Fighting Fantasy on the iPhone

Where’s Forest of Doom?

Iain McCaig's illustrations for City of Thieves had quite an effect on our nine-year-old minds.

For readers of a certain age, the names Zanbar Bone, Balthus Dire, and Baron Sukumvit will bring back memories of late nights and long car journeys spent flicking through the pages of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.

The series was a true 1980′s phenomenon, bringing a taste of Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplay to youngsters who dreamed of batting monsters in faraway fantasy lands.

Creators Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s classics are now coming to the iPhone, thanks to Canadian developers Big Blue Bubble.

Five Fighting Fantasy titles are in line to be ported, beginning with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in October. Other titles announced are Citadel of Chaos, Deathtrap Dungeon, Creature of Havoc and City of Thieves.

The games are to be straight ports of the books, with original text and illustrations, and the iPhones accelerometer will be used to simulate dice rolls.

The only problem we can see is that the standard FF tactic of using your fingers to keep your place while you cheat by flicking on a few pages will now be consigned to the dustbin. The FF books were often hugely challenging, and without this mainstay we think we’ll be seeing the ‘you are dead’ message more than a few times come October.