Forest of Doom
Loved the Fighting Fantasy books as a kid, and remember playing this years ago. Does anybody have a spare they'd like to sell, or even know where I can pick one up?
Cheers
Si
Cheers
Si
Post edited by TechnicianSi on
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Me too, I lost about 20 odd books (and a couple of Steve Jacksons 'Sorcery' books too) when I left my previous address...
BUT, I meant the Spectrum game (perhaps shouldv'e made that clearer!)
:lol:
And a copy of Citadel of Chaos? hehe...
Confused and moaning about thieving youngsters...pipe and slippers time.
:lol:
Y'see, now you've mentioned thieves and makes me think of City of Thieves...
Hmmm, birthday just after xmas... thinks... :smile:
House of Hell was brilliant, yes, Deathtrap Dungeon was another great one.
Some I didn't care for much. Freeway Fighter was one, and Appointment with FEAR wasn't too great.
My fave was Khare, Cityport of Traps though.
Just checked to see how many they actually released, and never realised that they did 59 of em, not including the 4 Sorcery books...
Perhaps some 'unofficial' speccy versions are in order...
Talisman of Death - OK, a bit different.
Space Assassin - Never liked it much
Freeway Fighter - A bit too easy
Temple of Terror - A bit too easy
Rings of Kether - Utter Rubbish
Seas of Blood - Not sure if I actually got that one or not, I may have stopped at 15.
Sorcery! was excellent though. Would definitely like speccy House of Hell, City of Thieves, and Sorcery!
Programming them should be pretty easy too; lots of text, multiple choice and a few stats/inventory items for the most part.
House of Hell would be pretty awesome actually...
Any takers?
I'd definitely volunteer for testing, but alas I'm no programmer.
I'll draw up some screens, start a thread in new game ideas in the next couple of days, see if anybody is interested :smile:
Not that easy, actually, if more than one book were to be tackled, as there are variations in the features pretty much from book to book. Ten years ago I wrote a specification for a generic Fighting Fantasy adventure builder utility, covering all 59 books (I still have the full set) which ran to 14 pages. It would only have worked on a +3 and needed bespoke disk file handling routines, so I've not as yet got around to writing the actual programs.
The specification can be downloaded from here. The TXT file seems to be an early version. The two DOC files are later; the content is the same, but they've just been converted to different formats from the original MacWrite Pro version; one is Mac Word 4 and the other PC Word (both at least 10 year old versions although the file dates are newer - I was just using very old software). On Windows PCs it's best to view them with something simple like Notepad or Wordpad.
If I ever finish my FF solver utility (which, coincidentally, I am currently testing with Forest of Doom, having previously got it working for Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Citadel of Chaos), then I might get back to working on "Blade! - The Fighting Adventure Builder".
Hmmm, yeah I guess it may be trickier than it seems, although I guess a lot of the simpler books could be done, with any slight complications in the game structure being 'tacked on'. I can see how trying to incorparate all the specifics of the 59 books into one program could be memory consuming though.
Maybe an engine covering 3, maybe 4 books at a time would simplify things.
I like Alien 8's idea of covering House of Hell though, perhaps getting that done and using the same principles to do a few more. If I remember rightly, the earlier books were a hell of a lot simpler than later efforts.
And Warlock of Firetop Mountain could do with a better Speccy version than some over-complicated Hall of the Things type effort :-P
I wonder if Graphic Adventure Creator may be useful for this? Having said that a program from scratch can obviously be made to suit it better.
The early books were simpler, in fact house of hell introduced Fear points, IIRC. Oncethey got to a certain point you died.
What would you need? Something to copy rolling the dice, and the results it has. Something to keep track of the scores. I reckon the hardest part is mapping it all out correctly, if any sound fx or graphics are involved then that is classified as magic as far as my programming skills go!
Hopefully we could get quite a bit of support for this.
While i'm working out whether MWmTB should be a MM or JSW game (shameless plug I know :p) i'll knock up some screens. Probably tonight (i'll have to try and get some images/txt from the book somewhere, obviously at some point go and pick a copy up.)
When I was younger and used to tinker around with Basic and The Artist II I used to play around with the idea of doing either a FF game, or GW's Talisman (a better version lol, spent hours drawing maps and screens with no game to go with them) so getting this started holds probably more appeal than anything else i've attempted (or indeed completed.)
As I said, the stats system should be fairly easy to incorporate, combat will pobably be a highly toned down RPG system, and Fear points shouldn't be difficult to calculate either. And as you rightly say, the mapping will be the major issue, but that's something to worry about if a programmer here is willing to take up the project. Hintedy-hint-hint.
Back on topic - no Forest of Doom for the Speccy anyone? Anyone? :razz:
As an aside.....anyone else scarred for life by exposure to the ghoul in Warlock of Firetop Mountain as a nipper?
The current version of AGES, available on my Spot's Pourri page, already includes a mapping feature for adventure gamebooks; ie. an input mechanism and data structure for defining the links between locations. There's also a program to generate a reverse structure, which is very handy when generating a solution.
I still have my original copy of House of Hell (well all of them from 1 -16 and the Sorcery Books). Unfortunately I can't lend them to anybody as they form part of my treasure and are mostly pretty much in mint condition.
I am very happy to dig it out of the loft and help with mapping it and answering any questions on the book though.
I plan on picking up two or three books shortly including house of hell obviously.
If you want to try and map the locations that would be great.
Eeexcellent... i'm gonna buy some books on fleabay :)
With abit of googling I found this:
http://www.fightingfantasy.com/images/stories/amamaps/houseofhell.jpg
It's a start at least, I don't think it has the detail required.
Anyway, i'm expecting some time next week:
House of Hell, Warlock of Firetop Mountain, City of Thieves, Forest of Doom, Citadel of Chaos, Deathtrap Dungeon & Khare - Cityport of Traps.
City of Thieves would seem ideal for a follow-on too. I'll get some graphics done at some point soon too (probably easiest once the book gets here.)
Still after the Speccy version of Forest of Doom though folks ;)
City of Thieves would definitely be a good one to follow HoH.
I think your suggestion for using a graphic representation of the room is a good idea.
Ok, i'll draw some pics up. Perhaps part of the status area could be used for a small map. I'm thinking, two large top portions of the display for illustrations and text/room options, smaller bottom section for status.
Ideally though, we'd need a programmer too...
Graphics but no game? We're not trying to be EA are we? :lol: