FF book maps

[thealmightymudworm]

I figured it might be worth keeping maps of the books separate from actual walkthroughs.

Here's a nice one that sebforder posted over at TUFFF for Scorpion Swamp:



"The numbers refer to the Clearing numbers and the Roman numerals were added to locations not designated as Clearings. (Clearings 2, 22, 31 and 35 don't exist.)"

1: CLEARING
3: OVERGROWN CLEARING
4: MASTER OF WOLVES
5: BATTLE GROUND
6: DIRE BEAST
7: GIANT
8: MASTER OF FROGS
9: THIEF
10: BRIGANDS
11: ANTHERICA PLANT
12: BEAR (IN HOLLOW TREE)
13: SCORPIONS
14: MISTRESS OF BIRDS
15: WILL-O'-THE-WISP
16: EAGLE
17: MASTER OF SPIDERS
18: SWORD TREES
19: RANGER
20: FOULBROOD RIVER CLIFF
21: POOL
23: FEAR FLOWERS
24: CRAB GRASS
25: POOL BEAST
26: SWAMP ORCS
27: MASTER OF GARDENS
28: SLIME
29: UNICORN
30: QUICKSAND
32:GIANT SCORPION VS DWARF
33: FOULBROOD RIVER BANK
34: STREAM (LEECHES)
35: CLEARING


i: TOWN
ii: WILLOWBEND
iii: BRIDGE
iv: VILE MISTS
v: CROSSROAD

[thealmightymudworm]

outspaced posted a link to this pdf which has maps for:

Books 1-14
+
21) Trial of Champions

24) Creature of Havoc (including translations)

34) Stealer of Souls

36) Armies of Death

38) Vault of the Vampire

50) Return to Firetop Mountain

54) Legend of Zagor

Rogue Mage (from the FF yearbook)

Sorcery! - all four books

[champskees]

That PDF is amazing! Thanks.

[thealmightymudworm]

Quick note: Anyone who's recently clicked the link in my previous post and received an onslaught of spam from ****s may like to know that I've updated the link.

If it happens again, please feel free to PM me for a copy as I've downloaded it jic. (Obviously you could contact outspaced too.)

[lordvader]

Hi all, my son has recently took a huge interest in Fighting Fantasy. I gave him the books I had left from my childhood some them ago and he's only just getting into them now. It's an absolute joy to be playing them again. We are currently playing Clash of The Princes and absolutely loving it.

Only today, I remembered I had drawn some maps for a couple of the books. I've dug them out and scanned them to add here. They are the raw scans, nothing added or taken away, I drew them back in the 80's and thanks to keeping them stored well, they've held up quite nicely.

Very fond memories of great books!

   

   

[philsadler]

I wish I had handwriting like that! Back on topic; all of these maps from both of you look very nice.

[champskees]

Jesus that handwriting...those maps are really nice too. Love those early books that provide you with enough detail to give you that spatial awareness. Looking at these makes me want to play them all over again!

[kieran]

Wow, wouldn't have thought it possible but you actually made Fighting Fantasy maps look beautiful!

[lordvader]

Thank you very much for your kind words folks. I've started a new project, I'm mapping both Clash of The Princes books. Hoping to format them in a way to allow an overlay of some sort to see how the paths of the 2 adventures compare. I'll post them here as soon as they're done.

[kieran]

Be interesting to see how logical the maps of those books are.

[lordvader]

Here are another 2 maps for Forest of Doom. Both have the solution path marked on them, the first has arrows only to mark the path. The second has the path marked with a red line as well as arrows.


   

[Misomiso888]

Anybody have a solution 'Map' of any of the Stephen hand books? Namely Dead of Night, Legend of the Shadow Warriors, and Moonrunner?

Really interested to see how they are all planned out as his adventures aare so good, but I'm just so terrible and mapping these things.


Ty

[electricwater]

For what it's worth, here's a partial map of Dead of Night created when I played through earlier this year. It's not as clean as the maps above (mainly due to my embellishments, and it being a first draft), but may be of some interest.

I usually link bits of my maps with a circled reference, so 148 above the tree at the bottom goes to the woods just north of Crowford; 142 above Sharleena's Abode leads to 142 at the crossroads; 339 about two thirds of the way up goes to 339 at Axmoor bridge; 374 in the upper left edge goes to 374 just east of Axmoor bridge; the 313s at the top link to 313 in the lower left subsection; and 68 at the top of that subsection goes to the messy bit in the upper right.

Sorry it's really disjointed, but I wasn't expecting to share it! 

[Akharis]

There's a selection of fighting fantasy maps that you can download at this twitter account:

@bvkjxqz

[kieran]

These are very cool

[scouserob]

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain Map

I've been playing Fighting Fantasy books with my son recently and just had to have a go at mapping them.
In my youth I mapped them on square graph paper and I thought I'd modernise that tradition by mapping it in Excel.

I tried to get as much detail as possible in there which came at a cost of losing a lot of the sense of structure and spatial awareness regarding all the different set pieces on the adventure.
(They are also a nightmare to amend and correct when I find a mistake.)

First up is the first book, the classic that started it all, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.
I pretty much know the solution off by heart now, thanks to creating a game version in Python over the early lockdown period.
However, that blasted Maze of Zagor can still get me walking around in circles when I don't have the map on hand. 

[scouserob]

The Citadel of Chaos Map

The whole magic mechanic that was added to this book put me off a little as a lad.
Though I loved those terrifying Ganjees and the walk through the courtyard.

Now it is one of my favourites, especially as in making this map I got to fully explore the place.
I never realised just how epic the showdown with Balthus Dire at the end was.

[scouserob]

The Forest of Doom Map

All too easy.
Well surviving to the end is at least. 
Getting the hammer and its handle requires a bit of luck, or foreknowledge, to travel the correct route.

I rather like the, mostly, strict layout of parallel paths heading north with the occasional east/west connection between them.
You always seem to know approximately where you are on that most basic of maps at the front of the book.
I love the atmosphere of the titular Forest, assisted by Iain McCaig's cover, my favourite of the series.
I never liked the loop around and begin again option given at the end and generally ignored it.

In my youth I was never as intimidated by Yaztromo's shop as I was by Citadel of Chaos' initial spell choosing, though with hindsight they are a pretty similar gameplay mechanic.

My favourite bits are the two mini dungeons:
The Fire Demon and his underground kingdom of mushrooms and clones is great, along with the fate of those who would wear the crown.
Also those Gremlins down the well.  Fighting on your hands and knees in their tunnels (with the appropriate skill penalty), looting their treasures and, errr, collecting clay hands(?).

Anyhow, here is the map, the first I made in Excel:

[scouserob]

Starship Traveller Map

Very short (343 paragraphs!) and quite easy to map with the adventure basically just consisting of a few parallel series of short planets/encounters.

Each of these are a bit short but I found many to be quite fun.

Phaser battles are quite brutal and I rather liked them, as a change.
Things get tense when you miss or your enemies get to fire first.

I never warmed to the ship to ship combat, it was all a bit impersonal and just conjured images of firing at each others shields until one ship blows up.

Most of the hand to hand combat was great fun with the entire away party usually becoming involved in a massive brawl that you could often just end by surrendering if things went badly. 
It is a bit of an oddity that you can't use luck in battles.

Shame about the rushed feeling in each mini-episode, and the mistakes with a few of the tests of skill giving the opposite results.
A consistent antagonist chasing you throughout might have improved things (the Ganzigites?) along with more time and personality given to each crew member.  Those missing 60 paragraphs could have made a big difference.

Anyhow, here is the map, hot off the press:

[vastariner]

That's less of a guide and more a work of art. Fantastic.

[scouserob]

Blood of the Zombies Map

A bit of an odd one.
The mechanics have been simplified immensely with no skill or luck just weapons and health.
I kind of enjoyed the general atmosphere, and the panic that sets in when you meet a mini-horde of zombies and have to start plugging away in the desperate hope you keep rolling sixes.
(Spoiler: You won't keep rolling sixes and you will die!)

The feeling of progression with the weapons is also satisfying, as you progress from melee fighting to your first gun (yay!), to blasting dozens of zombies at a time with the Browning.

There are some strange items.
You can finish the game dressed as a clown, a fairy princess with a false beard, or (pretty much) choose to become your favourite member of the village people. 

Anyhow, here is the map:

[scouserob]

The Shamutanti Hills Map

The start of the Sorcery! saga and I love it already.

Jackson makes this first part of the adventure feel vast, a ramble across a strange and unfamiliar countryside, visiting various frontier towns on the way to Kharé.

I like this adventure's approach to provisions and resting, it fits naturally into the story, helping to punctuate the days of travel, and adding a sense of time and distance.

It is rather easy to complete as most of the paths through the Hills can lead to success.
It is worth returning and exploring all the various routes as there a some very handy skill buffs to be had for your wizard.

My only issue with the spell mechanics is that it is a pain for me to map. 
(6+ options repeatedly branching out from a single paragraph.  Nightmare!)

Anyhow, here is the map:

[bloodbeasthandler]

Good idea with the colour-coding. 

[scouserob]

City of Thieves Map

A classic, and one I never managed to complete in my youth.
Even now I struggled, mainly due to always going to boy with his cart and missing the tattoo parlour.

I love that brutality right from the beginning with the three branching streets having tough encounters.

The Gold management required to be able to afford the silver arrow and ridiculous unicorn tattoo was great fun to work through.
The solution from champskees was a great help as always.

Looking at the colours on the map there are a lot of fights in this one and the instant deaths are all clustered in the later stages of the adventure, which I kind of like.

Anyhow, here is the map:

[Akharis]

There are great maps for many of the ff books on this twitter account here:

www.twitter.com/BVKJXQZ

[scouserob]

Deathtrap Dungeon Map

This is quite possibly my favourite and probably the first Fighting Fantasy I ever read.

It was so popular that getting hold of it from either the school or town library was a challenge.

Plenty of instant death traps and lots of mandatory fights, many against tough as nails opponents.

The various servants along with the other contestants (all of which you'll probably meet on the elusive path to victory) help give the dungeon that running man style, lived in feel.

Goodness knows how the excited citizens of Fang get their updates during the trial.
Orbs of scrying, or the like, would give away too many secrets so perhaps there are just hourly, rather vague, updates by the town crier.
(With updates relayed to the surface via the numerous servants and more intelligent creatures.)

My favourite part has to be the doomed partnership with Throm.

Anyhow, here is the map:

[scouserob]

Kharé Cityport of Traps Map

I think this is in my top 3 Fighting Fantasy books.

I love the City of Thieves but Kharé somehow seems enormous in comparison despite so many spell paragraphs.
The market stalls and shops certainly seem much better.

Vangorn the Murderer, the mantis man, the lunatic landlord, those damn red eyes, the Gambling Halls of Vlada, the Deathwraith, etc, etc.
Brilliant.
I do like a good bit of Gambling to be on the true path, though I'm not sure how the Halls survive when both their big games are +EV for the gambler.
I enjoyed working out the which game would give you the highest expected profit.

The puzzles to get the spell lines were fun though I struggled with the easiest one at the scholar's house.
I had an Excel table noting the numbers of each shape, its sides, the number of little wavy tails, the number of holes, the shape of the holes, etc. 
Of course I eventually counted the simplest metric (the number of shapes) for each and, like many puzzles, once you know the answer it seems obvious.

Mapping Scorcery! continued to be a colossal pain due to the spell branches but, oh my goodness, I found mapping out the Courga kissing options the biggest challenge I've faced yet.

Anyhow, here is the map:

[scouserob]

Island of the Lizard King Map

An adventure in which you are ... Doug McClure?
This one reminds me of The Land that Time Forgot with its island of dinosaurs, primitive humans and volcano.
So, of course, I like it!

The series of different terrains as you journey across Fire Island really help to bring the place to life.
Beach → Jungle → Swamp → Ravine → River → Mines → Jungle/River → Volcano → Gorge → Prison Camp.

Though if you start with a low skill you'll be cruelly filtered out to die on the beach with poor Mungo.

A high skill (and luck) however will probably mean that you'll win the book whether you are using a map or not.
The book is pretty linear and in the few branches that there are, there isn't much in the way of instant deaths or crucial items missed.

Even the big set of trials with the Shaman can be failed with the only real penalty being that you may not know to pick up a monkey and a knife (should you come across one).

Anyhow, here is the map:

[scouserob]

Scorpion Swamp Map

I did not like this book when I was younger.
Now I have a new appreciation for it.

Three quests of increasing difficulty from Good, to Neutral to Evil.
Stamina Gems instead of provisions and not very many opportunities to get recover lost Stamina.

Most of all, though, you can revisit any area of the swamp as often as you like and if it is logical then things change after your first visit.
Brilliant.

Mapping was a bit challenging due to the modular nature of the swamp.
I distinguished the three quest paths by different colours.
I also had the great idea of placing orange borders between the various clearings, which didn't work out too brilliantly and made things more than a little awkward.

There is a lot going on in almost every paragraph as can be seen by comparing the space left on this 400 paragraph map with say Deathtrap Dungeon which had plenty of room for a giant logo.

Anyhow, here is the map:

[scouserob]

Creature of Havoc Map

I loved this book as a youngster despite never once getting seeing daylight or even meeting Darramouss (though I surely read ahead to that paragraph with the grains of rice).

When, as an adult, I finally did get out in the open, things were no easier.
I somehow managed to explore the entire first open air quest before stumbling upon the punch up and the solution.

The deaths in this book are numerous, nasty and varied, I particularly like the infinite loops (and the dawning realisation that you are stuck in them).
The one that sticks in the memory the most, though, is that blasted Elven archer.

I think it is a toss up between this and Deathtrap Dungeon for my favourite Fighting Fantasy.

Anyhow, here is the map: