained or achieved along the way. Then, depending on how well you did during your journey, the ending conflict would fall anywhere from "stupid easy" to "nigh near impossible". I find their books eliminated the "one true path" design that made FF books so frustrating, and allowed the player to have a great experience despite dying at the end.

[@uniquerebel385]

I would love to work with the team and use my voice towards reading these books, I'd love it

[@Veniceredmask01]

Love your videos Jason hello from an Englishman in Australia

[@jarnopp]

Thanks so much, Sisco! Really appreciate you taking the time to say hello. 😊👊

[@indorilnorevar9225]

Fighting fantasy ; good introduction for newbies and youngsters (except "House of Hell" ,really hard and demonic) Sorcery : the real challenge and Jackson's masterpiece

[@jarnopp]

Oh yes indeed, I love the Sorcery books so much! Got to the end once, back in the day, but I have a nasty feeling I cheated in the final confrontation! 😀

[@indorilnorevar9225]

@@jarnopp Last book "Crown of kings" was so hard when i was a kid, i cheated as to beat it as well

[@goncaloferreira6429]

Good job on showing us this bits. I wish ai had the chance to have visited the show.

[@jarnopp]

Thank you! Glad you've enjoyed the video.

[@gyulaszucs4046]

Thank you! :)

[@jarnopp]

You're welcome, Gyula! It was good to meet you at the event.

[@gyulaszucs4046]

@@jarnopp Thanks a lot. Pleased to meet you.

[@RottenMechGaming]

Dreams at the witch house. Sounds interesting! :)

[@jimmycampbell78]

Its a H P Lovecraft story

[@welshhibby]

Childhood memories....

[@JamesAHirons_]

Enjoyed that. 11:57 was rather fine camerawork too.

[@jarnopp]

www.jamsplace.co That’s you in the green shirt, right? You’re KZbin famous! 😄💪

[@JamesAHirons_]

@@jarnopp and Mr Achilleos signing my Orction win at 18:50. Spot on!

[@jarnopp]

www.jamsplace.co Bonus! Very glad you enjoyed the video, sir. 👌

[@JamesAHirons_]

@@jarnopp Even gladder to be part of it 🙏

[@misomiso8228]

6:48 what are the skit covers paradying?

[@MrGunwitch]

The new covers are terrible but I'm glad kids can still get their hands on these great books.

[@jarnopp]

Yes, some of them are bad. The latest two are much better than recent covers though, I think.

[@keithparker1346]

Choose Cthulhu maybe interesting

[@uniquerebel385]

7:54 bless him

[@myautobiographyafanfic1413]

Not a mask in sight.

[@PossessedByMetal666]

Hehe. Would you have expected to have seen one in 2019? :D

[@myautobiographyafanfic1413]

@@PossessedByMetal666 ahh, the video says "one year ago" but it's obvious teetering on two years. Makes sense now. Good vid.

[@jarnopp]

@@myautobiographyafanfic1413 Thank you! That's a good point, actually, about how KZbin describes a video's age. It never says, like, 18 months or 24 months... :)

[@fatherpaulstone896]

Brilliant books but the new cover artworks are awful they look shit compared to the old amazing art from the 1980s

[@SprocketWalker]

I love the nostalgia found on your channel! Thank you for reporting on this event! (If you're interested, I made a video of a play-through of an Endless Quest D&D book you may enjoy.) Thank you for all you do, and keep the videos coming!

[@jarnopp]

Hey there, thanks very much - glad you like the channel! And oh yes indeed, I love the Endless Quest books - will take a look.