Guide to Gamebooks by Genre

After 31 Days of Gamebooks it was time to update this guide with a broader overview of the gamebooks available! (Still adding titles)

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Soooo...Gamebooks?

Gamebooks are interactive fiction, with some mechanics such as dice, puzzles, keywords and maps. Oh and choices, lots of choices. Most are physical books, but many can be played in digital format (and some only in ditigal format).

Gamebooks had their golden age in the 1980s, with the best knows being Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf. Other major series included Way of the Tiger, Blood Sword and GrailQuest. Then Fabled Lands came along in the 90s to introduce the whole subgenre of open-world gamebooks.

Gamebooks slumped in the early 2000s but have had a resurgence in recent years. Many new gamebooks are being published, with classics and newcomers enjoyable via traditional book, e-book, pdf and Steam.

There's also Choose Your Own Adventure, but they aren't really gamebooks.

Oct 2025: Expanded and updated guide. Aug 2024: Added modern section and more gamebooks.

Classic Gamebooks

These are mostly gamebooks from the 80's, with a branching path through a consistent plot.

Fighting Fantasy

These green-covered books got me started as a gamer. I died to a mammoth in Caverns of the Snow Witch. And a love for gamebooks and gaming was born.

Fighting Fantasy defined the gamebooks in the UK, with 70+ books across several genres. Using 2 dice and a pencil to fight monsters and seek adventure.

Some have extra rules, such as the Fear (House of Hell), Spell Gems (Scorpion Swamp) and an army (Armies of Death). At times they are frustrating with instant deaths, only one true path or fiendishly difficult. But people still love them and play them, and new ones are being published.

I've recently written a series converting the Warlock of Firetop Mountain into a dungeon using random tables. And the running a group of Warlock! adventurers through it solo.

Lone Wolf

The other major name of adventure gamebooks in the UK (along with FF), the books spanned 20+ books in 3+ series.

They also had a more consistent tone, and you played the same character (except for a second character in later books). In addition, the combat was slightly quicker and there were a number of secondary skills which were important, and also provided a way of character improvement across the books.

There are more recent ones on my list to try, such as the Huntress series

All of the original Lone Wolf books are available for free.

Way of the Tiger

A series by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson, where you play a ninja, advancing in experience and plot each book. So far I've played the first two books, Avenger and Assassin.

The books ooze with flavour of playing a ninja, with a selection of abilities such as acrobatics, poison needles, shurikenjutsu and arrow cutting. Then there's special equipment like garotte, flash powder and iron sleeves, plus combats having choices of throws, kicks, punches and blocks.

The story is well written and plays with a nice difficultly level, having fewer insta-deaths than many fighting fantasy books. But I found the fantasy world to be little jarring. You're playing a ninja, but in a mishmash fantasy world with dwarves, hobgoblins, wizards, dark elves, barbarians, sea-elves, and elder evils.

Others

Cretan Chronicles. Played these a long time ago, and will re-try them. Was different to the FF books as they had a Greek flavour and a few unique mechanics such as Honour.
Sorcery! should probably have it's own entire section. You played the same character through multiple books and it had it's own magic system.

Open-World Gamebooks

These are mostly gamebooks from the 80's, with a branching path through a consistent plot.

Steam Highwayman

Steam Highwayman is a series of open-world gamebooks set in a steampunk Britain, riding a steam motorbike, stealing from the rich and whoever else is around, and (maybe) helping the common people. There's an interview with author Martin Barnabus Noutch on Rand Roll.

It's my favourite series of gamebooks so far. It uses the chassis of Fabled Lands, but improved and streamlined. It's focused in a few areas of England (and eventually Wales in book 5), lurking in ambush spots on roads for likely targets, making Friends and Enemies, dealing with quests, some local to the book and others spanning multiple books. Improve your Velosteam, perform Great Deeds, shmooze with the rich or plot a revolution...

Death can happen from too many injuries / healed injuries, but it's not got the many arbitrary deaths of Fabled Lands or Fighting Fantasy.

Fabled Lands by Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson

I only found out about these in 2023, but they were published in the 80's. With a 7th added a few years ago. You play a character that can go from one book to another and back again, choosing what kind of adventures you want to get into.

Each book has a very different tone, from seas in book 3 to samurai in book 6. My characters have died and lost their stuff many times, and you can see the changes in game design since when they were written.

There are interviews with authors Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson.

Vulcanverse by Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson

From the same authors as Fabled Lands is another open world series of gamebooks, this time tied to Greek myth and legend. Companions can join you, fights are no different to regular skill checks, and lots has been learnt since the first series.

It's an interesting series well-written and plotted. There are a series of great tasks (3 per first 4 books) to complete. The gameplay is more about solving puzzles than many other gamebooks.

Also, if you die, you generally come back.

Legendary Kingdoms by Oliver Hulme

These are more open-world gamebooks where you control a group of up to 4 adventurers. Three books have been published, and there might be a long wait for the last three.

These open-world books let you choose from 6 adventurers, and each book centres on one of them. Relationships between these characters can develop, as they argue, share moments and maybe become lovers. There's also the option to create one or more characters of your own (I usually go with 3 featured and one of my own)

The books feature massed battles, difficult plot lines, dungeons, spellcasting, diplomacy, politics and lots of d6s.

Modern Era Gamebooks

A few gamebooks are set in the modern era (or near future)

Most gamebooks are fantasy or sci-fi, but a few are set in the modern day (or were when they were written)

Citadel of Bureaucracy by J. D. Mitchell. has you trying to survive a day in the office using the Fighting Fantasy ruleset. Dealing with inept co-workers, a demanding boss, vending machines, presentations, acronyms, processed food and Canadian geese. Friends who work in an office were horrified by the idea of a gamebook about it.
Click Your Poison by James Schannep is a series with several set in modern era. They're diceless gamebooks with some puzzles. Spied has you as a secret agent, Haunted spending three nights in a haunted house, Murdered is a murder mystery in Brazil and Superpowered gives you one of three superhero powers
Lost in the City by James Fry was featured in Day 10. You lost in a modern urban setting.
Possibly the strangest is Can You Brexit? by veteran gamebook authors Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson. Trying to make Brexit work as the Prime Minister of the UK and stay in power at the same time.
A few of the titles from Day 3: Horror Gamebooks are set in the modern day. Nightshift and other Cluster of Echoes books by Victorian Hancox, Psycho Killer by David Lowrie and The Ghosts of Craven Manor by Joseph Daniels (but also time-travel!).
Fighting Fantasy has a few ones set in modern day (-ish). Appointment with F.E.A.R. by Steve Jackson is superheroes. House of Hell by Steve Jackson and Blood of Zombies by Ian Livingstone are also modern day, but horror for sure.
Operation Dead Dawn by Tom Perrett has you as a soldier infiltrating a military base with zombies. It's a very short gamebook with only a few choices to make.

Many Choose Your Own Adventure and similar books are set in modern day, but not anything I know about. There's quite a few others that have been written in modern (80's - now) times but are hard to get hold of.

Citadel of Bureaucracy by J. D. Mitchell

This is laid out with the rules and structure of Fighting Fantasy (400 pages, Skill, Stamina, Luck), with attributes listed as Core Competencies, alongside Time, Merit, Medications and How to Cheat Fairly.

For you are playing a bureaucrat, trying to get through a stressful day in the civil service. Navigating workmates, avoiding your boss, dealing with acronyms, preparing a presentation and trying to find time for lunch.

It's very different from the normal fantasy, and lots of fun. Unless, maybe, you have an office job, in which case it might just be a painful read. Such was the opinion of my fantasy book group.

Horror Gamebooks

Playing a gamebook by yourself (especially a physical one), is a good way to experience the horror genre.

In Nightshift by Victoria Hancox you're stuck at night in a hospital, caught up in a nightmare and trying to get out. It has sequels in the Cluster of Echoes Series (The Alchemist's Folly, the Phantom Self, Behind the Weeping Wells, Shopping Maul)
The Ghosts of Craven Manor by Joseph Daniels is a time-travelling gamebook with puzzles and multiple paths. It starts with you moving into a haunted house and trying to banish a spirit using a time-travelling amulet. The adventures are continued in the Legacy of Craven Manor and the Ingram Chronicles.
Fighting Fantasy is possibly the best known gamebook series, with a few spooky options. House of Hell (modern, Steve Jackson), Night of the Necromancer (Jonathan Green), Blood of Zombies (modern, Ian Livingstone). Dead of Night (Jim Bambra, Stephen Hand) and Beneath Nightmare Castle (Peter Darvill-Evans) would also fit if you can find them.
Valentino Sergi has written Edgar Allan Poe - The Horror Gamebook (also an Italian version). Explore puzzles and mysteries and stave off madness in a realm based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
Jonathan Green has written many gamebooks, and in the ACE Gamebook series are some spooky titles. Dracula - Curse of the Vampire, Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu and 'Twas the Krampus Night Before Christmas all qualify.
David Lowrie writes gamebooks that are darker in tone. In Straight to Hell you are a crusader knight in the depths of hell with a lot of ways to come to a grisly end. In Psycho Killer you are trying to stop a mass murderer and avoid a gruesome fate yourself.
Call of Cthulhu is the best-known horror roleplaying game, and you can experience it in Alone Against Nyarlathotep by Lee Wade. Lots of North Yorkshire and creepy seaside towns and villages to explore. It's available as a PDF from drivethrurpg. There's also a book option. A similar option is Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Carcosa by Heinrich D. Moore (more of a solo rpg).
What Dreams May Come is a Savage Realms gamebook by TroyAnthony Schermer. A nightmarish journey through a realm of dreams.
Simon Birks has a few gamebooks. Horror ones would include Innsmouth: The Stolen Child and Curse of Cthulhu - These Strange and Deadly Shores

Science Fiction

Science Fiction isn't just lasers and spaceships, but also smugglers, new frontiers, cyberpunk, robots and time-travel.

The Altimer from Samuel Isaacson is the first in horror sci-fi trilogy the Entram Epic (with New Gaia and Solar War). New extra-terrestrial life has been discovered and ~~everyone lives in harmony~~ things go wrong. You get to be an astronaut leading (or not in my case) a team to New Gaia. Well written with meaningful choices.
Fighting Fantasy has Starship Traveller (Star-Trek like), Robot Commando (mechs and dinosaurs), Rebel Planet (an alien empire), Space Assassin (play as a bounty hunter), Rings of Kether (some love it, I hate it), Sky Lord and Star Strider.
Star Smuggler by Dennis Sustare is from 1982, playing as a starship-era soldier of fortune. It looks like the author has okayed digital versions.
Star Bastards is by the same publisher as Sword of the Bastard Elf from Day 7. You're racing, sleazing, gambling and fighting your way across the galaxy, dealing with bounty hunters that come your way.
The Fall of District-U by Matt Beighton is a Pick Your Path book set in a mining district of the distant future. Investigate the dark alleyways, get tech upgrades and battle all manner of foes in a cyberpunk-feeling setting.
Heavy Metal Thunder by Kyle Stiff has you as a human soldier resisting extra-terrestrial invaders. First of a trilogy. Could only find in e-book/kindle format
The Renegade Lord by Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith is the first in the Falcon Series, where you play a time-travelling special agent. You get all sorts of equipment to start with and get missions / sub-plots in different eras of time. Picked up first book easily but others look like hard to get hold of.
Space Brigade is a gamebook in graphic novel format split over chapters with puzzles and space soldiers. I found a Canadian site selling it.
The Be An Interplanetary Spy books by Seth McEvoy books have been recommended for kids. But some of the more modern reprints appear to be of a far lower quality book.

Heart of Ice by Dave Morris

A linear gamebook, set in the future a century or so from now, where humanity is stuck in an ice age of it's own making and nearing extinction. It's part of a larger series, the Critical IF gamebooks (which I'll get to more of in future).

There are no random rolls or choices in the book, you get to choose four skills from a list of twelve instead. These skills, your companions on the way and the equipment you make, plus codewords you pick up, determine your fate.

Other Gamebooks

Then some big classics are

Rider of the Black Sun. by Swen Harder, it's big, atmospheric and split by chapters
Isle of Destiny by Dean Moodie
Sword of the Bastard Elf

Endless Destinies - The Clockwork City

An open-world gamebook with cards for combat. Aimed at a younger audience, it has unique visuals and a map you wander around! Hope to see more, once I've played this one!

Destiny Quest

Large gamebooks replicating the feel of diablo or other computer rpgs. Combat is the focus, as is powering up your character in various ways.

Finishing Up

Still lots of gamebooks to find, play and add!