1982, and absolute British legends in gaming, Steve Jackson (known for Lionhead studios, and Games Workshop) and Sir Ian Livingstone (known for Games Workship and Eidos Interactive), introduced the world to Fighting Fantasy. A series of gamebooks, these ground-breaking stories offered a way for the reader influence the direction of the story, through a series of decisions and dice rolls, getting the reader to flip between pages, until reaching one of the numerous potential endings.
Fast-forward and we now have Fighting Fantasy adventures making its way to tabletops.
1982, and absolute British legends in gaming, Steve Jackson (known for Lionhead studios, and Games Workshop) and Sir Ian Livingstone (known for Games Workship and Eidos Interactive), introduced the world to Fighting Fantasy. A series of gamebooks, these ground-breaking stories offered a way for the reader influence the direction of the story, through a series of decisions and dice rolls, getting the reader to flip between pages, until reaching one of the numerous potential endings.
Fast-forward and we now have Fighting Fantasy adventures making its way to tabletops.
Designed by Martin Wallace, this solo or co-operative tabletop adventure pays homage to the original books, featuring a number of Fighting Fantasy classics adapted for the game, such as the Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Island of the Lizard King, Deathtrap Dungeon and the Forest of Doom (split into two parts for this set).
This review is spoiler free, but some images may contain content that could spoil the first adventure if you look too closely.
Opening the box/Components
The box is opened to reveal a set of deck boxes (complete with over 500 cards), dice, a combat board and some tokens.
In one of the deck boxes, contains your heroes and their available skill cards. There are some for each level as you progress through each campaign.
The other deck boxes contain the story decks, which are split between encounter cards and dungeon cards. These cards are in a particular order, so players are told not to shuffle them and to place them with their cover cards to avoid sneaking those peaks (that surely most people did at one point or another in the books right?… didn’t they?)
Dice are standard D6’s in two coloured sets of 2, to help differentiate between hero and enemy rolls.
Gameplay
Gameply is simple – in keeping with the classic books themselves. You place a dungeon card and read the corresponding encounter card. The encounter cards tell the story, the dungeon cards build your map that you and your fellow adventurers are exploring. You have a small card token to help keep track of where you are in the dungeon physically, by placing it on the current dungeon position you are in. Each dungeon card also has 1 or more number on the edges, representing the directions you can choose to take. Choose room number 10? Find Dungeon card number 10 down, adjacent to the current dungeon card and enter the new room or location.
As you enter each new location, you have to decide an order of heroes, this can be crucial as sometimes having the right hero enter first can be positive (or disastrous if you choose badly).
Traps and enemies (just like the books) are riddled throughout the adventure and you face these challenges by either simple choices or dice rolls.
Fights are simple. You line up the enemies to face off against each entering hero (in order of entry), then any remaining heroes and can support another hero. Each hero fights by choosing to play any skill cards and rolling dice. Combat is simple to calculate, roll two dice, add you skill level. Then do the same for the enemy, and whoever has the highest value wins, the loser taking damage equal to the difference. Heroes in support positions get additional bonuses in combat also. Once the enemy is defeated, your adventure continues…
Other choices in the game also trigger skill tests, often outlined in the encounter cards, and again the choices you make can be significant… got that tricky trap to disarm, a tasty reduced roll requirement for the scout is very welcome indeed.
Final thoughts
The box says it is “the ideal introduction to adventure gaming”… and it is fair to say Martin Wallace nailed this. Reminiscent of the books, gameplay is simple and easy to learn, so you will picking up and playing in no time. Quick to set up, players shouldn’t feel too overwhelmed with rules and components, giving them a great taste of what a good cooperative tabletop adventure game can be.
Every card is carefully illustrated, offering small details on the cards that you will spot as you go, and may even impact future decisions. Given Martin Wallace adapted a series of classic stories, there will be natural draw for fans of the books, but don’t worry, even if you know the books well you should still very much enjoy exploring the game on your tabletop.
If you have every been curious about adventure and role play games, unsure if they are for you, this may be a great window into that world. Or, if you have nostalgia towards the books, Fighting Fantasy will probably be a great pick for you. Finally, if you are someone who is experienced in tabletop adventure games, but fancy something a little less rules heavy, this is a great pick to scratch that itch without investing hours in planning and set up.
Things worth mentioning and something to consider, is like a lot of adventure games, time to play this is needed. Every game we have played so far has been around 1 and half, to 2 hours in length. Also, don’t expect to win, in fact, be prepared to fail and just enjoy the challenge.
Components are fairly average in quality, but serve their function well enough. But even so, the artwork still shines through.
This a truly fitting tribute to the original books and as a result it can be difficult to separate personal nostalgia from objectivity here. But that is something that should be credited to Martin Wallace. He has managed to carefully capture and stoke that flame of nostalgia, whilst creating a game that that can be played by and enjoyed by friends, families, newer gamers or experienced veterans alike.
We just cannot wait to get stuck into the next adventure in our set!
About the author:
We are Peaches and Meeples, busy professionals who love to chill out to fun table top games. We love board games, card games, miniatures games, competitive or co-operative. Put some dice in our hands and we are in our happy place.
We are also proud guinea pig parents to two lovely fluffballs of joy.
