The Drawing Board

The following board game, which could probably not be published today, appeared in The Bash Street Kids Annual 1995:

That last page in particular has been really stuck in my head for the better part of three decades. I found "the spinny thing that rarely works", and advising the reader to just buy a dice instead, incredibly funny, have always referred to them as such since, and was very pleased to rediscover its origin when I bought this book in a charity shop the other week. I wondered why this childhood memory lodged itself in my mind so firmly, and I think it's because it was probably my first experience of a work taking the piss out of its own idea.

The Shadow of Death

Holding the Spear of Doom up high, you shout your war-cry and charge. The Spear is not meant to kill Voivod; as the Horned God said, it returns life to the dead. But Voivod is death itself, so the Spear may not have enough Life-force to affect him. Fight each Attack Round of combat as normal; but once, at the end of each round (whether you win the round or not), you can attempt to give Voivod life. Roll two dice: if the total is equal to or less than the Spear's current Life-force, turn to 400; but if the number you roll is higher, you have failed. If you fail, deduct 1 from the Spear's Life-force, then fight another round of combat, and so on. Because you are trying to wield the Spear, you fight Voivod only in defence: if you win a round, he loses no STAMINA; on the other hand, Voivod thrives on your death, so if you lose a round, you must add any points of STAMINA that you lose to Voivod's current total. If the Spear expends its Life-force, you must try to defeat the Voivod in normal combat -- only then will your telling blows cause him to lose STAMINA points.

VOIVOD        SKILL 10        STAMINA 10

Should it be that you win in normal combat, turn to 303.

So goes the final combat of the 44th Fighting Fantasy gamebook, Legend of the Shadow Warriors by Stephen Hand (published 1991). It's around this point you can tell that the authors are aiming the range at adult collectors as much, if not more, than the series' original target audience of teenage boys. This eventually came to be seen as a problem by Puffin Books, who felt the series had become too unknowable and needed to get back to its roots, but a planned 'back-to-basics' relaunch in 1995 blew up on the launchpad and no revamped books were ever published, despite the fact the first one had been completed.

And maybe they had a point there, and maybe the new 21st-century books thread a needle which the range didn't manage to in the nineties, innovating with the format whilst keeping in mind who the target audience is. But Legend of the Shadow Warriors boasts a rich backstory, an immersive writing style, high replay value, experimentation with the series' basic rules including an innovative system for equipping different weapons and armour, and possibly the best-written 'boss battle' not just of the range, but of any gamebook.