As is my tradition, let’s start off the year with some adventure gamebooks, this time from the Fighting Fantasy line. I’m going to jump around to some I particularly enjoy, starting with FF3, The Forest of Doom (1983). I very much enjoy Iain McCaig’s cover art — autumnal tones and lizard folk, what’s not to love? The interiors are by Malcolm Barter. After devouring so many Russ Nicholson-illustrated FF’s, Barter’s line work seems jarringly clean, but I like it and he actually employs a variety of stylistic choices that are grittier than they seem at first blush.

I probably enjoy this one more than it deserves. It is constructed on a loop, which is nice, because you get lots of chances to not succeed at your quest (which is rather dull — find the hammer, return the hammer) and try again, but subsequent trips don’t account for the things you’ve already done (like the monsters you’ve killed, for instance). I don’t really see a good way of fixing that problem, either, at least not without ballooning the page count. There are also a ton of items to get and use, but none of them are particularly exciting. And it might be a me-problem, but I can’t seem to find a genuinely optimal path through the book; there is always some need to retread. I don’t love that.

Still, it’s a literal walk in the woods, which is a delight after the first two volumes taking place underground and inside. I love the atmosphere of it, and the number of weirdos who are hanging out in what is seemingly not that large a forest. Not the most earth-shattering FF, but not the worst by a good measure.