Bloodbones (Fighting Fantasy: Wizard 1 #26) by Jonathan Green

Bloodbones (Fighting Fantasy: Wizard 1 #26) Reviews

• 
  Gianfranco Mancini

  
  
  This single-player fantasy-role-playing "lost" gamebook written by Jonathan Green (Bloodbones was considered a lost book for several years, as it was initially planned as the 60th entry in the series before Puffin publishing canceled Fighting Fantasy with the 59th book. Title was later "resurrected" in 2000s.) is just my most favourite one of the FF series, together with Steve Jackson's
  House of Hell.
  Martin McKenna's classic cover is a real blast, the storyline is excellent, the difficulty level is insane and the many path choices, the time passing rule in the first part at Port of Crabs, the always different kind of fights (poisonous creatures dealing more damage, fully armored Chaos Champions absorbing damage and so on), the pirate-voodoo fantasy atmosphere seeming a great mix between Pirates of the Caribbean and the grimdark setting of Warhammer (there are Old World and Chaos in Titan world too and Jonathan Green was a Black Library author) make this gamebook a must read and an hell of a ride for all fans of these.
  
  And the skull door puzzle just made me crazy!
  
  
• 
  Juho Pohjalainen

  Some good writing and atmosphere and - of course - great art, but the story itself is linear, rather long, and much too rife with death-traps and other sudden mean surprises. Not as bad as Knights of Doom, but still.
• 
  David Sarkies

  Pirate Hunting
  1 May 2021
  
  This is one of the newer Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and not surprisingly it is also limited edition (which I suspect a lot of the other books are as well). Anyway, in this book you are some guy (which is generally the case in pretty much all of the books, though there is nothing saying that you can’t be some gal either) whose parents were basically murdered by a bunch of bloodthirsty pirates, so you set out to hunt them down and kill them. Yeah, a tale of revenge, which is basically one of the many other games books that deal with revenge.
  
  However, there is a catch, somebody has beaten you to it, though it does turn out that even though he has been killed, he isn’t necessarily dead (which is generally the case with fantasy settings – the undead and all that). It turns out that nobody quite believes you, but I suspect there is more than meets the eye to that one considering that the city that you start off in also happens to be a pirate haven, so I suspect that there is a bit of a protection racket going on here.
  
  The adventure is split into four parts – scouring the city for clues as to where the pirate is located, travelling to the island that the pirate is going to, searching the island for the pirate, and of course the end game. The third part is probably the longest, and also the trickiest, especially since there is one puzzle that involves you deciphering a code, and it isn’t all that easy either.
  
  It was somewhat easier than a lot of the other ones though, however it does require you to record notes, usually in the form of words that are actually spelt backwards. There are some trickier ones though, such as hidden references to the next paragraph you have to turn to (such as turning the letters of a word into numbers and then adding them all up), or making a note of a number when you collect an item (such as the number of sides a crystal has). Yeah, it’s one of those books where if you see a number, especially in relation to an object, then it no doubt will be used later on (which I must admit is much better than having a key with a number stamped on it).
  
  All in all, it was an okay book, though nothing particularly outstanding. That has probably something to do with the countless numbers of books that have come before it, though I do note that every few years they release a selection of books, and include a couple of new ones in it as well. This was one of them.
• 
  Jonathan

  Bloodbones was originally slated to be the 60th Fighting Fantasy book, but Puffin cancelled the series before it saw publication. So it’s neat that this “lost” gamebook has finally seen the light of day.
  
  The adventure is no walk in the park, but it doesn’t feel unfair like some other FF books (I can’t recall the title, but I remember one book that required an unsuccessful Luck test to win, an ill conceived attempt to stop players from cheating). Nevertheless, you will need to roll high for your initial Skill and Luck scores to survive Bloodbones’ numerous combat encounters and ability checks.
  
  I played the digital version of Bloodbones, which comes free with Tin Man’s Fighting Fantasy Classics app. I highly recommend picking up the app if you are curious to try Fighting Fantasy. Just be aware that Tin Man chose to nerf some items of equipment in the app, making it tougher than the original book.
• 
  K.J. Shadmand

  From an inauspicious start, I came to enjoy this book immensely. Mr Green shows his love for the fighting fantasy franchise in his capacity to work scenes into his gamebook that are reminiscent of many of the old-school classics. There’s so much in this gamebook - exploring a city, sailing the high seas, exploring a tropical island full of vicious beasts and Aztec-like warriors, and battling pirates, cut-throats, and sharks (which gave me some trouble!). It also had a high enough level of difficulty to give me trouble, without having me shout out in frustration. Perfect!
• 
  Sam

  I suggest reading this book if you like adventure!
• 
  Brent Maxwell

  A fun and interesting adventure that takes you to different locations each with their own feel. The game is fun and well balanced, providing a sense of challenge and luck, as well as a sense of fulfilment.
• 
  Darryl Sloan

  This is the first of those "choose your own advernture" gamebooks that I've played since I was a teenager. This one is a story about a man seeking revenge on an infamous pirate, Cinnabar, who killed his family when he was a youth. He soon learns that someone beat him to the chase. Cinnabar is slain - sort of. He has become one of the undead. And so we have swashbuckling and magic. Standard fare for these Fighting Fantasy books.
  
  The story was enjoyable. I was edging on giving this four stars. The big let-down is the amount of sudden death resulting from sheer bad luck rather than logical choice. I got to the very end only to discover that I was missing a crucial magical weapon needed to defeat the final enemy. So, I went back and found out how to solve that. Then I tried again, only to find out that I was defeated once again because I hadn't been taught how to use the weapon. So I back I went again and solved that (it turns out that whether you manage to get taught how to use the weapon or not depends on the luck of the dice at a certain point). All this is very frustrating and taints the enjoyment.
  
  I feel there should really be multiple routes to success, rather than a single linear path where one wrong choice out of many innocent-seeming options leads to you failure down the road.
  
  So, three stars.
• 
  Ben

  Bloodbones is known among FF fans as the ‘lost’ gamebook. Puffin cancelled the series before it published, in 1995, and it didn’t see the light of day until Wizard took up the series and published it as their second title, after Blood of the Zombies, in 2006. I played it on the Tin Man app, which gives you the book for free. It’s the first time I’ve used the app and it worked beautifully. No pencil, eraser and dice needed, and I especially liked the mapping feature. It’s a really good way to play these books (though I still prefer to read a print version). The book itself is excellent - Jonathan Green is a wonderful writer and Tony Hough’s artwork is outstanding. It’s also rock hard. I died over and over again. One I’ll come back to.
• 
  Chris Dw i

  So, I've been working my way through the Wizard series of Fighting Fantasy books for a YouTube series on my channel and I've just finished reading Bloodbones.
  
  The book is great. The adventure is thematic and the environments that you explore make sense. The only real issue that I had was the amount of notes you have to make. Whether it be writing down the name of something to convert the name into a numbered reference, or simply remembering all the codewords that you pick up. It gets annoying as the adventure goes on.
  
  You have a fun pirate adventure, fantastic enemies, a great final encounter, and a lot of note writing.
  
  3/5. Arrrr me hearties!
• 
  Alexander Curran

  Review in progress...