Competition - The Reminder!

A reminder folks that the deadline for the AFF competition draws closer.

Rules are here: http://fightingfantazine.blogspot.com/2011/05/competition-rules.html

Deadline is June 10th.

Get your entries in!

The Return of Advanced Fighting Fantasy

The new version of Advanced Fighting Fantasy is now available for purchase:

http://shop.cubicle7store.com/Advanced-Fighting-Fantasy-RPG

along with reprints of Out of the Pit and Titan:

http://shop.cubicle7store.com/Out-of-the-Pit
http://shop.cubicle7store.com/Titan

Author Graham Bottley was interviewed in issue #5 and issue #6 features a competition to win copies of the above three titles.

Some recent posts about the return of AFF:

http://virtualfantasies.blogspot.com/2011/05/did-graham-bottley-grant-my-wishes.html
http://www.minient.net/2011/05/advanced-fighting-fantasy-returns/
http://pfcomics.com/2011/05/14/new-game-stuff-3142011/
http://grandexperiment.livejournal.com/153381.html
http://tranquilosonminions.blogspot.com/2011/05/romanos-muertos-y-fantasia-avanzada.html

Reviews of all three books will appear in issue #7 of the magazine later in the year.

Getting Started - The Mini Adventure

As noted in my post on pitching the idea of the magazine, I had floated the idea of including a 200 reference mini adventure in each issue. This was a point that was debated, some unsure that it could be done:

I think it's a great idea! My main concern is size and time constraints. A 200 ref adventure does take a fair amount of time to design, playtest, and write. Also, would the illustrations all be new, or just drawn from previously published FF? [from here]

As the others have said, this might be a bit ambitious, even if it is a worthy aim. I've started loads of FF-style gamebooks, but never finished any of them (yet), even though I think there are some good ideas in there (one of my problems is that they are all so vast in scale they'd need about 800 refs each to do them justice, and that's a hell of a lot of work!). [from here]

I agreed that it was ambitious, but that it could be done. For that reason, I wrote and illustrated the mini adventure that featured in the first issue (Resurrection of the Dead) to demonstrate that it could be done (and not for any ego-boosting reasons!). Whatever the merits of my own adventure, the gamble paid off and we have had an adventure in each issue since.


Here's to more adventures in the future!

Competition - The Rules

Reproducing here the rules for the competition featured in issue #6:

With the new version of Advanced Fighting Fantasy almost upon us, we’ve teamed up with Arion Games and Cubicle 7 Entertainment to give you a chance to win copies of the forthcoming AFF books: Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Out of the Pit and Titan.

To be in to win them, YOUR mission is to pen an original, entertaining, and imaginative short multi-player adventure using the original AFF rules as outlined in Dungeoneer, Blacksand! and Allansia.

Author of the new AFF series Graham Bottley will be judging the entries and picking the winner, who will not only be given copies of the new books, but have their adventure published in a future issue of this magazine for all to play and enjoy.

Criteria for entry:

• Your adventure must feature no more than two locations

• Your adventure must feature no more than five major NPCs (Non-Player Characters) 

• Your adventure must be set somewhere on the world of Titan

• Any maps needed for the adventure are to be supplied by yourself 

• Please keep the length of the adventure to about 10, 000 words

Deadline for entries: June 10th, 2011

Please email your entries along with your postal contact details (using the subject line “AFF Competition Entry”) to:

fightingfantazine@gmail.com

Issue #6 - Published!

Issue #6 has now been published and is available for download here: http://www.unboundbook.org/FightingFantazine/FF6.pdf

Printing password: fanta
92 pages of Fighting Fantasy goodness.

What Shall We Do with a Stylish Blogger?

So Stuart, over at Lloyd of Gamebooks, picked this fledgling blog for the above award. The award comes with the following rules:

1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award.

4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.

1. Done. Do I need to say anymore? Oh, alright... Stuart is busy blogging about gamebooks and what makes them tick. Head over and let the man know what you make of his thoughts.

2. Seven things? I've not even sure there are seven things to know about me, but we'll give it a go.

1. I'm a huge fan of Doctor Who and have been since I joined the local fan club at the end of 1989.

2. My favourite colour is green.

3. I've not met a single person who hasn't described my taste in music as being rubbish. Pick a band/singer you hate and there is a good chance I'll like a song of theirs (as long as I've actually heard of them).

4. I'm a Liverpool supporter.

5. I've recently taken up karate (orange belt here I come).

6. Worked as a porter/chef in the UK and as an English teacher in Japan.

7. I'm a fan of The Goon Show.

3. 10-15 blogs! I'm sort of new to this...

1. Jetsam

2. Tin Man Games

3. nattherat.

4. Fantasy Game Book

5. Unnatural History

6. Fighting Dantasy

7. Turn to 400

That'll do.

Next post will probably be announcing the release of issue #6...

Competition - Sneak Peek

Coming in issue #6 is a competition based around the Advanced Fighting Fantasy (AFF) role-playing system (which gets relaunched next month from Arion Games and Cubicle 7 Entertainment). You will be asked to design an AFF mini adventure (exact requirements for the competition are listed in the forthcoming issue) that will be printed in a later issue of the magazine. Plus, there are some further goodies up for grabs for the winner!

So, get your thinking caps on and fire up your imaginations!

Everything I Need to Know I Learnt from Reading Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks: Part 4 - Sneak Peek

With less than two weeks now till the release of issue #6, it is time for another peek. This time it comes from Ed Jolley's "Everything I Need to Know I Learnt from Reading Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks" series of articles which covers Puffin gamebooks #31~40.

Stealer of Souls

Go charging into the cottage to rescue the prisoner within, and you get a 16-ton weight in the face (note: actual weight may be less Pythonesque). Show caution when approaching the next prisoner you encounter, and this gives the concealed Dark Priest time to hit you with a very nasty spell. Sometimes, the only thing you learn from making mistakes is how to make different ones.

Moral: What works best in one place might not be so suitable for another.

You Have to Start Somewhere

My "Editor's hat" is telling me this should really be an entry in the new "The Magic Quest" column, but I figure since I'm only going to cover a small moment in my journey as a Fighting Fantasy fan that I'm okay and won't have to growl at myself for giving it all away on this blog.

City of Thieves was my first encounter with the Fighting Fantasy series, having been allowed to pluck it from the local bookshop (now a shoe store) shelf in January 1987 for my birthday. Presumably I must have been eyeing up the books before then, otherwise I'm unsure as to why I would have picked the book. 1987 would also be the year I started buying the Target Doctor Who novelisations, but that is a whole different story... Those were great days, with this huge display shelf full of books seemingly aimed at me filled to the brim with Doctor Who, Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf etc.

So, book in hand, I entered the world of Titan and like so many others was quickly enamoured of the artwork of Iain McCaig. The nubile body of the Serpent Queen had an interesting (!) effect on my young male mind, as did the fetching Vampiress elsewhere in the book, and I spent forever at school scribbling away on pieces of paper fruitlessly trying to replicate McCaig's mastery of skulls (evidence of my failure to master them myself is easily seen in my art for Resurrection of the Dead in issue #1). I assume it is because art so immediately grabs one's attention that I tried my hand at that first, as I don't recall any attempts to pen my own adventures at this stage.

The adventure itself was played repeatedly, over and over again. If I recall correctly it was the Hag's hair that eluded me for the longest time till I finally found that entrance to the sewer. Of course, then I needed a Potion of Mind Control... Suffice it to say, the book didn't survive the year. Having been so well loved and read, and its poor spine so utterly creased (which happens when you need to lay the book flat to write on the Adventure Sheet), the book fell apart into chunks. I employed sticky tape to prolong the life of the book, but, after limping along on such life support for a few more months, I finally conceded that the book was indeed beyond salvation. Luckily, I was given a new copy of the same book exactly a year after the first, for the following birthday. It was time to slay Zanbar Bone all over again...

Getting Started - That Cover

A very short post today, but...

I did a little digging and here it is, the cover I originally pitched to the Titan Rebuilding team!