40 Fun Facts About Fighting Fantasy

Iain McCaig, who illustrated Fighting Fantasy's City of Thieves, later designed which Star Wars villain?

Darth Maul and Padmé Amidala were both his designs for The Phantom Menace, years after he painted covers for Ian Livingstone's gamebooks.

Before Fighting Fantasy, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone won an exclusive deal to sell which game in Europe?

Dungeons & Dragons reached them by chance: TSR's Brian Blume was sent their newsletter Owl and Weasel and posted back a copy of his firm's new game.

Fighting Fantasy's Ian Livingstone later chaired Eidos, where he helped secure which video game franchise?

Tomb Raider was one of the major franchises he secured, along with Hitman, and he later contributed to the 2007 remake of the original game.

During a moral panic over Fighting Fantasy, one mother reported that the books made her child do what?

Start to fly was the claim, and the Evangelical Alliance warned that the books would lead players to the devil. Steve Jackson said the authors were grateful, as it helped sales.

Fighting Fantasy's Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone co-founded which tabletop gaming firm in 1975?

Games Workshop began as a mail-order business run from their flat, and their landlord evicted them in 1976 when customers kept turning up looking for a shop.

After Fighting Fantasy, Steve Jackson designed F.I.S.T., a solo role-playing game played on which device?

A telephone was all a player needed: F.I.S.T. stood for Fantasy Interactive Scenarios by Telephone, and is described as the first interactive role-playing game of its kind.

Alongside Skill and Stamina, which third score does a reader roll for a Fighting Fantasy hero?

Luck completes the trio. The rules are so light that a 1996 Arcane magazine poll ranked Fighting Fantasy among the 50 most popular role-playing games of all time.

Which Penguin children's imprint published the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook back in 1982?

Puffin put the book out after a cautious first printing of just 5,000 copies, which quickly sold out. It went on to sell more than two million.

In The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, monsters guard which items needed to claim the treasure?

Keys open a chest with two locks at the end of the adventure. When the series magazine reprinted the story in 1984, it changed the solution and so the route through the mountain.

Which warlock guards his treasure deep inside Firetop Mountain in the very first Fighting Fantasy gamebook?

Zagor proved hard to kill: Ian Livingstone resurrected him for a 1992 sequel that sold so well it prolonged the series for another three years.

Which comedian and children's author wrote a Fighting Fantasy gamebook published in 2018?

Charlie Higson, of The Fast Show and the Young Bond novels, was a long-term fan who had already made a cameo in Ian Livingstone's zombie gamebook of 2012.

Warlock, the Fighting Fantasy magazine, closed in Britain in 1986 but carried on for years in which country?

Japan kept the title alive by expanding it into a general role-playing magazine, long after the British original ended at issue 13.

In The Forest of Doom by Ian Livingstone, the hero hunts for the missing pieces of which weapon?

A warhammer is the prize, wanted by a people battling the trolls. A 1983 review gave the book full marks while warning players not to loot the mage's home.

In Temple of Terror, the five hidden letters that the hero must avoid collecting spell out which word?

DEATH is the trap: finding all five letters kills the hero on the spot. The real goal is a set of five artefacts hidden in the lost desert city of Vatos.

Most Fighting Fantasy gamebooks end in victory at which numbered section, the last in the book?

400 became the standard length, though some broke it: Howl of the Werewolf, voted the best in the series in a 2011 fan poll, ran to 515.

Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook is set in a lawless America after a plague has killed most of the world's population?

Freeway Fighter puts the reader in an armed Dodge Interceptor that must be kept fuelled, on a run to bring a tanker of petrol back to the town of New Hope.

Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook, apparently inspired by Star Trek, was the first in the series set in space?

Starship Traveller strands a captain and crew in another universe after a black hole swallows the ship, and it can be finished without a single fight.

Which Fighting Fantasy world is home to the continents of Allansia, Khul and the Old World?

Titan was mapped only after the fact: the early books were written separately, and their locations were later revealed to share the continent of Allansia.

In City of Thieves, the hero must enter which lawless harbour town to find the wizard Nicodemus?

Port Blacksand is the city of the title, where one reviewer found most encounters potentially lethal. It turns up again in Temple of Terror.

Baron Sukumvit's Trial of Champions, the contest at the heart of Deathtrap Dungeon, is held in which city?

Fang is where six contestants enter the labyrinth, and the book made a bestseller of Ian Livingstone, selling more than 350,000 copies in its first year alone.

Fighting Fantasy's Steve Jackson set up which video game studio with Peter Molyneux in 1997?

Lionhead Studios tempted him back to making games after a spell as a newspaper games journalist. He left in 2006, when Microsoft bought the company.

Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook was written by the American Steve Jackson, not the British co-creator?

Scorpion Swamp was the first book in the series from an outside author, letting readers roam freely and pick one of three missions: good, evil or neutral.

Which evil wizard rules the castle that the hero must infiltrate in Steve Jackson's The Citadel of Chaos?

Balthus Dire can be reached only by a hero who gathers the right artefacts to get past his guardians, and the book was the first in the series to let readers cast spells.

Which good wizard first appears in The Forest of Doom and later recruits the hero in Temple of Terror?

Yaztromo, the wizard of Darkwood Forest, features in several of Ian Livingstone's gamebooks. In Temple of Terror he sends the hero to stop a sorcerer raised by dark elves from ruling Allansia.

In City of Thieves, the village of Silverton hires the hero to defeat which lord of the undead?

Zanbar Bone, known as the Night Prince, has a single weakness, and the hero must first track down the one wizard who knows what it is.

Which publisher relaunched Fighting Fantasy in 2017 with new artwork and a new Ian Livingstone adventure?

Scholastic timed the relaunch for the series' 35th anniversary, 22 years after the original publisher had brought the first run to an end.

In Steve Jackson's Sorcery! gamebooks, the hero sets out from Analand to recover which stolen artefact?

The Crown of Kings gives its wearer magical powers of leadership, and the Archmage of Mampang Fortress plans to use it to unite a lawless region and invade his neighbours.

In which Fighting Fantasy gamebook does the reader begin as a mindless beast, unable to make choices?

Creature of Havoc leaves early moves to chance until the beast finds the Vapour of Reason. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone put its popularity down to its difficulty.

Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook casts the reader as a superhero called the Silver Crusader?

Appointment with F.E.A.R. swaps gold and potions for Hero Points and clues, and lets the reader pick one of four sets of superpowers before fighting crime.

Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook, set on the continent of Khul, gives the hero Honour points?

Sword of the Samurai ends the adventure at once if Honour ever falls to zero, so helping those in need matters as much as winning fights.

Crystal of Storms made which video game writer Fighting Fantasy's first female author in 2020?

Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, had already won a Writers' Guild award for her script for the game Overlord.

What did Steve Jackson's Sorcery! gamebooks print at the foot of every page for readers to flick to?

Dice images meant the books could be played on the move without the real thing, and the main series borrowed the trick for its reissues from 2002.

Which Fighting Fantasy horror gamebook was given a different title for its American edition?

House of Hell went on sale in the United States as House of Hades. The adventure had begun as a shorter story in the series' own magazine before being expanded.

Ian Livingstone edited which gaming magazine, which gave the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook full marks?

White Dwarf was a title he chose because it suited both science fiction and fantasy, naming a kind of star as well as a fantasy character.

Which Scottish-born artist drew the interior illustrations for the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook in 1982?

Russ Nicholson kept illustrating the series into the 1990s, fitting the work around a full-time career as an art teacher and college lecturer.

Which lost Fighting Fantasy gamebook, cancelled as the sixtieth title, finally appeared in 2006?

Bloodbones follows a hunt for revenge on an undead pirate-lord, and its author called it his personal favourite of the gamebooks he had written.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain began as a short demo adventure submitted to Penguin under which title?

The Magic Quest was accepted, but the authors spent a further six months expanding the idea, and several rewrites followed before publication.

Which 1989 book by Steve Jackson was the first Fighting Fantasy novel rather than an interactive gamebook?

The Trolltooth Wars opened a run of seven novels set in the gamebooks' world, the last of them published in 1994.

Which author of seven Fighting Fantasy gamebooks also wrote You Are the Hero, a history of the series?

Jonathan Green wrote the final gamebook of the original run in 1995, and later co-wrote Steve Jackson's 40th anniversary adventure.

In March 1983, Fighting Fantasy gamebooks filled all of the top three places on which newspaper's bestseller list?

The Sunday Times list was swept the year after the first book appeared, and the series went on to sell more than 15 million copies.