What was your first FF gamebook?

[CharlesX]

Feel free to mention other gamebook series such as CYOA.
   My first FF was Creature Of Havoc. The foreign, fantastic cover drew me in, as well as the length and interesting blurb. Creature Of Havoc had a strong atmosphere, and was rich, and well-written; although the missing reference directions annoyed me a lot as a 10YO!
   One of the first CYOA I bought was Deadwood City, set in the wild west. It was definitely one of the better CYOA, because CYOA, like FF, has gems, stones, and turds.

[a moderator]

The first FF book I owned was City of Thieves. 

The first FF book I played was a classmate's copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

The first gamebook I owned/played was Skyjacked, from the Tracker Books series. About as different from TWoFM as you can get, except for the way the later part of the book involves lots of wandering around a maze of subterranean tunnels, and the 'partial success' ending where the bad guys are defeated but the loot remains inaccessible.

[tyrion]

Warlock of firetop mountain. Borrowed it from the local library. I remember going in one time to borrow it again, but someone else had it. I was gutted.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Deathtrap Dungeon, bought from the Puffin Book Club in 1984 when the Club catalogue was being introduced in schools.
It was the cover that drew me in, in the first place. And the interactive nature of the book was like nothing I'd seen before.

[philsadler]

Deathtrap Dungeon. I was in a new school about 35 years ago and in the reading lesson. When the teacher told us to 'get a book to read' I followed the boys and they all chose something with a green spine, and so did I.

[terrysalt]

The first FF I ever read was Appointment with FEAR. No idea what the first gamebook was. I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure series as a little kid but I couldn't tell you the name of a single one I owned back then.

[dragonwarrior8]

Warlock of Firetop Mountain for me also. My mom took me to a local used bookstore on a rainy stormy day and said I could get one book. Once I saw that classic original cover and that you needed dice to play I was hooked. Will never forget that day.

[The Count]

Mine was either Temple of Terror or Demons of the Deep as I got them both from the Library on the same day and I can't remember which one I read first - I think Scorpion Swamp was the third one but it could have been something else.

First one I bought was probably Vault of the Vampire.

[kieran]

Forest of Doom for me. I agonised for ages in the bookshop between it and Battleblade Warrior before the illustration of Yaztromo's tower tipped the balance for me. You would think I would have got Battleblade Warrior next but it was quite a while before I picked that one up. No, I can't recall why I became less interested in it.

My first gamebook was Dave Morris' Knightmare novella/gamebook The Forbidden Gate which I picked up in a school book fair, not knowing it contained a gamebook or even knowing what a gamebook was. That spurred me on to seek other gamebooks and thus the dilemma between Forest and Battleblade.

[CharlesX]

Dec 18, 2021 23:06:47 GMT kieran said:

Forest of Doom for me. I agonised for ages in the bookshop between it and Battleblade Warrior before the illustration of Yaztromo's tower tipped the balance for me. You would think I would have got Battleblade Warrior next but it was quite a while before I picked that one up. No, I can't recall why I became less interested in it.

My first gamebook was Dave Morris' Knightmare novella/gamebook The Forbidden Gate which I picked up in a school book fair, not knowing it contained a gamebook or even knowing what a gamebook was. That spurred me on to seek other gamebooks and thus the dilemma between Forest and Battleblade.

I liked the Knightmare gamebooks.. I got into them after getting a handful of CYOA books. Knightmare has been discussed at length elsewhere, but my own penny is I prefer the later gamebooks, after number one, with their increasing sophistication in terms of die-rolling, puzzle-solving, length and 'flesh' in the rules.

[vastariner]

First one I played was Deathtrap Dungeon, borrowed from a friend at school.

First one I bought was Lizard King, the original edition without the green spine and with the starsplash no. 7 on the cover. I worked my way back from there.

I remember I got it from Safeways, the supermarket, which had books on the bottom shelf below the freezers, for some reason.

[kieran]

Dec 18, 2021 23:16:14 GMT CharlesX said:

Knightmare has been discussed at length elsewhere, but my own penny is I prefer the later gamebooks, after number one, with their increasing sophistication in terms of die-rolling, puzzle-solving, length and 'flesh' in the rules.

Agreed. The earlier ones stuck too rigidly to the TV series - they were dull and too mechanical. The later ones barely had any connection to the series but were much better gamebooks.

[peasantscribbler]

The first FF that I played was The Citadel of Chaos, which I borrowed from a friend. It was also the first FF at which I cheated to win, as I resorted to asking my friend how to get past the Ganjees.

I played a lot of Choose Your Own Adventure books--I'd say at least the first 25--before being introduced to FF. I never really went back to them after I got hooked on FF. I think the first CYOA that I read was The Cave of Time, but I don't remember for sure.

[Wilf]

First played was The Citadel Of Chaos. I got burned by the Devlin in the kitchen.

First bought was Caverns Of The Snow Witch, which must have been a brand new title at the time.

To this day, my favourite FF monsters include Wheelies, Rhino Men, Brain Slayers, and Ganjees.

[zxcvbn]

First FF - Demons of the Deep
First adventure book - Dinobot War

[schlendrian]

First FF read was Sword of the Samurai, one of three that our school library had (Masks and Demons being the other two).
First FF owned was if I recall correctly a book collecting Citadel, City and Seas in one volume.
First gamebook was a book called "Die Ruine".

[daredevil123]

My first FF book was Warlock. I remember sitting down with my Dad to play it as he explained the rules.

My first gamebook was the Endless Quest book Dungeon of Dread, in which I was killed by a Minotaur (a creature which features in Warlock too, of course). I seem to have had a thing for books which were the first in their respective series.

[petch]

I honestly can't remember my first one. I think it was either Scorpion Swamp or City of Thieves. I do have an early childhood memory of trying to map the whole of Scorpion Swamp with my friend Philip, and generally making a bad job of it. Mainly because Philip kept screwing around and including branches off to clearings that contained robots and other stuff that wasn't in the book, and I was trying to do it properly.

My first gamebook was The Magic Path, one of the CYOA aimed at younger readers, that I got from a Weetabix promotion.

[farhad]

House of Hell, from the school library, was my introduction to Adventure Gamebooks. I then bought Citadel of Chaos, and these two books remain my top two to this day.

[sylas]

Technically House of Hell. It was my older sister's copy and I was about 7. I couldn't read much of it as I got too scared and didn't go back to it (or any gamebook) for years. I remember hating accidentally flicking to or past 236. Ironic that I'm now a Horror fan. The first I read and completed was Forest of Doom. The first I bought was Portal of Evil and this one remains one of my favourites.

[sleepyscholar]

First FF almost certainly Warlock, but borrowed not bought.

First solo adventure was probably in a fanzine such as Trollcrusher, in 1978-1979. Those early fanzine solos were very different to FF in many respects.

[schlendrian]

In what ways? (Other than using a full fledged RPG system ofc)

[sleepyscholar]

Mar 20, 2022 16:12:26 GMT schlendrian said:

In what ways? (Other than using a full fledged RPG system ofc)

Obviously, much shorter, and if memory serves, employing minimal gamebook 'tricks' (codewords etc). You're right that the use of a full RPG system had a big effect: it was far more the point than in gamebooks, even in FF (the closest would probably be the Robin of Sherwood books, in which they were designed to have an RPG system that would subsequently be published -- though of course actually wasn't). Moreover they tended to lack the plot elements of FF -- that of course became more important as FF went on; they were effectively dungeons, akin to the 'maze' sections of earlier FF, and so decisions were largely procedural ('right or left' etc). Personally, I was much more impressed with the Underworld Oracle Halls of Testing, which were two-person adventures, where one person was the ref and the other was undergoing a sort of initiation test. I think this idea could conceivably have been adapted for gamebooks, though there are obvious logistical problems compared with a solo format.

[misomiso]

I think it was Stealer of SOuls. I really liked the cover.

The Adventure was quite easy but overall very well designed I think.

[aggsol]

The German translation of Citadell of Chaos and I hated it :-) I returned to my Lone Wolf books. But the printing of dice at the bottom of the page really stuck with me.

[MacZidane]

Warlock of Firetop Mountain way back in 1982. Kid from school had a copy and we played it during a free period at school. Was so hooked by it, pestered my folks to buy it for me, and so it began.

And almost 40 years later, Assassins of Allansia and Crystal of Storms arrived through the post today.

Only Magehunter and Deathmoor short of a full collection (in terms of having one of each book that is). I suspect many will be the same with these missing entries.

[natwa]

My first FF gamebook was "Citadel of Chaos", which I borrowed from my school library when I was in sixth grade, in a version that was translated into my native language. I really enjoyed that and before the end of the year, I'd read all the first three FF gamebooks in my native language.

 When it comes to my first ever gamebook, the chronology is a bit hazy, but I think it was the CYOA "The Underground Kingdom", which I bought in a Danish Translation while on summer holiday in Denmark with the rest of my family, probably just before I started in sixth grade(if it's not that gamebook, it's "Citadel of Chaos").  The first FF gamebook that I owned was "Forest of doom", in a version translated into my native language, like "Citadel of Chaos".

 But the first ever gamebook/Choose your own adventure-style story that I read was a Mickey Mouse(and Goofy) comic story which used the gamebook/Choose Your Own Adventure structure. Even though that story was much shorter than all the gamebooks I tried later, it really whetted my appetite for that kind of story, so much that discovering both CYOA and FF felt really magical.

[slloyd14]

My first FF gamebook was Talisman of Death. I got it at a Christmas fair. I could have got Scorpion Swamp, but I only chose Talisman. I was hooked since then.

[The Editor (Alex B)]

"City of Thieves", which I chose as a birthday present in 1987. For me to have known what I wanted - I marched into the bookshop and sought out those green spines! - I must have been exposed to FF prior to that but I have no memory of how I came into contact with the series.

[misomiso]

Stealer of Souls!