Fighting Fantasy game books

[Harrison]

The first 7 fighting fantasy game books actually contributed greatly to helping me learn to read properly. I had very bad dyslexia when I was very young and it made me a very slow reader. But when the first few Fighting Fantasy game books came out in 1982 that really helped as it made me want to read them and it speeded up my reading greatly and got me more interested in books overall.

[khaxzan]

It makes sense. Why waste your time reading classical literature?

[Harrison]

When you are having trouble reading basic words, because they are jumbling up in your brain and hard to read, trying to read classical literature wasn't even considered. But after reading these FF books I really started to gain a big interest in reading and within a couple of years had read LOTR and loads of other fantasy novels. Thinking about it now I can't imagine not being able to read book. I feel sorry for all the people who still can't read or write.

[v85rawdeal]

House of Hell was the only one of the first 19 I did not complete... That was a real bi-atch!

[my_lo]

I had very bad dyslexia when I was very young and it made me a very slow reader.

I've had pretty much the same experience. At first, i had no problem at all with speaking/reading/writing, then one day i had an accident, i felt on my head and i had completely forgotten everything language related. I had to relearn everything from scratch but this time with a big dislexia. And it's also thanks to that kind of books that my reading could be somewhat re-educated. Now, i read almost a book/week but i stick to sci-fi/fantasy, i find classical literature/real life stories boring. When i read, i like to evade the monotony of the daily life, not to read more about it...

[Harrison]

Finding it hard to read due to an accident would surely be some form of brain damage and therefore a mental problem? I hope you managed to fully recover from such a bad accident, however I don't think actual dyslexia can be caused from an accident. Or can it? I'm not 100% sure.

Those with dyslexia find it hard to read because the words jump around on the page and the brain can't read the letters of a word in the correct order. I sometimes still notice this happening when I'm reading, but with certain letter jumping out at me within a word and overpowering the word, forcing me to reread the word to then understand it. Quite annoying, but it doesn't happen as often as it used to when I was younger. Placing pink or yellow acetate sheets over the words is also meant to help dyslexia sufferers read more easily. I think it softens the contrast between the white page and the stark contrast of the black letter, and this reduces the number of letters that jump out at the reader, over powering the words, or jumbling the letters up.

[khaxzan]

Favourite FF books, or CHoose Your own Adventure. Choose Your Own Adventure is by far easier to read.

[Harrison]

Choose your own adventure always felt too American to me and I always got very bored reading them. FF books were much better written.

[khaxzan]

They are not boring, if it weren't for them you wouldn't have your precious FF and Lone Wolf.

FF is on a downhill roll apparently from what I've read. Take care, and enjoy the memories. If all, support those who continue to keep it alive.

[v85rawdeal]

These ones, especially, should be of interest to us. More information can be found here.

The Zork books were a series of four books, written by S. Eric Meretzky, which took place in the fictional universe of Zork. The books were published by Tor Books. Like the Zork computer games, the books were a form of interactive fiction which offered the reader a choice of actions symbolized by pages to turn to, as in the contemporary book series Choose Your Own Adventure, or the later Give Yourself Goosebumps series. The protagonists of each book were a boy and girl, called Bill and June on Earth, and re-dubbed Bivotar and Juranda in Zork. The settings and plots were remiscent of locations and events from the Zork universe.
At each ending the player received a score from zero to ten based on how far they had made it through the book and if the ending was a failure, a chance to try again at the choice where they decided incorrectly. The books also usually contained a "cheater trap," reached by opting to use an item which does not exist (at least not in the current book). The story abruptly ends, the reader is chastised and not given a chance to try again in the endings resulting from these.
The books were written in English and translated into Spanish. All four books were published as "What-Do-I-Do-Now Books." Copies did contain publication errors — page numbers that the reader was directed to turn to or turn back to were at times incorrect. The first three books were published as a trilogy in August and September 1983 — each has the titles of the other two listed opposite the cover page. The fourth book in the series was published in October 1984.