Developer Tin Man Games has announced its latest project – a role-playing series set in the world of Fighting Fantasy. For those unaware, or a bit too young to remember, the series was originally penned by industry vets Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the “game-book” godfathers. You see, instead of simply reading Fighting Fantasy, each novel would take you on an adventure, rolling dice and scribbling down notes as you went along.
Tin Man Games has produced a number of adaptations in the past but now the Aussie studio wants to try something new. In late 2016, it plans to launch The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, the first in a series of virtual tabletop adventures.
Given it’s scope compared to previous projects, Tin Man Games took to Kickstarter in search of $15,000 AUD (just shy of seven grand) to help them out. Just a few days into the crowd-funding campaign, however, and the total already stands at an impressive $30,000
This latest adaptation definitely marks a change in direction, though Tin Man Games are looking to preserve many of the game book’s original aspects. The biggest change here is the move away from pen and paper to tabletop.
During play, 3D characters and environments will appear on-screen as the story progresses. What’s interesting about the characters is that each one was originally a hand-sculpted miniature, scanned by the game’s artists and re-coloured to capture that authentic tabletop look.
Amplifying the level of player choice, Tin Man Games is also giving you the option to select one of several characters instead of simply being a disembodied protagonist.
Warlock is just the tip of the iceberg, too. If successful, the studio is to follow it up with more game book adaptations.
As always, we remind readers that backing projects via Kickstarter is not the same as placing a pre-order. That said, although there have been crowd-funding catastrophes in the past, Tin Man Games has a stellar track record.
Amphlett
Hmmm, very interesting. I recall going shopping with my Mum buying up the original run of books as a kid from Woolworths, that’s a long time ago. I loved these books and foolishly sold a job lot of them about a year ago, they were in top condition though had a few pencil scribbles throughout.
I’m not sure how this will translate to a modern computer game. I’ll keep my eye on this one.
hornet1990
Just not the same without putting pieces of paper or keeping fingers at certain pages so you could go back a few steps and take a different choice if you died or didn’t like where that branch of the story was heading! Probably explains why in RPGs these days I always keep a ton of save games on the go.
Never got to read that many of the Fighting Fantasy books though as I could never find them for some reason – our school library only had a few (Deathtrap Dungeon was my first and favorite), never saw any in our Woolies or the local book shop and rarely got to go shopping anywhere else :(
As you say though, definitely one to keep an eye on.