City of Thieves (Fighting Fantasy)

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It comes across as a well-developed, coherent environment, quite amazing for such an early entrant into the series. Totally loved the atmosphere and setting of Port Blacksand, twists and storyline were really good ones too, and this thrilling rogue-style adventure gave me hours and hours of fun, with a massive deaths count of 10-15 because I tried to finish it without cheating or using easy to find internet solutions and walkthroughs . While the majority of the book is set in Port Blacksand, it moves away from the other books slightly in that the end game begins once you have left Port Blacksand. There's not much point in playing these unless you're going to be *mostly* honest, and if you are, they're pretty good fun. Neither that it's not great nor challenging enough, but I'm not just in the mood for fighting among thieves and get duped by con men and orgs soldiers in the conspicuously crime-infested city in Titania.

He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Technology by the University of Abertay Dundee in 2000, and in 2002 received the BAFTA Special Award for his outstanding contribution to the interactive entertainment industry.Arbitrary choices abound and I was a bit gutted to be presented with a truly tiny and pedestrian 'Congratulations' paragraph once I finally did slay the notorious Zanbar Bone. A different setting - this volume takes place in a town, which is a welcome change from the dungeon-crawling of the early FF books. This distinguished the series from the “Endless Quest” series of TSR, because (except for the first one) in that series you always had to roleplay a kid on their first serious outing, which, for me, defeats the purpose of roleplay, because you presumably were a kid reading the book alreadu, so you weren’t imagining yourself as someone else. Having to pick the right mixture after Nicodemus' senior moment adds uncertainty but it's just a guess. It was now my firm opinion that Candle Street is the Arkham Asylum of Port Blacksand, so I promised never to go back there again, and instead walked in the opposite direction as fast as I could.

I've still awarded 5 stars, because Port Blacksand itself is so intriguing and evocative and the bulk of the book is magnificent, the very best a gamebook can be. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2002 and 2010, and again in 2017 by Scholastic Books with new illustrations by Vlado Krizan. It seems this was the option to interrogate the man – he told me where I could get a silver arrow, from a local silversmith. I have played it on the Kindle - and, after easily getting through most of the story, I am getting stomped by some fights at the end of the book that just seem to require a lot of luck to get through. When the book was republished by Wizard in 2002 a new cover was designed and illustrated by Martin McKenna.Oh lovely, a corrupt law enforcement agency, I’m sure that won’t come back and make trouble for me later in the adventure. Venturesome reader, if you feel bold, take up a sheet of paper and two dice - helpfully, random rolls are printed on every page, if you lack them - and embark on your quest. By all accounts things get pretty difficult in the second half, but unfortunately we never made it that far, failing to acquire all the needed items before we left the city. There's quite a few places where you need a fair amount of luck, and a good assortment of characters to interact with.