Chaos Theory

In March 1983, the very second Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Citadel of Chaos, was published in the UK. Having each written one half of the first book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone divided their labours for the next books, and Citadel was Jackson's solo effort; Livingstone's offering, The Forest of Doom, was released the very same day.

The Citadel of Chaos is an unusual gamebook in many ways. There's the original cover art pictured above, for one thing, which was the subject of much criticism for its low quality (it isn't even clear what the monster in the foreground is meant to be, as it doesn't match any of the creatures in the game); it was provided by an artist credited only as 'Emmanuel', who has very few other professional credits to their name and about whom we know practically nothing. It became one of the very few Fighting Fantasy covers to be entirely replaced during the original series' 1982-95 lifespan, with the replacement coming from range stalwart Ian Miller, who also provided the covers for several other entries by Jackson and worked on the range right up until it was cancelled by Puffin Books.

It's also an unusual, possibly unique, book in that even if you roll the lowest possible numbers when calculating your statistics, you still have a very good chance of managing to beat the game, primarily because there is only one mandatory combat in the whole thing, and very few other STAMINA penalties outside of combat or stat checks. It only once uses Jackson's signature tactic of having items or clues with numbers associated with them that allow you to take an option not expressly given by the text, in a relatively simple way; the combination to a lock is written down somewhere and you have to turn to that number section when prompted. That isn't to say it's an easy gamebook to beat by any means -- in particular the Puzzle Boss approach to the final encounter with the master of the Citadel, Balthus Dire is excellently engineered. It's a good challenge that never reaches the hair-tearing levels of frustration some of Jackson's other books could provoke.

The last, and perhaps most interesting, thing of all is that TCoC is the first book in the series to include a spellcasting system. There are twelve different spells, all of which are self-explanatory: Creature Copy, E.S.P., Fire, Fool's Gold, Illusion, Levitation, Shielding, Strength and Weakness can all be cast when the text gives you the option, whilst Luck, Skill and Stamina can all be cast at any time you choose to replenish that statistic. How many spells you can cast is determined by rolling two dice and adding 6 to calculate your MAGIC score: you then choose that many spells in any combination you please before the adventure starts (so, for example, if your MAGIC score was 15 you could choose one of each spell and three duplicates, or fifteen Stamina spells and absolutely nothing else, or one of everything except Fire and four Luck spells). Not unreasonably, the book is still winnable even if you roll a double-1 when computing your MAGIC score, although some trial and error will be required to work out which spells you need to take with you on a successful playthrough. The magic system in Citadel is considered a forerunner of a much more ambitious one -- that seen in the four-volume epic Steve Jackson's Sorcery!, which offers four times as many spells, each with a STAMINA cost, many requiring items to use them, and all identified by a three-letter code which the player has to memorise due to not being allowed to take the spellbook out of their homeland, with a choice of five spells given in any encounter.

It also, however, leads us to September 1984, and the publication of the eighth FF book, Scorpion Swamp. By this point it had become apparent that demand for the range had long outstripped the rate at which Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson could possibly hope to write, and so outside writers were brought in, with their books published under the banner "Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone Present..." Scorpion Swamp was the first freelanced entry, and it was written by Steve Jackson. But not the same Steve Jackson who was presenting it, rather the American game designer responsible for GURPS and Munchkin. Nowhere in the book was it acknowledged that the two Jacksons were different people, causing considerable confusion, especially since the American Jackson went on to contribute another two books to the range.

Quite by chance, Scorpion Swamp also features a spellcasting system, which is slightly more complex than the one used in The Citadel of Chaos. There are three possible missions you can choose to take on before entering the swamp: that of the good wizard Selator, who wants you to retrieve a berry with rare medicinal properties, that of the evil wizard Grimslade, who wants you to kill a bunch of people and steal their stuff, and the mysterious Poomchukker, who needs a map of the safe route through the swamp. Each will give you a selection of six spells, which fall into three different categories: Neutral spells (Skill, Stamina, Luck, Fire, Ice and Illusion) are available from all three, Good spells (Friendship, Growth and Bless) are only available from Selator, and Evil spells (Fear, Withering and Curse) are only available from Grimslade. This probably contributed towards the confusion: anyone who wasn't aware that Scorpion Swamp was written by a different Steve Jackson might be forgiven for thinking it was the same Jackson revising the spellcasting system he'd used in the previous book!