'Forest of Doom' – Ian Livingstone (Scholastic)



A long time ago, and on another blog entirely, I said I'd revisit a few Fighting Fantasy books and post a little about them. That blog died before I got round to writing anything but this blog is in pretty rude health so I thought to myself, why don't I post something here instead...?

I owe Fighting Fantasy books a great debt, not least because they gave me a way out of a childhood that it seemed, more often than not, I wasn't cut out for. I was a shy, awkward kid who was a bit rubbish at making friends and if that wasn't bad enough, games lessons were an absolute nightmare. When I opened a Fighting Fantasy book though, I was so much more. They were the first books where I really identified with the main character because... it was me! :o) I had adventures and made a fortune in gold pieces and treasure, killed an impressive amount of monsters too. I won't lie, I sometimes kept a finger on the last entry (just in case I died) but who didn't? If you read Fighting Fantasy, odds were that you did as well.
Fighting Fantasy was a key part of my reading life, I ended up moving on to other books but I wouldn't read half the books I do if it wasn't for reading those books first. And now I'm back again, with a slight difference this time...

It's half term and Lockdown has left us scrabbling for things to do with our six and ten year old girls. I thought to myself, why don't I try them out on some Fighting Fantasy, just see how they find it? They were up for it and off to Amazon I went :o)
The first books I was given, in the series, were 'Forest of Doom' and 'Deathtrap Dungeon' so I ordered 'Forest of Doom' (my old books have long since disappeared) and we gave it a go today. I wanted to see how they found the format of the story itself (they'd never read a story like this before) so as an introduction to it, we didn't use dice at all. Monsters were easily dealt with but there was still room to make a wrong choice and send the story off somewhere they really didn't want it to go...

Are YOU brave enough to face the foes and fiends of this nightmare forest.? A war is raging and your help is needed to vanquish the evil trolls. To save the dwarfs, you must find the grand wizard Yaztromo and track down the pieces of a legendary war hammer lost in the depths of Darkwood Forest where gruesome monsters lurk . Step up, hero, it's time to fight!

'Forest of Doom' is an old favourite of mine and lets just say that I think it's a favourite of my daughters now. They absolutely loved it and got so into it that there were points where they didn't dare make a choice because they were so scared that it might be the wrong one. The aim of the quest is to find both parts of the war hammer and you should have seen their faces when they found the second part :o) The experiment was a complete success, they've been bugging me to read them another and once I can find some dice, I'll try them out on 'Deathtrap Dungeon' next.

The adventure here was pitched just right to my kids and they really bought into what was at stake if they were to fail, hence loads of going off on the side quests just to make sure that they didn't miss anything out. While the choices you make are the important thing, the passages are descriptive enough that you get a real feel for where you are and also for who you are. Looking at it through my eyes, the structure is a little straight forward (do as many side quests as possible and you will get what you need eventually) but it was still fun to play through. There were times when I was a little concerned that they might make the wrong choice!

As an introduction to Fighting Fantasy, 'Forest of Doom' was absolutely the best choice I could have made. My girls are desperate to try another ('Deathtrap Dungeon' next I think) and my six year has asked for the dice this time, just to see what happens...
From where I was sat, 'Forest of Doom' was as much fun to play now as it was over thirty years ago when I first picked it up. It's a shame that the Scholastic edition didn't keep the original illustrations but that's a tiny complaint really. 'Forest of Doom' still has it where it counts.

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