Fighting Fantasy: House of Hell

A great distraction from life when you've got no one else to game with. I have done one unsuccessful play through and can see myself trying again soon. I recommend trying it out!

House of Hell (originally published in 1984 in the USA and named "House of Hades) is one of my favorite Fighting Fantasy books. But I have really bad news folks, all the original artwork by Tim Sell has been stripped out of this version and replaced with silly cartoonish stand-ins. The entire mood is lost. This version is a huge letdown.Tim Sell illustrated the original Fighting Fantasy gaming books, and his talent can be applauded for making this series as success as much as Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. Censoring the illustrations is unacceptable.I would not recommend this particular version. The artwork isn't scary, it's been moderated significantly. The uneasy and discomforting artwork has been replaced with a softer, friendlier, and quite frankly, boring replacement. It doesn't work. Give this one a pass.And for what it's worth, thank you Tim Sell. You brought a terrifying and thrilling adventure to my childhood that still haunt my memories all these years later. Live well, sir.

A fun gamebook with easy to follow rules set in a house of horrors.

Lots of fun! Not easy! One wrong step and you'll need to back up a few choices and try again. Good for adults and kids.

Great Product - Great Seller

House of Hell by Steve Jackson (UK) is perhaps the only Fighting Fantasy gamebook set on what is probably our Earth, rather than the world of Allansia, Orb or one of the others not explicitly named in the series of books. This is a refreshing change, as being set in our own world adds to the tension as you explore a mansion filled with terrifying creatures and events.Most Fighting Fantasy readers, including myself, have fond memories of House of Hell, though we remember it being difficult to complete; almost impossibly so (it isn't impossible though; with careful mind-mapping, I was able to plot the best route through the adventure, and it is entirely achievable). The structure of the house is smart, one of Steve Jackson's best map designs, though the inability to turn around and head back in certain directions does place some restrictions upon you that may lead you into premature failure. House of Hell also has one of the most satisfying endings of any Fighting Fantasy gamebook, being in part due to conquering the book's difficulty, but also just because the writing feels satisfying (which isn't always the case with the endings included in other books in this series).House of Hell isn't perfect, sadly; not by a long shot. There are some genuine annoyances and pet hates of mine present:* There are times after you explore a room and wish to exit that the book will ask you which direction you came in to enter the room. While this is to determine which way you will naturally exit, it's a bit silly on two counts; 1) the reader isn't always likely to remember which exact direction (left or right) they came from because the descriptions on the upper floor of the mansion can get confusing as the paths turn around on themselves, and 2) there's no logical reason not to allow the reader to leave out of one door or the other by choice, rather than forcing them along a linear path.* You are forced to fight a battle at one point, but upon winning it, you then die in the very next section. Forcing a reader to perform a combat engagement and then killing them immediately afterwards could be seen by some as annoying and unnecessary.* You are asked to subtract stamina points or other attribute points, only to be killed immediately on the very next section. Perhaps it's just because I'm poor, but I don't really want to waste my pencil changing a stat that I'm just going to have to redo seconds later because my character was killed.* There is a statistic in the book called 'Fear' which will rise when your character experiences certain terrifying things. This is a neat mechanic, but I discovered upon mapping the book out that there is a specific minimum fear amount you need to finish the book, even if you take the best and safest route through. This means if you roll poorly for Fear when you roll up your character, you are basically dead before you have even started.* I spotted instances of glaringly-obvious 'padding' in the book, which is when the author doesn't quite have enough material to make the full 400 sections usually featured in a Fighting Fantasy book. For example, at one stage, you hear somebody approaching the room you are in and are asked if you wish to hide beside the door or do something else. If you choose to do something else, you are asked again if you want to hide beside the door (which sends you to the exact same section number as the previous option for hiding beside the door) or hide somewhere else in the room. This is basically a duplicate of the last option and appears to have been written this way to waste a section number deliberately. It doesn't ruin the book, and sometimes padding is necessary to round out the numbers in a gamebook, but there are a couple of other areas which could have benefited from that spare section number.* To defeat the final enemy you need to find a specific magical weapon. The book then tells you the weapon adds 6 SKILL during the final battle, but as you probably have a weapon by that stage which already has you at your initial/maximum SKILL, it means you get no benefit from this supposedly powerful item. I believe it may have been the author's intention that the weapon adds 6 to ATTACK STRENGTH instead, which would make more sense and make the weapon less useless in the final battle.Despite the shortcomings I have rumbled about above, this is still a fantastic (and classic) Fighting Fantasy book with a unique theme and setting. If you collect gamebooks, make sure this one is in your collection, especially if you like a difficult challenge!

This is a fantastic book, I was playing with my niece and she initially didn't think she would like it but soon we were super immersed and she had to learn the hard way that your choices matter. A good stopping point of the night when her stamina ran out definitely starting back up tomorrow.

I was delighted to hear about the reprint of the Fighting Fantasy books and have since started collecting all of them again. House of Hell was one of my favourites in particular and still gives me the creeps to this day! Don't let the idea of new illustrations put you off, they're still great books!

Love it! Yes the artwork is new, but the rest is as good as I remember it. If you like/liked the Fighting Fantasy (or any other choose your own adventure books), just buy it :)

Loved these books as a child and they are even better now with the updated illustrations. Great stories and easy to follow instructions.

It was really good

Aus Nostalgie habe ich mir dieses Buch gekauft und verstehe jetzt auch, warum ich es als Kind nie erfolgreich beenden konnte. Im Prinzip besteht es nur aus Trial & Error und ist ohne einen Walkthrough kaum zu überleben. Links statt rechts abgebogen? Tot! Irgendeine Tür geöffnet? Bäm, 3 Furchtpunkte! Teilweise gerät man in Abschnitte, wo jede mögliche Entscheidung zwangsweise mit dem Tod endet, dieser aber erst nach einem Dutzend Abschnitten oder mehr eintritt.Die richtigen Entscheidungen sind aber nie rational zu identifizieren, sodass es in Frustration endet. Man kann ein Dutzend Mal hintereinander von vorne beginnen und wird trotz der gesammelten Erfahrungen immer noch nicht überleben. Scheinbar ist es sogar möglich, beim Auswürfeln der Attribute einen so geringen Furchtwert zu bekommen, dass man von Anfang an zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. Jeder Walkthrough gibt ein Minimum von 9 an, bei einer 1 oder 2 auf dem Würfel braucht man also gar nicht erst anfangen (oder ignoriert die Regeln).Zu dieser Ausgabe an sich: das Papier und Druckqualität wirken billig, auch wenn das Cover durchaus ansprechend ist. Dafür ist das Buch aber auch recht günstig. Die Illustrationen sind nicht sehr gelungen und eher cartoonish - unterstützen also die Atmosphäre nicht.Alles in allem mag ich das Setting, aber die Umsetzung ist einfach frustrierend. Mehr als zwei Sterne kann ich nicht geben.