There are a number of origin points for the RPG including performance, wargames, cybernetics, and literature. It’s this last element that I briefly want to focus on. Following the release of TSR’s D&D (1974), various game developers began producing their own takes on the RPG genre, adopting different rules and settings, such as Game Designers’ Workshop’s Traveler (1977) and Chaosium’s RuneQuest (1978). In 1982, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston joined this coterie with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first “gamebook” in the Fighting Fantasy series. While the tone was not too dissimilar from other RPGs, the approach was wholly different. Here, the gamemaster would be replaced by the medium of the book itself in much the same way that they were already replaced by the programming code of CRPGs like Ultima (Richard Garriot, 1981) and Wizardry (Sir-Tech, 1981). Likewise, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was also designed as a single player game, meaning that it lacked the social elements of its tabletop predecessors. It was by combining the form of literature alongside the mechanics of RPGs that Jackson and Livingston developed the structure of their Fighting Fantasy series. For example, players would still have characters who are dependent on statistics in order to advance and use dice to enact out combat but all this would be carried out by reading. Furthermore, gamebooks also retained elements of the adventure genre with players being able to progress the story by following different pathways in the form of choices and page numbers. The first decision players must make in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain reads as such:
You peer into the gloom to see dark, slimy walls with pools of water on the stone floor in front of you. The air is cold and dank. You light your lantern and step warily into the blackness. Cobwebs brush your face and you hear the scurrying of tiny feet: rats, most likely. You set off into the cave. After a few yards you arrive at a junction. Will you turn west (turn to 71) or east (turn to 278)?1
Note the style of descriptive writing that recalls the prose of earlier pulp fiction which here works towards immersing readers within the world of the game. Walls are slimy, the air is dank, and feet are tiny. The stylistic rhythm becomes as important as the rules of the game itself because it’s precisely how a player’s imagination is triggered. Well crafted and distinct enough from its peers, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain ultimately gave way to the larger boom in the genre of RPG gamebooks, a popularity that extended well beyond the borders of the Anglosphere.
In 1984, Japan’s own domestic gamebook industry would begin with Asahi Sonorama’s Hello Challenger series with each book seeing players take on the role of an assortment of characters across genres and scenarios, including an aspiring popstar, a would-be knight, and a cosmic diplomat. In December, Shakaishisosha (社会思想社) began localizing Games Workshop’s Fighting Fantasy series, starting with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. As reported by the Asahi Shimbun, it would be in 1985 that the gamebook boom in Japan began in earnest.2 That year, Shakaishisosha released six more titles from Fighting Fantasy. Another publishing company, Seitosha (西東社), began releasing their own gamebooks, including Search for the President!! (大統領を捜せ!!), Wargames (ウォー・ゲーム) , Star Wars (スターウォーズ),3 and Survival Game (サバイバルゲーム), this last title being penned by none other than the author of Golgo 13 (ゴルゴ13), Takao Saito (齊藤 隆夫). Other publishing companies sought a slice of the gamebook market. That same year, Futami Shobō (二見書房 ) released Dinosaur Expedition (恐竜探検) and Pirate Treasure (海賊の秘宝), and Keibunsha (勁文社) a Tower of Druaga gamebook (ドルアーガの塔 外伝). For their part, Keibunsha continued to publish original gamebooks and adaptations of existing franchises until 1988, including Mobile Suit Gundam (機動戦士ガンダム 最期の赤い彗星), Super Mario (スーパーマリオブラザーズ外伝), and even Knight Rider (ナイトライダー無人兵器ゴリアテの挑戦). This was an era of radical experimentation and gamebooks were just one result of how RPGs were flourishing.
In Japan, both wargames and RPGs had their own dedicated magazines, but it would be a few years before gamebooks had their own equivalent. By 1984, Jackson and Livingston had already begun serialization of the magazine Warlock under their company Games Workshop. Warlock largely worked towards promoting the gamebook genre, including publishing new versions of previous adventures, hosting publishing competitions, publishing interviews and more. In 1986, Japan began seeing their own proto-gamebook magazines, although the medium had already been covered in the likes of Shokikaku’s (翔企画) RPG/wargame publication, Simulator (シミュレーター). Chief among these was Shakaishisosha’s Game Book Magazine (ゲームブックマガジン). While short-lived, Game Book Magazine helped pave the way for the Japanese edition of Warlock which finally arrived at the end of the year in 1986 thanks to a partnership between Shakaisosha and Games Workshop, including in its ranks both Hitoshi Yasuda and Yutaka Tama. Just as this new version of Warlock launched, its U.K. edition would soon shutter. While these broader developments in Japan may give the impression that gamebooks were thriving—over 220 gamebooks were published in 19864—the boom failed to sustain itself for more than a handful of years. Consider that 1986 was also the year that Dragon Quest (Chunsoft) took Japan by storm, Call of Cthulu was localized by Hobby Japan, and Kadokawa Shoten (角川書店) began publication of the serialized replay, Record of Lodoss War which later helped launch Sword World. In other words, gamebooks had to compete not only with video games but also other forms of analogue play, including TTRPGs, replays, and play-by-mail games.
If we’re to consider gamebooks as simply one aspect of the “novel-like” game, then gamebooks may have fallen in popularity but the novel-like game would remain, shifting past its RPG origins with Chunsoft’s “sound novel” games and Leaf’s “visual novel” Shizuku (1996). Shortly after the advent of the new millennium, gamebooks would see a minor revival in the form of reprints of classic works, including Sorcery!, Grailquest, and even Warlock of Firetop Mountain, with these developments even being followed by i-mode adaptations. Still, the gamebook industry never commanded the same attention that it did in its heyday.
The word “resurgence” is too strong to use, but last year saw the release of the gamebook-style RPG video game, The Use of Life (Daraneko Games, 2025) and now this year has seen the release of Digitalis Publishing’s Veritas Tales: Witch of the Dark Castle, another gamebook-style video game, both titles being particularly notable for receiving English localizations. Within the Anglosphere, gamebooks are certainly far from an unknown genre but little is known of their Japanese counterparts. Six years in the making, Witch of the Dark Castle has been able to garner a not-insignificant amount of press due to its director being Yoshio Nishimura, an artist and game developer who formerly worked at Capcom and then Vanillaware. It was while working at Vanillaware that Nishimura developed something of a spiritual prequel to Witch of the Dark Castle, Dragon’s Crown: Treasure of Demon Island (ドラゴンズクラウン・アドベンチャー悪霊島の秘宝), a gamebook video game that served as DLC for Dragon’s Crown Pro (2018) and remained exclusive to Japan.
As Nishimura has explained to both Japanese and North American video game outlets, Witch of the Dark Castle is his attempt to strike out on his own from Vanillaware, an initiative that was fully supported by Vanillaware’s director, George Kamitani. In effect, the game is freed from the expectations and potential burden of being a Vanillaware title while also perhaps giving Nishimura the creative freedom only possible from working within an independent environment.
Witch of the Dark Castle begins in proper with players being introduced to a wizard who functions as the game’s narrator, introducing players to the actual gamebook they’ll be playing and guiding them through the game’s mechanics. From there, players choose one of the two characters, the warrior Havelock or the mage Paneri, each one offering a different story of origin, playstyle, and narrative development.
As a child, Havelock was raised by the witch Ingeborg who taught him everything from arithmetic to swordsmanship. Seven years pass by and one day, Ingeborg stows Havelock away in a coffin with instructions to not reveal himself. Losing consciousness, Havelock later found himself waking up in a strange land where he’s captured by a slaver and conscripted as a gladiator. It’s in the arena where Havelock makes a name for himself, eventually buying his freedom after seven more years. Returning to his homeland, Havelock comes upon a rumor that Ingeborg, his foster mother, has brought ruin to the royal capital, Erishing. He sets out to Erishing to discover the truth.
Paneri is an amnesiac who was found nearly dead by the road and rescued to the Holm Abbey. It’s there that she studied magic under the abbess, Holm, where she thrived as a magician. One day, the abbess is called to the Royal Capital of Erishing by Ingeborg but goes missing after three months. Feeling a debt of gratitude, Paneri heads to Erishing to locate her. Whether players choose Havelock or Paneri, the two characters eventually cross paths at the gate to Erishing where they join forces to defeat the sentry, a stone golem. Upon entering the city, Havelock and Paneri encounter swarms of the undead roaming the street but also a coterie of allies, including Kirits, the commander of the military who is ready to use what forces remain to stage an attack against Ingeborg.
By this point, players will already have had to make several choices, but it’s here that Witch of the Dark Castle loosens its narrative structure, allowing players to explore the city in the order they see fit. It’s during these sojourns that players will learn more about Erishing and its inhabitants, and thus begin piecing together the larger story Why is prince Knut reluctant to take action? What is Ingeborg’s true motivation? Just who is Paneri? Furthermore, as any possible event threatens to consume resources—HP, items, etc.—should an event result in a combat encounter, deciding on a route is much more than just choosing the order of the narrative but rather about weighing risk. For example, Paneri can equip magical items to cast powerful spells but this eventually destroys the casting medium. Choosing to constantly use spells means setting up later battles to be more difficult as Paneri may no longer have enough resources to handle an encounter. The game prevents player’s from ever truly soft-locking themselves in this manner by always having a single auto-save typically at a point of possible return. Nevertheless, a first-time playthrough means taking chances, ones that will result in both positive and negative outcomes. At one point, I returned to the inn with nearly no items and only one gold coin. Taking a seat alongside another patron, I decided to use my last gold to buy them a drink and listen to their tale. Afterwards, they thanked me with an even greater reward. Far from this meaning that any good action will be paid in kind, this is the element of surprise integral to gamebooks and RPGs at large and first-time players will be needing to accept their possible points of failure as much as success in order to proceed.
While half the game will be spent adventuring, the other half will be taken up by combat. Depending on their equipment and the situation, players will have at their disposal an assortment of attacks, spells, and items to use, and possibly even allies. When attacking with a melee option, players and enemies will simultaneously roll 2d6, the result which is added to the characters’ level to produce the “Action Value” with the higher Action Value being the attack which hits. Alongside consumable items which run the gamut from throwing knives to healing points, this is the full extent of combat and so every action taken is given greater weight. This becomes especially apparent towards the end of the game as the encounters grow in difficulty and managing inventory space equally grew in importance. One item I had acquired functioned as an auto-win but could only be used once, and I felt proud for saving it for one fight only to later come across another situation where it could have also been helpful. There’s no correct answer as to what I should have done. Learning to live with—and most importantly, adapt to—consequences is merely the experience of Witch of the Dark Castle and gamebooks at large.
On being a gamebook, Witch of the Dark Castle also offers a curious UI scheme. The advantage of CRPGs over their analogue counterparts is that the process of simulation is rendered automatic. The same is true for a digital gamebook. There is no character sheet to fill out, no physical pencil to hold or dice to roll, and certainly no need for calculation, but it’s precisely these elements that remain visible and are used throughout the game, serving as a reminder that this is indeed a gamebook. As such, their inclusion preserves the aesthetics and experience of playing through a gamebook even if rendered digital. For Nishimura, who initially worked as a background artist at Capcom, it’s clear that he has an eye for attention to detail, a quality that helps immerse players within the world of the game.
Given that the animations are minimal, it’s left up to the prose to convey the story with the added benefit of being backed by Nishimura’s art alongside a soundtrack composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto whose relationship with Vanillaware stretches back to the MMORPG, Fantasy Earth Zero (2005). Each page presents with it the unfolding of a smaller scenario where all three aspects work in tandem to evoke the imagination. Combined with the role of decision-making, the narrative here is brought to life by the overall art direction. The writing in Witch of the Dark Castle recalls the same descriptive style present in classic gamebooks. As for Nishimura’s art, it’s at turns sensual and epic while Sakimoto’s music is equally triumphant and wistful.
To consider that Nishimura initially left Capcom from the stress of working on the Monster Hunter franchise, it’s clear that Witch of the Dark Castle was made by a group of long-standing veterans operating on a smaller scale, a method of production that’s sorely needed in an industry where operating costs continue to soar, and it’s perhaps the genre of the gamebook which allowed Nishimura and the rest of his team to carry out the game’s development within more limited means. With Witch of the Dark Castle, I’m reminded of Daraneko who writes of The Use of Life, “While this title is technically a JRPG, we are not aiming for a good old JRPG” style, but rather a “good ‘new’ JRPG” style, in hopes of showing that this kind of evolution is absolutely possible.”5 Towards more good new JRPGs then.
END NOTES
- Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (London: Puffin, 1982), 1. ↩︎
- 中島信吾, “ゲームブック パソコン世代が書物を変えた!? (情報コラム)”, Asahi Shimbun, June 25th, 1985. Accessed via Asahi Shimbun Cross Search. ↩︎
- No relation to the actual Star Wars franchise ↩︎
- 岡和田 晃, “ゲームブック戦国時代。短期連載「『ファイティング・ファンタジー』とその時代」第2回は，原作者の来日に沸き，ライバルが乱立した80年代中盤を振り返る,” 4gamer, January 13, 2026, https://www.4gamer.net/games/758/G075800/20260112001/ ↩︎
- Daraneko, “The Use of Life,” Steam, November 26, 2025, https://store.steampowered.com/app/1483370/The_Use_of_Life/ ↩︎
BIBLIOGRAPHY
中島信吾. “ゲームブック パソコン世代が書物を変えた！？(情報コラム).” Asahi Shimbun. June 25, 1985. Accessed via Asahi Shimbun Cross Search.
岡和田 晃. “ゲームブック戦国時代。短期連載『「ファイティング・ファンタジー」とその時代』第2回は，原作者の来日に沸き，ライバルが乱立した80年代中盤を振り返る.” 4Gamer. January 13, 2026. https://www.4gamer.net/games/758/G075800/20260112001
Daraneko. “The Use of Life.” Steam. November 26, 2025. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1483370/The_Use_of_Life/
Jackson, Steve, and Ian Livingstone. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. London: Puffin Books, 1982.