A special release outside the main Fighting Fantasy range, Clash of the Princes (published 1986) was a two-book boxset (both written by Andrew Chapman and Martin Allen). Each book could function as a solo gamebook if you didn't have a friend to play with (let's rise above jokes about the likelihood of that, please), but if you did happen to have a friend to hand, then you could play the first - and, to date, only - two-player Fighting Fantasy adventure!
Before we get into the errors, a brief explanation of how the two-player format worked. Each player took one book and played through it like a normal adventure, but there should be a large piece of paper both players can see with two columns headed 'STATUS' and 'ACTION'. Both values start at 0, but players would periodically be given instructions to change it. The current values of STATUS and ACTION allowed one gamebook to tell what choices had been made by the player of its twin.
The player characters of the two books were brothers (one a warlock, one a warrior, hence the titles of the two books) embarking on the Trial of Kingship, which will determine which of them will ascend to the throne of Gundobad when their father cops it. (As the setup suggests, the two players are ultimately in competition with each other; only one of them can triumph and be named heir to the throne.) To give an example of exactly how the STATUS and ACTION values worked in practice: the very first choice in both books is if the brothers want to travel together or separately. So:
If Clovis, the player character of The Warrior's Way, wishes to travel with his brother Lothar, he is instructed to change the current STATUS to 3 and then wait until the other player changes the ACTION value to 1, 22 or 23. If Lothar, hero of The Warrior's Way, wishes to team up with his brother, he is instructed to change the ACTION value to 23, which tells Clovis which section to turn to (the one where the two brothers begin their journey together). If he doesn't, then he changes the ACTION value to 22, and the two brothers go their separate ways. The ACTION value of 1 is only used if you are playing one of the books solo, or if the other player is killed -- in that event, both ACTION and STATUS are assigned a permanent value of 1 (in this case, the result of the ACTION value being either 1 or 22 is the same, i.e. that the brothers go their separate ways).
So, basically one player changes the STATUS and the other changes the ACTION, and this allows the book to keep a record of where the other player is, or anything they have done which might affect the other player, when they are apart. If the two players are together, then they can converse with each other to decide what to do next, but if they are separated they cannot. Got all that? Good.
(By the by: authors Chapman and Allen originally envisaged the books as being sold separately, and being principally gamebooks that could be played separately but formed a larger whole if you played it with its twin. It was Penguin who decided to put more focus on the two-player aspect and sold them together as a boxset, which had the unfortunate side-effect that they both went out of print before any other Fighting Fantasy title, due to the unpopularity of boxsets with retailers at the time.)
The big error is that both books have a map (pictured above) on the inside front cover which bears absolutely no resemblance at all to anything that happens in either adventure. Vitally important landmarks do not appear at all, and one of the biggest features on the map (Dragon Cove) is not present in the game. This arose because the writers were based in Britain and the illustrators in Australia at the time, which was obviously more of an obstacle in 1986 than it would be today.
Another general error is that if you are playing the two-player game, then when you die you should instruct the other player to set the STATUS or ACTION value to 1 permanently and follow the rules of the solo game, but many of the sections ending in your death forget this.
In both books, section 2 has the wrong outgoing references to turn to: in both cases it should point you to 256 and 140 (many of the events that occur in the same place have the same reference number across both books, presumably to make things easier when the writers were designing the game).
In section 173, if both brothers are travelling together, they encounter a bridge which is only wide and sturdy enough to permit one person to travel along it at a time, and have to decide who should cross it first. If Lothar (the warlock) crosses it first, he encounters a three-headed Hydra. It is possible for Lothar to accidentally turn it into a nine-headed Hydra and then die whilst fighting it, but if that happens then when Clovis crosses the bridge he will still find a three-headed Hydra at the other end.
There are two ogres which for some reason are treated differently in combat in the two books (the two brothers can only encounter them separately when they are not travelling together) -- Lothar fights them as one individual with SKILL 9, STAMINA 8, but Clovis has to fight them separately; they both have 8 STAMINA points when Clovis fights them, but one has SKILL 7 and the other has SKILL 8.
Section 235 of The Warlock's Way asks if you have an object called the Cat's Eye, which is apparently some kind of gemstone which allows you to foresee the future. The problem is that it is the only reference to said item in the book, and it is impossible to ever actually retrieve the item. Similarly, both books refer to you as having a tinderbox in section 274 despite there never being an opportunity to get one; it may be the case that you were meant to start the adventure with one (as you did in many other FF books) but a reference to this got deleted in editing.
If you meet the monk in Warlock, you are advised to find four Discs of Knowledge, which are actually rings, each of which has a word or digit inscribed on it; all four spell out the answer to a riddle which you need to answer to win the game. The problem is that it seems it's not possible to find all four rings on the same playthrough; it is possible to get one of the rings in two different ways, so it may be the case that one of those occasions gives you the wrong word.
Just to finish up on, since these books contain several of my favourite ways to fail in interactive fiction, several of which are actually non-fatal to the player, here's what happens if a mermaid offers you a wish and you wish to be "safe and sound" (section 327 of The Warlock's Way):
"Then so you shall be," she says, making magical signs in your direction. In an instant, the chamber vanishes, and you find yourself in a large cavern filled with all the creature comforts that royalty such as yourself could ask for. Looking closer, however, you find there are no exits. You are safely ensconced with a lifetime's food and drink in a bubble miles below the surface of the earth. Your adventure is over.
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