The Fighting Fantasy ‘choose your own adventure’ series of books will be familiar to many gamers who grew up in the 1980s (and possibly 1990s) with memories of making your own decisions through the non-linear storylines, flicking through to the appropriate pages and rolling dice during the frequent battles. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was the book that started them all, and Tin Man Games are hoping to bring a digital version to life via Kickstarter.
A first-person shooter version of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was released on the Nintendo DS several years ago, but this new iteration promises to a far more faithful adaption. Your character progresses through the various dungeons and passageways, pausing every so often when a decision needs to be made. Combat takes place through the custom GridBluff fighting system with both you and your opponents making your moves at the same time – although it’s worth noting an alternative dice rolling combat system is available for purists (although without the option to cheat and re-roll as I did as a youngster).
Graphically the environments look fairly impressive, although the decisions to use static character models (actual scans of figurines by Otherworld Miniatures) could be quite divisive. Many gamers will also be fans table top fantasy games and will relish seeing and collecting this digital figures, but it is quite comical to see these non-articulated characters bouncing around the environments.
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is already nearing the end of pre-production with an estimated release date of April 2016. Backers should feel safe in pledging towards the Kickstarter as Tin Man Games have released over 30 digital gamebooks since 2008 – including eight Fighting Fantasy adaptions since they started working with the original creators of Fighting Fantasy, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, in 2012. In fact backers pledging at least $7 will also receive two of the existing Fighting Fantasy digital gamebooks.
The target goal of $16,100 for The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was achieved within 36 hours of the Kickstarter campaign starting and with four weeks to go it will just be a case of seeing how many of the stretch goals can be reached before the campaign ends.
Track the progress of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
