The cult adventure gamebook series Fighting Fantasy will become available in the USA thanks to a crowdfunding campaign by US-based games company Steve Jackson Games, a company run by games designer Steve Jackson from the USA.

The popular fantasy series started in 1982 and are books that are also games. You read passages of the book and make choices based on the text, turning to the relevant pages as directed. Dice are used to adjudicate combat and other moments of action; it is essentially a tabletop roleplaying experience for a single person. The books have a cult following and have spawned audio versions, video games, magazines and even its own range of fantasy miniatures. This Kickstarter’s initial run of books will include those written by Sir Ian Livingstone and the UK’s Steve Jackson.

Sir Ian Livingstone says: “To have a new publisher in the USA is a special moment in the history of Fighting Fantasy. We have known Steve Jackson (US) for more than 40 years, having distributed Steve Jackson Games in the 1980s when we owned Games Workshop. Steve also wrote three fantastic Fighting Fantasy books, which caused a lot of confusion at the time when people didn’t realize there were two Steve Jacksons! We look forward to exciting times ahead in the USA for new and existing Fighting Fantasy fans.”

For years, UK and European fans of the Fighting Fantasy books have been able to pick them up via the publisher Scholastic. This campaign will mean that North American fans will be able to get the books. The new books will include the original artwork but have been designed to be easier to flip through while playing. The initial run will include Forest of Doom, Deathtrap Dungeon, and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

The Kickstarter campaign is for the first five books in the Fighting Fantasy series, a range which is over fifty books long.

The campaign runs until Tuesday, March 18th 2025, and can be found here.