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Talking about Gaming the Irish Way!

Aug 24, 2009

Exp: With the enthusiastic assistance of Dizzy, Dave and humbug leave a bewildered Shane in the dust reminiscing about the Fighting Fantasy game-books of yore. Features:

  • Archetypal something
  • Use of your own judgment
  • The abandonment of reason
  • Little cube things
  • Adventurers from another world
  • Skill, stamina and luck
  • Heroic leaping
  • Left turns
  • Waking up hungry
  • Tank of all tanks
  • Library Use
  • What makes it hard
  • F.E.A.R.
  • Big dirty patch of flaying red skin
  • Zap zip zop big or pop
  • Sabre-tooth tiger fur bikini lady
  • The dud option
  • Aliens that look nothing like the alien on the front cover
  • Turning to page 400


Skippy
fourteen and a half years ago

Lone Wolf and Grey Star were great, although they were easier than Fighting Fantasy, I feel. They were very plot-heavy (your PC had a name!), and there was little in the way of collecting things along the way. Decently plotted, though. And they managed to actually make me care about some of the NPCs. Fights were incredibly easy, too, once you got the Sommerswerd (in book 2, wasn\'t it?).

Skyfall was balls hard. Which was the point, if I recall right.

Sebastian
fourteen and a half years ago

These comments are now on the forum: http://www.irishgaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=287

Skippy
fourteen and a half years ago

Fuck yes, Scorpion Swamp.

And that fucking Maze of Zagor.

And I am inclined to think that Jackson is the one that wants you collecting numbers and adding them up, on account of Starship Traveller. Which I think was hardest of the ones I\'ve played, if the Maze of Zagor is disqualified.

Sebastian
fourteen and a half years ago

So many wonderful games. Demons of the Deep. I played that to death. Freeway Fighter (Mad Max) was also loved. My favourite was probably the Forest of Doom which I read in 1988. The character sheet was rubbed out so many times I made holes in it. But the best was probably the Sorcery series. A technical marvel. The weirdest for me was the 2 player one with 2 books. Did you try that one? Something to do with princes? Or the RPG, the Riddling Reaver? That was fun. I didn\'t like Firetop Mountain. Maybe it was too hard for me as a kid.

As an aside, did you ever play the Lone Wolf series? That was one where you advanced over 11 books or something, and your skills got better and better. Great game world. Sommerlund it was called, or something like that. There was 1d10 used, based on a chart in the back of the book. Then there was another set of books, about magic, with Merlin in it. You were called \'Pip\'. Remember that? The puzzles included doing origami and figuring out mathematical problems to solve strange languages. They were the best. (Looking on internet for the name...) Grail Quest!! Wow. That brings back memories. If you haven\'t heard of them, go here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grailquest.

Shane
fourteen and a half years ago

As was no doubt apparent from the episode, I have very little experience with those game-books; however, part of the big stack walling me off from the cool kids was non-Fighting Fantasy books, including Grail Quest, Lone Wolf and others. We immediately recorded a second episode dealing with those, which\'ll drop in a few weeks (want to space them out a big so as not to swamp folks with the one topic).

humbug ran Freeway Fighter at an in-house con as an RPG using the Deadlands: Hell on Earth system. We could go backwards, and talk to people and stuff. Bizarre. It was great though.