Ah...Hellfire. I now understand all those previous comments. I actually did pretty well until I got to the infamous wall and went what the? The key to success is...nasty...as you have to do something that is really against type. Also, why would X only give Y and not Z if about to you know what? Anyways. Doing pretty well and used the scroll at the river but I've yet to get back to it and see if a revisit provides a solution. At any rate, it's fun.

asgardian
Fri Jun 30 05:20:33 2006

On Hellfire, does anyone know exactly WHERE these rusty gauntlets can be found? I'm guessing it is an area that requires a scroll to open, but so far no luck.

Gamebook Fanatic
Fri Jun 30 11:53:22 2006

I don't know how I can pinpoint the exact location to you without drawing out a whole map. Besides, I haven't played it for a while now so my memories may not be too accurate. As far as I can remember:

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I heard that the location isn't quite the same as the one in the original Word Doc. Not too sure about that though, since I never actually completed the Word version.

asgardian
Sat Jul 1 01:13:24 2006

Well, I've finished Hellfire. Quite a challenge with a great many red herrings. Stray from the path and miss a crucial item and it's over. Still, I think there are a few things that are decidedly unfair:

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That said, a good read.

dark ranger
Sun Jul 16 11:03:44 2006

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Hi.
i really like hellfire, but hell i just couldn't get past that river of acid, and after all that way! frown.
the first couple of times i tried i got done by the wall of hellfire, but still felt lousy killing the chaos guard.
trial of allibars was fun, again kept on getting to the end but dyed because of the fire.
i am now actually writing various game books myself, that when are finished possibly submit.
ranger.

Shieldless in Hellfire
Sat Oct 21 08:25:17 2006

Hi.
Can anyone give me a clue as to where I can find the black shield in Hellfire? I've mapped out the game up to the point where the Trinitor asks you for it. Where do I obtain it?
Thanks

Phil Sadler
Sat Oct 21 08:56:07 2006

Black shield:

SPOILER

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Shieldless in Hellfire
Sun Oct 22 04:07:55 2006

Thanks Phil.
Now I have another problem

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Who can help me?

Phil Sadler
Sun Oct 22 07:46:27 2006

The wall:

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Phil Sadler
Mon Dec 25 00:02:53 2006

I thought that I’d give my own little Christmas present to our little circle of FF fans! It’s nothing much though so don’t get too excited. In fact it’s just a few notes about the conception of Hellfire and some titbits about some of the things never made it in the book. Be warned though that it will contain spoilers (the major ones of which are already hidden below), so don't read unless you have either already completed it or are at your wit's end and don't care anymore ;)

Firstly, the FF book that inspired me the most was Deathtrap Dungeon. This explains the abundance of precious stones you come across and some of the encounters such as the Bloodbeast, Pit Fiend, Manticore, Ninja and so on. However, until now no one but myself was aware that, at one point, the Mirror Demon used to appear. In the original hand-written text, she replaced the Night Horror, which explains why you meet the Horror in front of a giant mirror and also

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So why did this replacement of creatures take place? Well, as I was writing the adventure I had a list of ‘must have’ creatures that I was determined to have you meet in the quest at one point and one of these was the Night Horror. Suffice to say that when it came to placing him somewhere I suddenly realised that I’d already gone way over my self-imposed reference limit of 499 and quite simply had no more room to put him in. So I decided to replace someone else and that someone had to be near the end of the quest so that the Night Horror could retain some sort of ‘boss’ status. In the end the choice was quite clear: it had to be the Mirror Demon because she was ideally placed and was never that impressive as a ‘boss’ creature.

DD also influenced the idea of the Trinitour constantly taunting you and occasionally appearing now and again. I say this because I liked the idea of you not being alone in DD but that there were several other people in there with you. I didn’t want to just do exactly the same thing though because I feel that would have been a bit of a cop-out. So I did the next best thing and have the ‘boss’ constantly talk to you.

Fans off Deathtrap Dungeon may also remember a red line somewhere in that book that you were advised to drop your weapons before crossing (only to have to face a Ninja unarmed if you did just that!). In my book the same fans may have notice a piece of stretched skin at one point in the quest that advised you to leave your weapons! So I blatantly used the same idea but implemented it rather differently. I also used a similar idea for the various other signs throughout such as “Too a slow death” or “Come this way” or whatever they happened to be.

However it was not DD that influenced the items that you needed to ascertain, in this case it was in fact Temple of Terror. In ToT you had to find 5 essential artefacts for the final fight (and a few more were needed here and there). I knew my book was longer and so decided that the reader would need 6 artefacts (and a few more here and there, of course). Moreover, rather than just having these items be rather boring ‘Dragon artefacts’ such as those in ToT I decided to make them a bit more interesting and each would have a very specific use in the final fight. I then put each of these artefacts far apart from each other, spread somewhere throughout the adventure and have each guarded in some way, but not always by a monster because that may have got boring. ToT is of course where I also took the Night Horror from as well as the Giant Centipede and others.

Speaking of artefacts we come to the acquisition of variously coloured keys. Do you remember the crystal key? Well in the original text version the key did not appear at all and this was quite deliberate. I’m afraid to say that it was influenced by the poor feature in an otherwise good book: Midnight Rogue. You see there were anti-cheat mechanisms in it that manifested themselves as seemingly good ways to gain something but just led to a “You cheat!” passage. Well that’s what I would have called anyone who attempted to use the previously non-existent crystal key on the final door. Then I realised that this would piss off honest readers who would have constantly searched in vain for something that wasn’t there in the first place. This also ties in with the ‘hot cavern’

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I was even a little influenced by the horrible Crypt of the Sorcerer in that the Gargantuis appears. Unfortunately I was also influenced by it in another much worse way and a way in which garnered some of the most complaints about my book.

Phil Sadler
Mon Dec 25 00:06:23 2006

And so I continue having messed up the last spoilers! Anyway, the most complaints:

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Hey, don’t blame me after all – blame Crypt of the Sorcerer!

We all remember the wall of Hellfire, don’t we? Well did you know that it comes almost exactly half way through the book? Anyway it had to be a tough obstacle because that’s where I got the title of the book from after all. It used to be even tougher though, much tougher. In the first, unedited version, you had the same choice of options but when you chose a wrong one you had to fight one of 3 very powerful creatures (skill of 11 if I remember rightly). If you killed one of these creatures do you know what your reward would have been? Nothing. You would have been killed anyway. I can’t for the life of me remember what made me come up with that awful idea in the first place. I can’t even remember if it was an FF book or not, but I have an inkling that it may have been Scorpion Swamp! Well, what ever it was I’m glad I left it out of the final version.

Does anyone remember the infamous Password Door? Well, in the original text version the White Dragon never appeared at all and was in fact a Hell Demon instead (one of my favourite enemies). It was only after editing that I realised that there was no mention of a kriss knife anywhere in the text and had never been put there in the first place because I simply forgot about it! Well, by this time I was trying to lose references, not add them and so knew I had to replace the poor Hell Demon with something else and the White Dragon seemed to be one of the few creatures with similar statistics so it made it in the final text. This was good though because it aloud me to get in another reference to one of the other FF books I loved a child: Caverns of the Snow Witch (the Night Stalker and the Crystal Warrior also make an appearance at some point). I’ll always remember that book because my friend gave it to me for free when I was very young!

What about the giant mirror though and the Soul Demon that steps through it? Which FF book influenced me there? Well, none of them. I was actually one of the Way of the Tiger books that helped me out there. In one of those adventures you met an Old One who conjured a perfect version of you out of thin air; sound familiar?

What of the Trinitour’s personal bodyguard: The Abomination? Well it was the excellent Dead of Night that I have to thank for that, not to mention the hideous abomination of its own, whose fantastic description helped me realise just the sort of creature that would be guarding the boss. It was also Dead of Night that helped me make my decision to include the Night Demon at the end of the book. I did this for two reasons. Firstly, DoN featured a Snake Demon and I liked the idea of going up against a Prince of Hell. Secondly, I’m not sure if any of the Night Demons ever actually appeared in a previous FF book and if they did then I somehow missed them.

But what of the Trinitour himself? Well I’m not sure but I like the idea that the dungeon was a bit of a maze and at the centre of every good maze there is a Minitour. As for the name “Trinitour”, well it just sounded good.

As for the ending of the book, well, I was sick and tired of every gamebook known to man to finish with a stomach-turning happy ending where everything was fine and everyone was happy forever after. I simply wanted to change that. I wanted an ending that sticks in the player’s mind long after he has completed it, even if he doesn’t necessarily like it all that much!

Let’s have a quick look at the number of unavoidable fights In the book (15). Compare this to the following:

Deathtrap Dungeon: 15
Temple of Terror: 20
Island of the Lizard King: 20

And it doesn’t seem such a bad total, particularly when you realise that it's almost 100 references longer than they are.

What of the Instant Deaths though? Mine had 38 but what of the others:

Deathtrap Dungeon: 32
Temple of Terror: 24
Creature of Havoc: 47

Seems a reasonable total considering the increased length of the book, but perhaps still a few too many.

In summing up I would like to say that even I, the author, struggle to complete this book on anything less than a Skill of 11 (and on that occasion I had a passable Stamina of 18 but a Luck of only 8. Suffice to say that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done with a Skill of 10 (or even a 9 if most things go your way!) especially if your Luck and Stamina are good and hold true and you have fortunate rolls of the dice. To put things in perspective I have always struggled to complete Deathtrap Dungeon on anything less than a Skill of 12, and even on that occasion I had a Stamina of 23 and a Luck of 12! I also maintain that to complete either Island of the Lizard Ki

Phil Sadler
Mon Dec 25 00:07:39 2006

King or Caverns of the Snow Witch you’ll have a hard time with anything less than a Skill of 12 too, and a damn high Stamina to boot and, in the case of CotSW a very high Luck also.

I hope that you have enjoyed my waffling and musings. Now may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas!

Adam
Tue Aug 14 22:09:57 2007

Can anyone help me with hell fire?

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thanks!

Phil Sadler
Wed Aug 15 07:42:07 2007

Adam - "can anyone help me with hell fire"?

Ridlle girl:

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Adam
Wed Aug 15 12:49:58 2007

I see, thanks Phil. Just wanted to say im well impressed with Hellfire (I think if the adventures are too easy whats the point?). I know quite a few people who are in the same frame of thinking. I was introduced to this site specifically because of the suppossed quality of Hellfire, and i agree completely of course. Basically Phil your getting yourself a small fanbase lol. I dont know if thats any inspiration to write another gamebook but I thought id mentionit anyway.

Cheer

Phil Sadler
Wed Aug 15 18:22:15 2007

*Blush* Thank you for the compliment. Unfortunately I am well aware that there are plenty of people who don't like the book as well. The trouble is that it was too hard for most and this webpage makes it even harder!

Shadow Dragon
Fri Aug 17 11:57:44 2007

I thought it was interesting myself. Took me several play throughs to beat it, and even then I had to use a lot of bookmarking and place saving because I kept missing crucial items. It took me so long to figure out the part with the acid river at the end, I can't even tell you how many times I thought I had it figured out only to get to the end again and die. And riders of the storm. Dude, that final battle was absolutely, without question brilliant. More FF bosses should be like that.

naskocom
Wed Sep 12 10:44:55 2007

Hi all , i am new here . Complimets for the site its very good. I am now reading Hellfire and i must cheers the author the book is good. I am stuck at some places but that makes the game more interesting . Cheers all

Jordan
Fri Sep 14 23:46:49 2007

Hey, all. I've been playing hellfire for awhile, but always end up dying. I recently got the time spell, and teleported myself back, but when I find the stone door, it won't open with the open door spells. Any suggestions? Also, any hints on riders of the storm?
Are there anymore interactive sites like this one?

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