This will work with minimal modification on most 80s machines, and here’s a shot of it in action!Įncouraged by my modest success here, I’ve got a crazy idea in my head to write a full Adventure Sheet program, to keep track of all your scores and treasures.

You: “ yst,c$ ”: “ cstġ30 IF yst>0 AND cst>0 THEN LET round=round+1: GO TO 70ġ50 IF cst<=0 THEN PRINT “You killed “ c$ ” in “ round ” rounds.”ġ60 IF yst<=0 THEN PRINT “You were killed in “ round ” rounds.” It worked pretty well, and should you wish to bash said program into the nearest 8-bit computer of your choice, here it is!ħ0 LET cas=csk+(INT (RND*6)+1)+(INT (RND*6)+1)Ĩ0 LET yas=ysk+(INT (RND*6)+1)+(INT (RND*6)+1)ġ20 PRINT round ”. 🙂 This takes the basic battle rules for a single creature, allowing you to input the relevant scores, and it will then simulate each attack round, taking care of the dice rolls, and presenting you with details of the winner. Given that Fighting Fantasy books were released at the height of the home computing boom, I decided to dig out some contemporary technology as a companion to the books, and wrote a little program to automate the fighting of battles. Obviously, if your stamina gets to zero, that’s the end of your adventure this time around. Stamina of zero equals death, so you fight until either you or the creature reach this point. Each time you’re hit, your stamina will drop. If you skill is higher than the creature you’re fighting, you’re likely to kill it, unless your dice rolls are very unlucky. The combat system is simple but effective – your ability to fight is determined by your skill level, and this contributes towards your Attack Strength. I’ll get onto a review of each book in a moment, but I’ll mention some geeky preparation I did first.Īs you may know, these books combine selecting options for what to do next with dice-based combat and luck systems that often determine the direction of your quest (in particular, whether you die at the hands of a monster). My dodgy memory can recall playing Citadel of Chaos back in the day, but the others were completely new to me. It seems infinitely preferable to all the crap in the real world right now.Īnyway, having dug out a list of previously and currently available titles, I picked Citadel of Chaos, City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King. A lot of my friends are into role-playing of some sort, and I fancied escaping into a fictional world and slaying some orcs and dwarves. I’ve written before about playing new and original Fighting Fantasy books, and given my extreme boredom of late in these miserable times, I recently ordered four of the original titles in their Scholastic reprints in order to while away some time.

Fighting fantasy books nicodemus