Fighting Fantasy: House of Hell app for iPhone and iPad
Fighting Fantasy, the world famous interactive gamebook series is back! Steve Jackson and Tin Man Games present House of Hell on iOS!!
"Taking refuge in the infamous House of Hell has to be the worst mistake of your life! The dangers of the torrential storm outside are nothing compared to the blood-curdling adventures that await you inside. Who knows how many hapless wanderers like yourself have perished within its gruesome walls? Be warned! Tonight is going to be a night to remember..."
** REVIEWS **
"This is a faithful port to an electronic format, and it is also packed with features. Old fans will love the nostalgia, and those who have never played this sort of thing before are in for a treat." - STARBURST - 9/10
"If you have any appreciation for choose-your-own adventure games, you’ll love this app. Fans of the original Fighting Fantasy series of books will absolutely love the iOS version." - PADGADGET - 4.5/5
"All the other hallmarks of the Tin Man treatment are also to be found in House of Hell, including an atmospheric soundtrack, good use of multimedia and smooth and easy usability." - GAMEZEBO - 4/5
"The extras, like the achievements, art gallery, background material, and the retro look, are features that the developer didn’t have to do, but went that extra mile." - BOARD GAME GEEK - 4/5
"House of Hell is very engaging; it manages to produce a compelling story that transcends the realm of young adult fantasy game books. It’s also a trip down memory lane for gamers who grew up reading the Fighting Fantasy paperback series. Here’s to Tin Man Games for a job well done." - PIXEL PERFECT GAMING - 5/5
** FEATURES **
House of Hell is a digital Fighting Fantasy gamebook, an interactive adventure in which YOU are the hero! You can only win through by choosing the correct path, finding equipment, avoiding traps and surviving combat.
Exclusive new features in the app:
• Make the gamebook as easy or hard as you like and even turn on a special cheat mode to read it old-school!
• Atmospheric new visuals which can be turned off to make the gamebook look like it came off the printing press in the 80s!
• Tim Sell’s classic illustrations colorised for the app, making full use of the high-resolution retina displays.
• Ian Millers famous cover animated and brought to life.
• Fantastic new cover artwork to unlock!
• Achievements to find throughout the gamebook with full Game Center connectivity.
House of Hell has been brought to iOS using Tin Man Games’ critically acclaimed Gamebook Adventures Engine featuring:
• Universal iOS support. Buy the app once and it works on all your devices!
• Read the book horizontally or vertically on your iPad.
• An automated Adventure Sheet to keep track of stats and inventory.
• Realistic physics based dice rolling. Shake your iPhone or iPad!
• Artwork gallery. Find an illustration in the gamebook and be able to access it full-screen forever.
• Bookmarking system which saves your position in the gamebook, much like putting your fingers between the pages to remember your previous page when reading the paperback!
• Specially composed soundtrack and sound effects.
Tin Man Games have signed a licensing deal to release the Fighting Fantasy series on iOS, so expect to see more of your favourite adventure gamebooks appearing on the App Store!
Also available: The Forest of Doom, Island of the Lizard King, Starship Traveller, Caverns of the Snow Witch and Bloodbones!
Coming Soon: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain!
Pros and cons of Fighting Fantasy: House of Hell app for iPhone and iPad
Fighting Fantasy: House of Hell app good for
While it doesnt quite capture my imagination like it did when I was 8 years old ( but then again, what does? )- its still lots of fun. The nostalgia factor alone makes it worthwhile.
If you ever read the book or a large number of FF books you will know House of Hell is either the hardest or second hardest of them all! (Next to Creature of Havoc). Anyway the app stays true to the source material and its virtually impossible to best without cheating.
Like all books you have skill, stamina and luck but this one has a FEAR stat. You roll a die and add 6. That is how much you can get scared before you get scared to death. If you play the game through the perfect path you still get a FEAR score of 12. So even if you roll a 6 and get a max of 12 you are still gonna get scared to death. It has to be some kind of mistake.
Anyway the Sorcery series made by Inkle has amazing graphics and animations. Its lets you choose between being male or female and has better sound. If Tinmangames can take some aspects from Sorcery it could really make some good future versions of FF books.
One final note...$5 is to much. It should only be $3 or it should discount other Tinmangames as you buy more of them.
Great recreation of the fighting fantasy book, and also really difficult. I read most people need to cheat or go online to find their way through.
The secret to winning is to write down maps and keep lots of notes on a piece of paper. After numerous attempts, the path will become clear and you will be able to win in hardcore mode. Yes, it is a huge puzzle, but one that can be solved after a few days of play.
I am looking forward to all other games by tin man games
Some bad moments
Im a fan of the modern horror setting that this book has.
Recommended for gamebook and horror fans.
A great implementation of the "pick your path" adventure books from the 80s. Keeps all bookkeeping for you so you can have fun. They even have a mode where you can cheat (if you prone to do so way back then). Still a great story!
Let me begin by saying that I am a huge Fighting Fantasy fan and hope that Tin Man Games is able to inject new life into the entire series. I would especially love to see them do a faithful adaptation of Steve Jacksons Sorcery series as these books were always the crowning achievement of Fighting Fantasy.
On to the book at hand. Despite my overall enjoyment of House of Hell, I will say that it is missing features that I hope will be added in future upgrades. I play the roll of Gamemaster for my kids, meaning that I read the book to them and allow them to make all of the characters choices. In order to be a more effective GM, I need the following features to be added:
1. Ability to modify the stats on the Adventure Sheet at any time
2. Ability to roll your own dice. My kids are very tactile and enjoy the participatory thrill of chucking dice. Players should be allowed to enter the numbers generated by their real dice into the combat screen.
3. Ability to enter the name of your character onto your Adventure Sheet
4. Ability to run multiple games on the same device. Each game could be represented by a different profile. A nice feature would be a leader board showing the progress of each profile, including number of achievements unlocked and total number of enemies killed.
5. Ability to modify the stats of your enemies during combat
6. The ability to play in game music from your iPod. The games soundtrack is decent but repetitive. Id love to up the creepiness factor by playing classic horror film soundtracks like "Halloween."
UPDATE: I have discovered that you can play music from your iPod if you turn off the game music using settings.
If these demands are met in a future upgrade, then I will enthusiastically change my rating to an emphatic five!
This brought back a lot of memories. I felt the story was immersive enough, the music set the mood (even though it sounds suspiciously like the Halloween film theme), and I love how all the stat tracking is automated. No regrets at all for buying this.
Hoping for more to come!
Id read this as a child, some 30 years ago, and was looking for the books for my son. Hadnt thought of them as iPad apps, but theyre even better than the books, as they do the dice rolling, and eliminate my uncanny ability to roll double six every time when I was reading the books! It was great to re-read this with my son, who was enthralled by the interactive roll-playing in the story. I think its inspired him in a whole new genre, so that was well worth the money. Cant wait to read the next one!
Reputed to be the hardest FF game books and I agree. I never won as a kid and still not yet.
