AROUND 20 million Fighting Fantasy books have been sold all over the world and they still have impact today, having influenced acclaimed games like Dark Souls and The Witcher.

But Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson’s ‘choose your adventure’ roleplaying gamebooks came about almost by magic.

This was back in the early 80s when the school friends and Shepherd’s Bush flatmates had already made a big name for themselves in the tabletop gaming and fantasy scene after establishing Games Workshop with John Peake. As their fantasy world developed, Ian and Steve wanted to create a manual for Puffin Books to describe the games, the figurines and how their roleplaying concept worked.

“It was always a problem when describing how games worked,” said Steve, 66. People were puzzled by the fact that there was no winner or loser, no end to the game, one player played the games master role, and so on.

“Ian and I came to the conclusion that a nice feature of the manual would be to demonstrate how fantasy roleplaying worked by giving readers a short solo adventure.

“The more we wrote that feature the more we realised that this was much more enjoyable than writing a ‘how-to-do-it’ manual. And eventually the manual idea was replaced by the gamebook concept.

“Poor Geraldine Cook, the editor at Penguin who had signed us up. This wasn’t what she was expecting but she saw the potential and soon was on our side.”

The idea for the manual eventually morphed into The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in 1982. Fighting Fantasy was born and Ian and Steve were so enthusiastic about their fledgling series that the next year saw them publish four more gamebooks.

Steve added: “It was a really exciting time as Warlock appeared in bookshops and sales went through the roof.”

The Fighting Fantasy series is now marking its 35th anniversary and Weekend spoke to Ian and Steve as they have teamed up with Lymm’s Nomad Studios for a video game adaptation.

Ian, 67, said: “It was an easy decision. I’d known Don and Carl from Nomad for many years and also knew what a fantastic job they had done developing their digital version of Talisman, a board game I originally signed for Games Workshop in the 1980s.

“I suggested the idea of Nomad developing a Fighting Fantasy game to them and they immediately said yes.

“Being gamers and Fighting Fantasy fans themselves, I knew they would create a great gameplay experience which faithfully captured the essence and excitement of our books.”

As part of the anniversary, Scholastic has republished five of the original books and Ian has written a new book, The Port of Peril.

Ian added: “Our new publisher Scholastic is the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books in the world, and we hope Fighting Fantasy books will soon be back again in the bestseller’s lists.

“I’m really pleased with The Port of Peril. I made it a priority to have a thrilling story arc with lots of interaction with non-player characters.

“The adventure begins in Chalice where you find a discarded treasure map. You decide to set off in search of the hidden treasure and as events unfold, you learn of a terrible threat which hangs over Allansia.”

One of the most interesting side effects of Ian and Steve’s work was that they inadvertently made fantasy gaming more accessible – you did not have to know all the rules to the likes of Dungeons and Dragons, you simply had to pick up a book. And that was enough to get some people hooked.

Steve said: “I don’t know if I’d call it a deliberate attempt to introduce players to fantasy roleplaying.

“But undoubtedly that’s what happened. Readers began with the books and discovered the hobby.

“You are to some extent limited in design with gamebooks.

“But using a gamesmaster instead of a book opened the possibilities right up. So a substantial number progressed to roleplaying games. And later to roleplaying videogames.”

Speaking of videogames, Ian and Steve’s ‘fellowship’ with Nomad is by no means their first encounter with the $100billion industry.

Steve set up computer games developer Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux and Ian worked for Eidos helping secure major franchises, including Tomb Raider.

Ian said: “Lara Croft has remained very special to me ever since I first saw the first Tomb Raider in development at Core Design in early 1996.

‘For Ian and myself – fundamentally games players at heart – watching all this happen before our eyes has been a wonderful experience’

Steve Jackson

“My role was in strategy and publishing. While we were very excited by the potential for Tomb Raider to be a big hit, nobody in the company had any idea just how big the first game would be.

“I seem to recall that we forecasted 100,000 units being sold, and it went on to sell more than seven million.

“Including the sequels, more than 30 million games have sold to date. It was a pleasure to help guide Lara Croft through her virtual life for nearly 20 years. It was an amazing experience.”

Ian also campaigns for better education in computing, considering the huge part it plays in 21st century life.

He added: “Computing was put on the National Curriculum in 2014 which is great, but the benefits of this will not be seen for some time.

“I have set up a charitable organisation, The Livingstone Foundation, with a view to opening academies with a curriculum focus on problem solving and digital creativity. I believe creativity and computing should be built-in rather than bolted-on to the National Curriculum.

“I have partnered with Aspirations Academies Trust to operate the schools, and we are planning for the first two schools to open in 2019.”

So it has been quite a journey for the pair over those 35 years and their adventures in both the realms of fantasy and reality are far from over yet.

Steve said: “When Games Workshop was a cottage industry being run out of a flat in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, the games hobby had maybe 200 regular players in the UK.

“And mostly playing board wargames like the Avalon Hill games and Diplomacy.

“Over the years it has grown into a billion-dollar industry.

“For Ian and myself – fundamentally games players at heart – watching all this happen before our eyes has been a wonderful experience.

“Thirty years ago, gamers were considered geeks. Now game playing is a mainstream hobby. And we like to think that some of that was down to us. And all we were doing was what we enjoyed – playing games…”

DAVID MORGAN