A mate of mine showed me this site. We were both into these books in the 80s.
Remember writing one together, drawing the map with boxes and decisions which went off to other boxes. Very cool. I'm sure one of us still has the map!
I started playing one of the online ones and you know what? I started to feel the excitement again! (You'd think I'd be too old for it by now).
Very cool site. Blast from the past. I wonder if SJ and IL still write the books, or whether they do it online? Didn't one of them also do Eureka on the C64 and Spectrum? Fantastic game for it's time.

Rich. http://monoecho.com

eva Wed Jul 27 20:36:23 2005	Hi, I was just wondering if the source code for the programming used is available at all? Obviously, this is not for commerical use or anything, but for a programming class - I am trying to create something similar using a very basic gamebook I wrote for a tutorial and don't know where to start. Thanks!
	Sorry, but I do not intend to make the source code available. I doubt that it would be much use for you anyway as it is geared so much towards online play (I assume what you intend is something that will run on a PC not a remote server).

eva Thu Jul 28 19:27:24 2005	You're right, I do want to make something for PC. Thanks anyway. Just wondering - did you find it best to use C/++ or C# or something completely different?
	I used C, this being mainly a personal choice, but also because it is fairly easy to find web hosts that offer C compilers. If I was doing what you are doing I think my choice of language would be driven by how I wanted my user interface to look and what graphics libraries I could find. But I would always try and use C if possible.

Etienne
Tue Aug 2 03:28:29 2005

ADMIN:

About the Luck Combat thing.

Here's how I see it.

If it's complex to implement as a rule, you're the one to judge, I have no programming knowledge whatsoever.

However, if it's rather simple and could be implemented, why not?

Now I understand that your «Gut Feeling» tell you not to allow luck in combat, but is that really reasonable? I mean, if the original books allow luck and you program them, why not implement this feature as well, even if you don't personally agree with it?

I think it should be up to the author to decide how their game is played, shouldn't?

Don't get me wrong, I think this place is really awesome and you do offer something great to the community. I'm certain you are not programming all of this for yourself, which is why I find it strange to be against something that seems to be such in high demand. If it was implemented, people could still refuse to use LUCK in combat, it's not like it's compulsory.

Just some thoughts.

E.

You are attributing things to me that I simply did not say. I suggest you go back and re-read the discussion I had with Phil Sadler. I don't really have anything else to add to that.

It's up to the author to decide whether or not they want their gamebook on my site. But it is up to me alone to decide how I implement it, and I am generally as faithful to the rules as is feasible. If any author subsequently wants their work removed, it will be.

Thanks for the compliment - however bear in mind that this website grew out of a programming project. To some extent, I did write it for myself, and the fact that some people like it is a bonus. I suspect that this is the case for most other websites, and indeed for creative work in general.

Cemal Onur Donmez
Tue Aug 16 08:37:51 2005

Hello,

I have read many of the online gamebooks, and I was wondering how I could put some of my own on this website. If you could tell me it wold be great.

Onur.

There is no mechanism for you to enter your gamebooks for online play. If this is what you want you could try http://www.fightingfantasy.org, but the way it works here is that I take gamebooks and convert them to the online format myself.

If you have written any gamebooks, then by all means send them to me and I will be happy to put them on the downloads page at least. I can't promise an online adaptation, whether that happens depends on how good I think they are, how close the rules are to standard FF, and how much free time I get.

Amirali Sat Aug 20 10:09:58 2005	To the Admin: Thank you for uploading this terrific site. Its given me hours of reading pleasure; my heartfelt compliments and appreciation.
	Thanks very much.

Amirali
Sat Aug 20 10:15:09 2005

And in addition, my thanks to the authors of the books as well for their work, which (in some cases) even exceeds the quality of many of the original fighting fantasy gamebooks

Empty Book Sat Aug 20 18:05:01 2005	Hi! I stumbled accross this place accidentally, and I gotta say it's cool. I was doing some research for making one of these babies out of JavaScript (which I'm still learning), and now I'm wasting my time here instead of poking my code with a big stick. Congratulations on the site. Must've taken a bit of work.
	I think it only took a couple of months to get it up and running originally, but I was unemployed at the time. I don't know much about Javascript, and make only minimal use of it here, but this link may help you in your research: http://www.robinjohnson.f9.co.uk/adventure/hamlet.html. It's a text adventure written in Javascript.

Zagor Tue Aug 30 21:27:40 2005	When I start a adventure my rolls for skill, luck, and stamina are always the same is this normal?
	It's improbable, unless you're playing Lair Of The Troglodytes. If clicking on Reload doesn't solve the problem, maybe clearing the browser cache will.

Zagor
Thu Sep 1 18:22:16 2005

thank you for your help. That worked. I really like this site by the by.

Zanbar Bone
Mon Sep 5 20:59:56 2005

Thanx for your web site. It's been great to experience the world og FF again. I read them all as a kid (years ago it seems). However, what I remember clearest about the books were their visual side. -Their illustrations. My favourite book "city of thieves", I thought, had such a keen sence of invironment not only beacause of its storytelling but also because of the illustrations. I wish these online versions could have more illustrations. That would be cool.

greetz.

I agree. For the first few books I adapted I did try and find pictures, but the process is very time consuming and I eventually lost interest in this activity. Also, I don't really like using artwork without permission, as is generally the case unfortunately.

The ideal situation would be amateur illustrators stepping in - but these seem to be even rarer than amateur gamebook authors.

Warangel Sun Sep 11 23:33:32 2005	Did you know about those: http://www.advancedfightingfantasy.com/amateur1.htm Most of them could be adapted using your system. This is something to think about! Salutations.. W.
	Thanks - yes I am aware of these. Of the ten that are there, I've already done three and one of them in all fairness isn't worth doing. Two more are not really Fighting Fantasy, but the remaining four could be possibilities in future should the writers come forward.

War Angel
Tue Sep 13 02:00:02 2005

I've personnaly tried Death trap dungeon III. I believe it was good enough, although I wouldn't say as good as Hellfire or Riders of The Storm.

I realise that once you've played gamebooks with your system, it's really hard to go back to the old way where you have to write down stuff and roll dice and so on, and turn the pages to find the right paragraph.

W.

Phil Sadler Wed Oct 12 08:10:55 2005	Holy cow, not so much as a single post for an entire month! Has everyone completed all the adventures now and no one has anything new to say? :(
	According to the statistics, the site is more or less as popular as it ever was - that is to say: not particularly. This was always going to be a minority interest thing, but a healthy trickle of visitors are still downloading and playing yours and the other gamebooks, even if they are being quiet about it at the moment.

Ensor42
Fri Oct 14 00:28:45 2005

Wonderful!

This site is a real treasure. I have a complete collection of the original FF books, and to find this site now has re-ignited the old FF passion. I remember, years ago, trying to convert the Deathtrap Dungeon book to play on the Commodore 64, and ended up giving up for the lack of memory available, so I can really appreciate the effort involved in getting these things to run as smoothly as you obviously have.

Sincere thanks for the hours of pleasure I now have to look forward to in playing through these books.

Well I didn't have the problem of trying to get an entire gamebook to fit into 64K. Someone apparently managed it though:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~parsonsp/html/c64_gamebooks.html.

Ensor42
Sun Oct 16 23:45:28 2005

Thanks for the link.

Just tried the C64 version of Citadel of Chaos through an emulator. They did a remarkable job considering, even though the Test your luck function was bugged... They got around the memory problem by using a multiload from disk, allowing sections of the book to be loaded in as needed, and thus not restricting the program to the C64's ram limits. At the time, I was writing the software for tape users - multiload was a nightmare for this - , and also, despite the name, the Commodore 64 did not truly offer 64k in most cases. If any of the program used BASIC for the loader, or the shell for the machine code, as mine did, then you were in trouble. The BASIC interpreter used some of the allotted memory, so you only really had about 38k to play with, for a single one load program.. Ahhh, happy days! lol

Anyway, one small suggestion for this site: might it be possible to inject a little more drama into the combat sections by separating the dice rolls for the player character, and the enemy, rather than displaying it all at once? Just so we could say, like "Oooh, attack strength 12, now, to survive, I need to roll a 7 or lower, Come on!!", etc.

It's a good idea, but I think as Gaetano says below you'd soon get tired of clicking for every dice roll when you're fighting seven opponents.

Gaetano Abbondanza
Wed Oct 26 20:48:17 2005

I'm sure the above suggestion is possible, but it would slow down gameplay, especially during repeated attempts at adventures that require multiple fights.

Name? You think I have a name! Thu Oct 27 21:27:23 2005	I was curious if there are any other sites like this on the internet. Not even fighting fantasy, but something that isn't as simple as a choose-your-own adventure, that I could play online?
	I only know of two : http://www.fightingfantasy.org http://www.spielbuch.net

Name! You think I have a name?
Sat Oct 29 18:16:18 2005

One of those has like nothing, and the other is in German. I realize that I might be asking for more than is avaliable, but not even just gamebooks. Anything you can play with a web brouser that is interactive fiction that is fiarly advanced. Thanks for your help. I apreciate the info you gave me.

Dark
Wed Nov 2 08:49:32 2005

Great site. I use a screen reader and love interactive fanatsy type games, but most of the things on the net I've found that claime to be Rpg's are just fairly dull stat grinding with no actual text content and thus no atmosphere.

I had a running arguement with the British National braille Libruary about producing Fighting Fantasy iin braille, it'd work the same, just take longer to look things up. They totally refused, but now there's this site to fill the gap!

I'm looking forward to playing all the games on this site, and any others you come up with as well. I also can't wait until writing of this style of adventure game becomes more comon among fans, the way Interactive Fiction aka text adventures have.

any other links would be welcome.

also, how do I play the gamebooks that haven't been adapted using your programme? the ones just in Ms word format?

what's the best way of searching for each page number I need to find with out getting spoilers?

(I want to find page 40, not find every place in the book where I'm told to turn to page 40!).

Thanks for your kind words. I've made a mental note to update the links page. It's never going to be an exhaustive list though.

You raise an interesting point regarding searching for the reference numbers. As part of the adaptation process, I save the gamebook as a text file, then put a hash before each reference number. If you had such a file you could search for, say, #100, and you would indeed only find the reference in question and not the routes to it.

Unfortunately I only have one or two of these modified files left. Let me know if you are interested, and I will post what I have.

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