FIST: ONLINE

F.I.S.T.

Finally it's here! Steve Jackson's audio gamebook F.I.S.T. is online:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects/skill-stamina-and-luck

Here's a walkthrough to get you to the F.I.S.T. part:

1. Click "Try it"
2. Click "Red Things"
3. Click *
4. Click "Here's a demo"

and play!

I'd blogged about resurrecting FIST some  time ago, and I'm chuffed to see (hear) movement in that direction. OK so it doesn't seem to be full game. There are a lot of descriptions and encounters, but the combat is , and there is no saving and no record keeping, so collection of items and suchlike depends on trust, and returning to continue the adventure later is impossible. The user interface emulates early hypertext (think 1990s HTML) rather than a pretty or innovative GUI, but the BBC Connected Studio have done a good job on keeping the text minimal. I could critisize that having the options visually present before the relevant audio has played is a fundamental mistake, reducing dramatic tension and atmosphere, but it is only a demo, and one that shows FIST does have some real potential.

The Skill Stamina Luck interactive audio web-page accompanies BBC Radio 4's Skill, Stamina, Luck radio program on the history of Interactive Fiction in it's many guises, but features a large bias towards Fighting Fantasy. Most of it isn't new to the die-hard Fighting Fantasy fan (and indeed the 'funny shaped dice' used to illustrate the program on the iPlayer is slightly irksome! two normal dice would have done! ) but it's an entertaining and informative listen, with several dips into the BBC archive for material about D&D etc.