Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

The FF book is now funded, with 4 days to go :-)

Stretch Goals have now been added: I you pledge £2.5K+ (!!!) you can get Iain McCaig to paint a colour interior illustration that includes a picture of yourself. Now that would be rather special (he was my favourite FF artist), but who has that sort of cash just lying about...??!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/141 ... sts/378820
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

EHHH ! i would if i had the money :(
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Ameena »

Lol, the highest pledge tier int he new Elite game is for £5000!!!
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

Same in "You are the Hero", there's another level after the one I mentioned:
Pledge £5,000 or more
0 backers Limited (1 of 1 left)
DIAMOND - Artist Iain McCaig will produce one traditional painting, the subject matter to be chosen by YOU in discussion with Iain, and as long as it fits within the FF world, anything goes! (Add this reward to any other simply by selecting this reward and adding £5000 to your existing pledge.)
Estimated delivery: Dec 2013
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

Woooooo....... House of Hell released on Android! And it looks great! INSTABUY :-D

http://www.trollishdelver.com/2013/01/h ... droid.html

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ouseofhell

Also, scroll down this page a bit for some info on the new Sorcery app coming for iOS. Sounds very interesting!
http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles ... 3773/page3
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

looks good, hope for a translation :)
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

A small snippet about the Sorcery app is on the FF homepage:

http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com/

I'm not sure about animating the illustrations for fights -- seems to be trying to make it into something that it's not....?
I remain open minded until I see it though :-)
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

Great animations ! they still have John Blanche's style :)
Talking about that, I've been contacted for illustrating a gamebook app on IOS and Android. I'll keep you informed ;)
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

Ooooh, fantastic news! That sounds great! And speaking of that, when I eventually am able to write my own gamebook, I would love for you to illustrate it (yes, seriously!) -- but of course by then you'll be world famous and I won't be able to afford you ;-)
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

Tss tss.. I'm already world famous, you'll have to pay a lot ! ;)
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

It's a great shame, but I'm not at all surprised. It was self-evident for a long time that there were a lot of problems. Good job I decided not to invest in that megadeal after all!
http://dungeon-master.com/forum/viewtop ... 27#p136832
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by beowuuf »

That saved me a post.

August Hahn, who has worked closely with JD on many LW projects including the RPG, signed up for the Project Aon forums yesterday. and both he and Mongoose have indicated checking out PA in the coming days for new of Lone Wolf going forwards.

So while it is very regretable things have ended with Mongoose like this, perhaps there are good things also on the horizon.

Keep checking here:
http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/WhatsNew
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

^^ I read Joe's posts on the What's New page. Hopefully we'll see all good things come to pass eventually... :-)
http://www.projectaon.org/en/blog/2013/ ... shing-ltd/
http://www.projectaon.org/en/blog/2013/ ... oks-18-28/

In other news, Way of the Tiger is returning, in digital form! Woooo-eeee, those were great :-)
http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2013/ ... opper.html
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

Ian and Steve in Paris ! I'll be there, saturday march 23th at Salon du Livre !
French news : http://fr.ulule.com/loup-solitaire/news ... ene-11955/
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

Inkle have released some screenshots of the new Sorcery! app:
http://www.inklestudios.com/sorcery

I'm not quite sure about the art direction of the interface. It doesn't really feel right to me. Here's some of their explanations about it:
http://www.inklestudios.com/archives/2049

Looks like they are changing quite a lot about the experience: it's not just going to be a gamebook in digital form, but a much more interactive experience instead. As I don't have an iOS device, I don't know when I'll ever get to play it, but I remain intrigued, even though I'm a bit disappointed by the interface.
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

Here's those new Way of the Tiger covers...
http://twitpic.com/c8f0x6
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

ohhh.. looks like it's the same artist who works on Way of the Tiger RPG ! http://www.megara-entertainment.com/
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

I just discovered the blog of Andrew Chapman, who wrote a few FF books. Here's how he became an FF author:
http://andrew-e-chapman.blogspot.co.uk/ ... riter.html
http://andrew-e-chapman.blogspot.co.uk/ ... riter.html
http://andrew-e-chapman.blogspot.co.uk/ ... riter.html

He also wrote the impossibly broken two-player Clash of the Princes, which ultimately killed his FF career:
http://andrew-e-chapman.blogspot.co.uk/ ... ntasy.html
http://andrew-e-chapman.blogspot.co.uk/ ... ntasy.html
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

i'm confirmed to Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone 's meeting in private on friday ! Yay !!!
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by beowuuf »

Nice one! Good luck and all that :D
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

I'm not at all envious, nope, not at all :evil:
But seriously, have a great time! (Please kick Ian for his horribly frustrating ending to Blood of the Zombies ;-) )
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

Sure ! I guess we'll have a french translation of that crap this year :(
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

So, Linflas, tell us all about the Steve & Ian meetup..... please :-)

In other news, here's Steve with the new Sorcery iPad app:
http://pwgresty.files.wordpress.com/201 ... ackson.jpg
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

All right :)
First, Ian Livingstone didn't come because he lost a friend on wednesday, and funerals were on friday. The meeting was less impressive of course, but we got the best writer in the couple... Steve is a very reachable person, always smiling, speaking neat english (and that counts for me) even if we had a hot chic... professional translator. I came with my wife who didn't know anything about gamebooks but finally, enjoyed the anecdotes.
Steve presented some original 30 years old goodies : first french translation of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, original Sorcery Box, various Penguin stuff and some funny versions like the hot-anime-school-girl-ish japanese version of "House of Hell" !
He related :
- how Games Workshop was born : they were 3 at the beginning with John Peak who got disinterested
- how they had the original gamebooks idea and they were not the only ones : Steve met a guy in a plane with same idea and a complete written gamebook !
- how they wrote WFTM (Ian for part before river, Steve for part after) and how he had to rewrite all Ian's part to impose his own rules for combat system (that was the deal with Ian !).
- how grew Fighting Fantasy collection so fast : they had to produce 1 book per month to pre-empt rival editors (dunno which ones) so they engaged several authors. His first author was Steve Jackson, Texas :)
- how they sold *** dozens of dozens of dozens of dozens of millions *** FF gamebooks and they still do (new publications in Portugal, Brasil for first time !)
- how illustrations are definitely indivisible from gamebook. He told that to me when I presented myself as an amateur illustrator and I told him that some original illustrations had been removed in french versions.

He signed my 25 years old "House of Hell" gamebook and the brand new translated J. Green's "Howl of the Werewolf" for my... son :)

"May your Stamina never fail !"
Last edited by linflas on Mon Mar 25, 2013 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

oh.. and "petits-fours" and champagne were delicious :P
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

Cool, sounds like a very good day out :-)

That Japanese version of HoH is just.... wrong, lol!

Out of interest, does the translator do each sentence as Steve speaks, or rather does she wait for Steve to finish a "chunk" of talking and then say the translation?
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by linflas »

Steve seemed quite used to the "chunk" way when she asked him for that. And fortunately, she was well informed on the gamebooks subject.

Pics and vids : http://rdv1.dnsalias.net/forum/thread-2 ... l#pid42982
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

Oooh, great thanks for the links to pics and vids. The story about how Steve Jackson (USA) wrote the first "Presents" book is most amusing :-)

In the pictures, those "Howl of the Werewolf" are huge! Very thick books! They look much nicer than the ones we now have over here. Unfortunately the new Wizard FF branding takes over and only a very small part of the cover picture now remains!
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000 ... 1354666147
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Re: Closing an educational gap - Ian Livingstone et al.

Post by Gambit37 »

First video of the new Sorcery! app in action. Stylistically, it's not really what I was expecting or hoping for (I think a lot of Sorcery's charm is Blanche's art and this app doesn't capture that), but it does look very cool in terms of mechanics and gameplay. Now let's hope they port it to Android....!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UdYssQleZk
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