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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 28, 2016 6:08:21 GMT
Thread to talk about issue #16.
I'm on the hunt for material for the issue!
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Apr 28, 2016 7:24:55 GMT
Do you need a mini-gamebook for this issue?
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 28, 2016 9:35:18 GMT
Do you need a mini-gamebook for this issue? No, that's all done and illustrated even! Thanks for the offer though. In need of articles however (& reviews when we're closer to publication time).
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Apr 28, 2016 10:20:45 GMT
How about an article on the best instant deaths throughout the books?
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 28, 2016 20:31:45 GMT
How about an article on the best instant deaths throughout the books? Sounds intriguing. Knock something together to have a look at and we'll go from there.
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Post by philsadler on Apr 29, 2016 8:33:54 GMT
Are you interested in anything related to amateur works? I've just finished a sequel to House of Hell and I could do with a bit of publicity.
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Post by offm on Apr 29, 2016 23:54:13 GMT
Alex i got an idea too, if i may .. , you could talk about gamebooks translated to other languages , an or foreign gamebooks , France is for example an long time aim market on this and there is a superb gamebook(in my opinion) called Sons of Urizime , and spain is snowly starting to get involved on this with quality projects i remember for example cubus games and the frankentein wars project
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 30, 2016 4:33:31 GMT
Are you interested in anything related to amateur works? I've just finished a sequel to House of Hell and I could do with a bit of publicity. Sorry, beyond the amateur adventure each issue, the answer is no.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 30, 2016 4:42:09 GMT
Alex i got an idea too, if i may .. , you could talk about gamebooks translated to other languages , an or foreign gamebooks , France is for example an long time aim market on this and there is a superb gamebook(in my opinion) called Sons of Urizime , and spain is snowly starting to get involved on this with quality projects i remember for example cubus games and the frankentein wars project We covered the history of French gamebooks in issue #3, the German in #9, Italian in #12, and have articles about the history of Portuguese/Brazllian and Spanish gamebooks being looked at. Plus, we try to cover foreign gamebooks in our news section. If you have news on non-English gamebooks being published (anything since Jan 2015) then you should let me know so I can try and squeeze it into the news section. Beyond that, if you want to talk about non-English gamebooks, you have to find a "hook" to hang an article on. You can't just say these books have been published (that's what the news section is for) or that they're great (that's what the reviews section is for). You need to find something to talk about in an essay-sort-of-way. ie. Find something that thematically links the books. If they're non-Enlighs books, perhaps find something in them all that speaks to the social thoughts/concerns of that culture. (i.e.. (and this is a ludicrous example that I've made up off the top of my head) French gamebooks are *really* concerned about food and you'd do an article looking at examples of this and the implications/ramifications) I hope I'm making sense.
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Post by philsadler on Apr 30, 2016 11:44:05 GMT
What about a little "how to write an FF book" segment?
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Apr 30, 2016 20:49:42 GMT
What about a little "how to write an FF book" segment? We ran a multi-part article by Andrew Wright on the very thing in some early issues.
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Post by offm on Apr 30, 2016 22:36:34 GMT
Alex i got an idea too, if i may .. , you could talk about gamebooks translated to other languages , an or foreign gamebooks , France is for example an long time aim market on this and there is a superb gamebook(in my opinion) called Sons of Urizime , and spain is snowly starting to get involved on this with quality projects i remember for example cubus games and the frankentein wars project We covered the history of French gamebooks in issue #3, the German in #9, Italian in #12, and have articles about the history of Portuguese/Brazllian and Spanish gamebooks being looked at. Plus, we try to cover foreign gamebooks in our news section. If you have news on non-English gamebooks being published (anything since Jan 2015) then you should let me know so I can try and squeeze it into the news section. Beyond that, if you want to talk about non-English gamebooks, you have to find a "hook" to hang an article on. You can't just say these books have been published (that's what the news section is for) or that they're great (that's what the reviews section is for). You need to find something to talk about in an essay-sort-of-way. ie. Find something that thematically links the books. If they're non-Enlighs books, perhaps find something in them all that speaks to the social thoughts/concerns of that culture. (i.e.. (and this is a ludicrous example that I've made up off the top of my head) French gamebooks are *really* concerned about food and you'd do an article looking at examples of this and the implications/ramifications) I hope I'm making sense. you are making perfect sense it's me that is not dedicating the time to gamebooks that they diserve.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 1, 2016 14:31:13 GMT
What about a little "how to write an FF book" segment? We ran a multi-part article by Andrew Wright on the very thing in some early issues. Are those issues still available?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on May 1, 2016 16:26:35 GMT
We ran a multi-part article by Andrew Wright on the very thing in some early issues. Are those issues still available? They're here: www.fightingfantazine.co.uk/back.html (As it's an unsociable hour where Alex is.)
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 1, 2016 17:15:50 GMT
Cheers, Mudworm! I'll give them a read.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on May 1, 2016 19:09:59 GMT
(As it's an unsociable hour where Alex is.) It's always an unsociable hour where I am!
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Post by yeancientone on May 26, 2016 14:10:48 GMT
How about Women of Fighting Fantasy? The books may be rather male oriented (and that's another debate) but YOU do meet some interesting female characters on the way. Off the top of my head, the Snow Witch from Caverns of the Snow Witch and the jungle tribe queen from Bloodbones. We could discuss the typical roles they play and which ones are our favorites.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 26, 2016 15:17:26 GMT
How about Women of Fighting Fantasy? The books may be rather male oriented (and that's another debate) but YOU do meet some interesting female characters on the way. Off the top of my head, the Snow Witch from Caverns of the Snow Witch and the jungle tribe queen from Bloodbones. We could discuss the typical roles they play and which ones are our favorites. Not a bad idea, but just an overview of some of the more interesting secondary characters with an even male and female mix would be interesting. I think there have been gamebooks aimed more towards the female market, but gaming is more of a male pastime traditionally. Of course, female geekdom has grown considerably since the days of FF's glory. If the gamebook community was as strong now as it was back then I suspect female interests would be better represented in gamebooks.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on May 28, 2016 1:39:20 GMT
How about Women of Fighting Fantasy? The books may be rather male oriented (and that's another debate) but YOU do meet some interesting female characters on the way. Off the top of my head, the Snow Witch from Caverns of the Snow Witch and the jungle tribe queen from Bloodbones. We could discuss the typical roles they play and which ones are our favorites. You would need to find something to link it all together with. e.g. do an article that argues that female characters are underrepresented in FF and when they do appear they only hit negative stereotypes
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on May 28, 2016 1:42:42 GMT
I think there have been gamebooks aimed more towards the female market, Yeah, and the example I can think of off the top of my head ( Starlight Adventures) is terrible and hit all the clichés you'd expect from material *aimed* at girls as opposed to telling great stories that use female heroes and treat female secondary characters well.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 28, 2016 7:15:18 GMT
I think there have been gamebooks aimed more towards the female market, Yeah, and the example I can think of off the top of my head ( Starlight Adventures) is terrible and hit all the clichés you'd expect from material *aimed* at girls as opposed to telling great stories that use female heroes and treat female secondary characters well. There's perhaps something to be gained from an article dealing with women in Fighting Fantasy, then, and perhaps with women in gamebooks in general. Of course, we can't always be sure that the protagonist of most Fighting Fantasy books is male. I think that's been discussed elsewhere. Perhaps there has been too few female gamebook writers.
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Post by outspaced on May 28, 2016 9:45:17 GMT
Many years ago, I wrote a brief review/overview of the Starlight Adventures series that's up on on the series' Gamebooks.org page. They are definitely flawed--some titles more so than others--but can be surprisingly fun. Edit: Hmm, the link doesn't seem to want to work (what is vigilink anyway?) so in plain text it is www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=331
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 28, 2016 10:50:20 GMT
Many years ago, I wrote a brief review/overview of the Starlight Adventures series that's up on on the series' Gamebooks.org page. They are definitely flawed--some titles more so than others--but can be surprisingly fun. Edit: Hmm, the link doesn't seem to want to work (what is vigilink anyway?) so in plain text it is www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=331Interesting review! I only have the vaguest recollection of having heard of Starlight Adventures. It seems to me the problem is in knowing the audience. Strong female characters are probably not well represented in Fighting Fantasy, but, putting aside how difficult it is to flesh out secondary characters or evil magic-users in a gamebook, it would be daft to think the main market for FF was anything other than young men, and young men are not all that bothered about interesting female characters, or characterisation much in general. That's no reason for not including complex female characters, obviously. I seem to remember a couple from Talisman of Death. There are, perhaps, more young women, and more young and not so young adults who would play fantasy gamebooks now, were our lives not already saturated by more accessible forms of fantasy fiction, interactive and otherwise. This discussion reminds me of something a relative from the States said to me back in the eighties. She took to playing my FF books, using playing cards instead of dice (I don't know why), and one day she complained that there was no romance in them. She said any film or novel would probably have some romance, but these books had none. It had never occurred to me before that they should, or could, include romance. I said something about them being aimed mainly at boys. She was in her twenties then, and I was in my early to mid teens. I suppose most fantasy movies and novels will have some romantic content, but most young men will only watch them for humour, monsters and action sequences. Could you imagine being the hero of, say, City of Thieves and arranging a liason with a Port Blacksand pirate queen? Or stopping for a snog with the elf lady in Deathtrap Dungeon? Having said that, I was still playing FF when I was at an age when some of the images and events in the book did fuel a fantasy or two, but the less said... Incidentally, my American cousin was also completely thrown out by being told her SKILL must never exceed its initial level, then in battle being told to add a dice roll to her SKILL score. Has anyone ever known anyone else have trouble with that?
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Post by frisbee10461 on Jun 1, 2016 14:13:48 GMT
I have an idea for a topic to be published. Instead of having a typical solution for a gamebook, how about having it in the form of a story? This could be about the protagonist recanting his adventure. I will be writing this over the summer for Blood of the Zombies. Let me know if this is something you may be interested in publishing, as I have not seen this done before.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on Jun 1, 2016 15:02:29 GMT
I have an idea for a topic to be published. Instead of having a typical solution for a gamebook, how about having it in the form of a story? This could be about the protagonist recanting his adventure. I will be writing this over the summer for Blood of the Zombies. Let me know if this is something you may be interested in publishing, as I have not seen this done before. In the case of Blood of the Zombies, it would have to be in the form of a found footage movie, since the protagonist would certainly be dead. In the same way that if you did Crypt of the Sorcerer it would have to be as an epistolary story, a sort of "found parchment" story. It will be interesting to know how you get on with Blood of the Zombies. I hope it works better as a story than as a gamebook.
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Post by a moderator on Jun 1, 2016 18:49:47 GMT
Interesting idea, so long as you write the story in your own words. I remember coming across a 'story' version of Vault of the Vampire online years ago, and it barely changed the text from the original. Taking a random paragraph, where the gamebook says: the 'story' would have gone something like: It was just awful.
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Jun 1, 2016 20:00:17 GMT
I have an idea for a topic to be published. Instead of having a typical solution for a gamebook, how about having it in the form of a story? This could be about the protagonist recanting his adventure. I will be writing this over the summer for Blood of the Zombies. Let me know if this is something you may be interested in publishing, as I have not seen this done before. I'm pretty sure Steve & Ian would be unhappy with that. We had planned on doing an AFF adaptation of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in an earlier issue but Steve didn't like the idea of FF stuff being simply transposed into another frame (i.e. FF -> AFF). There was condition after condition and eventually, despite jumping the hurdles, he said no. In the end I think I told Brett to offer it to Graham for the actual AFF range (so there was a happy ending there). But basically, if you are trying to adapt a FF gamebook into a novel, Steve & Ian would frown on it heavily and I wouldn't be able to publish it. Sorry.
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Post by frisbee10461 on Jun 3, 2016 18:51:35 GMT
Hi, Editor:
To be clear, I wasn't going to convert the gamebook into a novel, but rather the solution for the gamebook. As we publish reference-based solutions without any issues, I wouldn't see how this would be an issue.
I'll be writing this over the summer, and will share the link with you when complete. If you feel it's not appropriate to publish, no worries.
Thanks, frisbee10461
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Jul 23, 2016 2:18:48 GMT
I'm finally motivated to start work on issue #16 after numerous Real Life™ distractions. If you any ideas of potential material, let me know.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,744
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Jul 25, 2016 23:19:22 GMT
the one thing i feel lacking in the Fantazine is Competitions. by this i don't mean answer 3 completely obvious questions to enter a prize draw. i mean something that results in making a page within the article. for example, create a New Monster in the AFF style and write a short article about it then set it in a one-off scenario where it can be used. the best 3 will receive a tiny prize (spare FF gamebooks, stickers, bookmarks, art cards etc) and will be featured in a future issue. the rest will be featured on the FF site.
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