Ian Livingstone reveals the power of game-based learning and his all-new Fighting Fantasy adventure!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2022
- British gaming legend Sir Ian Livingstone C.B.E. joins Andrew Sumner at Forbidden Planet TV to discuss his the origins of his amazing career, the real educative power of gaming and the effectiveness of intuitive game-based learning. Along the way, he introduces two all-new Fighting Fantasy books: The Secrets of Salamonis (by his longtime colleague Steve Jackson) and his own latest adventure: Shadow of the Giants!
You can buy Shadow of the Giants from Forbidden Planet right HERE:
forbiddenplanet.com/363162-fi...
You can buy The Secrets of Salamonis from Forbidden Planet right HERE:
forbiddenplanet.com/363163-fi...
You can buy Sorcery: The Seven Serpents right HERE:
forbiddenplanet.com/348263-fi...
FIGHTING FANTASY: PART STORY, PART GAME - PURE ADVENTURE!
THE SHADOW OF THE GIANTS
“A new way of telling stories and in many ways the birth of modern gaming, these books captured the imaginations of a generation of kids - it’s great to think that a new generation are going to be similarly captivated” bestselling author Charlie Higson
When an ancient artifact is discovered inside Firetop Mountain, its evil magic unleashes terrifying Iron Giants upon the world. In a race against time, YOU must find the only person who knows how to defeat them. Where does he live? Will he help? Will YOU survive?
THE SECRETS OF SALAMONIS
YOU, the hero, a travel to the city of Salamonis to make your fortune. But will you join the Strongarms and travel across Allansia, guarding merchant caravans, or will you study at the famous Halls of Learning? Will you enter Bu Fon Fen in search of Cauldronweed, or rid King Salamon’s Mine of the pests that plague it?
Will you bring Cardinal Zyn to justice, or set off in search of the horn of the Black Unicorn? And just who is the Shivering Man, and what does he have to do with the mystery of the screaming sky? It is down to YOU to uncover the secrets of Salamonis!
ABOUT THE SERIES
The multi-million copy globally bestselling choose-your-own-adventure series is repackaged and reignited for a brand new generation of children.
All you need is a dice and you can choose which way the story goes.
Be careful - the main character can die at any point!
20 million copies sold worldwide in 32 languages.
Perfect for kids who love gaming.
A great way to encourage children away from gaming on screens and get them back into reading books!
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I cheated with no dice on most of them and still had a blast. The writing and art is incredible for ALL ages.
So great to hear from pre-eminent fantasy author Sir Ian Livingstone! What a brilliant advocate for games & their educational value 🧙♂ Ian's unique imagination & charmingly insidious designs are perennially inspiring & thoroughly deserving of the highest acclaim! 👑
I have just got both of these books to take on holiday with me, I can say as a 54 year old chap, I will never stop reading these types of books, Ian Livingstone has been such an inspiration growing up opening up my imagination in the world of Fantasy, I continue to revisit my collection of books from the 80's and I get the same enjoyment as watching the first release of Star Wars re-reading the Lone Wolf books.
These books were a huge part of my childhood.
A Legend.
Great work mr sir Ian 👍
Great interview, especially liked hearing the last quarter.
Loved these books when I was growing up (Island of the Lizard King was the first of many for me as a young whippersnapper).
I had a go at writing a short daft little game I dreamt up last week (around a 1,300 words, and more of an Escape the Room tongue in cheek game than a YOU are the Hero type play). I've stuck it here below for anyone fancying giving it a read and a play.
......................................
Escape the Zombie Room
You're Stuck! Trapped in an empty room fifty by fifty foot square, with twenty foot high walls and ceiling. The walls, floor and ceiling are made of solid thick concrete and there is no escape! Also you notice that written on the floor in blood are two sets of words. These read: "Keep the sequence!" and "Know your alphabet!"
As you're wondering what the words mean and how you are going to get out, a voice suddenly sounds out of nowhere and explains your situation. This is what it says:
"To escape my room you must survive four zombie attacks. The zombies will magically materialise at the opposite side of the room to you now. If you manage to survive the brain eating monstrosities, then I'll set you free, back to your normal life.
The four attacks will happen five minutes after the other, and to help you survive I will tell you the type of enemy you are facing, and give you a choice of six weapons to deal with them. Anyway, enough blathering on, my zombies are getting hungry!!!"
Your weapon choices are explained to you below, and you are told that you are only allowed to pick one weapon for each attack, and only for the third attack are you allowed to select two of the weapon choices. Also, once you have chosen a weapon, you cannot choose it again and it will vanish once it has been used for one wave of the zombie attacks.
.......
Weapon Choices
1_A Baseball Bat, inscribed with the number 8.
2_A fully loaded eight chambered gun, complete with eight bullets, gifted to you personally by my kind self, and inscribed with the number 25.
3_A grenade with a ten second timer, that is guaranteed to kill ten people (or in this case zombies) within a fifty by fifty foot square area, and inscribed with the number 5.
4_An eight foot long spear, inscribed with the number 14.
5_An old fashioned super thick large iron dustbin, inscribed with the number 1.
6_A magic killing dice... When rolled, and the numbers one to five come up, everything apart from yourself will be killed in the room. However, if a six is rolled, then you will die!
.......
Then the zombies are explained below, read them and then make your choice of weapon to face each wave of attack.
Zombies
First Attack Wave made by_ A stereotypical brain eating zombie.
Second Attack Wave made by_ A huge muscle-bound zombie (far bigger and tougher than your measly pathetic self).
Third Attack Wave made by_ A group of seven zombies (also remember you can choose two weapons that you haven't picked before to deal with these brain munches).
Fourth Attack Wave made by_ A group of seventeen zombies.
..........................
And that's that! I could of course give you more time, but that would mean me being nice!!! Guess what though, I aint nice. I'll trip you up every chance I can get. So friggin hurry up! You've got a few minutes to decide what you're going to do! Think it through and then make your choices, for the first zombie will be materializing very very soon!!!!
................
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.........
.....
...
.
.
Times up. A lumbering moaning smelly and slimy gray zombie materialises out of thin air and starts shuffling his bitey way towards you... Hope you chose well!
To find out if you've made the right choices (if indeed there are any right choices to be made) then now read on below.
...................................
........................
...........
...
.
Conclusion (below is explained the "best" way to survive the zombies!)
Here are the "what's" and "how's" you should have probably chosen to defeat the four sets of zombie attacks.
1_ To kill the single zombie you should have chosen the "Baseball Bat". One undead dude aint much cop, so a few bats around the head with the Baseball Bat should easily see him drop!
2_ To kill the huge muscle-bound zombie, you should have chosen the spear. The simple reason being that if the huge smelly git got a hold of you, he'd literally rip you a new one!!! So by using the long spear you can kill him quite easily at a distance, jabbing him repeatedly without too much risk, until he drops!
3_ Next came the group of seven zombies. In this case you were allowed to pick two weapons. What you should have selected was the grenade and the iron dustbin! The grenade of course can be chucked and would go off killing all the zombies, though unfortunately it would also kill you! However if you also picked the iron dustbin, then you could chuck the grenade, and in the precious few seconds before it went off, put the iron dustbin over yourself to provide the necessary protection from the deadly shrapnel!
4_ And lastly came the group of seventeen zombies. So how the bloody hell do you deal with this bunch of brain eating filth? Well unfortunately you're going to have to use the dice. It's a risk of course, with you having a one in six chance of dying yourself... but hey, sometimes in life you just gotta take that risk to push on to the next part of it!
...................
And so there you go. That's apparently the best way to do it and to survive.
Oh, by the way. You didn't choose the gun did you? Surely not! No no no... You're far too clever to fall for that one. I mean, a gun gifted to you by me.... ME of all people!!! Personally gifted by me... Ha ha ha. Only a fool would pick that gun. After all, I gave you it... me! And as you should know (or at least realised at some point), I am a massive twat (I stuck you in this room after all) and should never be trusted. In fact, I proclaim myself King of the Twats... All hail my glorious twattery!
Not that there was anything wrong with the gun of course. Perfectly fine piece of equipment... It's just that the eight blank bullets aren't much use now are they!!!!
.............
So there you go. You've won!....................... Or have you? You see, with me being an utter rotter, I'm going to now release fifty extremely hungry zombies into the room. That is unless you can give me the one five letter word I want to hear. You give me the word, and off you go... Toodly pip me old mucka!
"What word be this?" I hear you ask.
Guess what!
Yes you guessed it (though not the word). I'm not going to tell you what word I want to hear you say. But I will give you a clue. There is a simple puzzle hidden here. And seeing as I'm such a nice guy, here's a second clue. Was there anything in the text that didn't make sense. Tell you what, I'll give you a few minutes to try and work it out. Go on, mull it over, after all your very life does depend on it! One correct word, that is all I ask and off you go!
And of course, if you have no idea of the word I speak, then I'm afraid... Well, how can I put this nicely?????? Nope! Can't think of a polite way to put how you will have your brain chewed over by fifty dead walking horrors! So I've just gotta say don't worry, and I'm sure you'll make a fine addition to my friendly little mushy horde!
What a great interview with Ian! We need more of this! Great channel btw!
Fantastic interview. I seem to recall House of Hell caused a huge “satanic panic” when it was first released in the early-mid 80s as well.
Which made it all the more appealing to young boys!
Warlock was the book that got me into books and away from comics.
ｐｒｏｍｏｓｍ 😏