Lost Worlds

The Lost Worlds logo as appeared on compatible game books.

Lost Worlds is the name pertaining to series of combat picture books also with the system that they are using created by Alfred Leonardi. Lost Worlds is a combat game book that features combat with fantasy creatures and elements. Its appeal is that it does not need any dice to play, just two to four books. The current distributors of these books in the United States are Firelight Game Company and Flying Buffalo, Inc.

HobbyJapan licensed the Lost Worlds system for the Queen's Blade series (with some of the Queen's Blade characters are based on already created Lost Worlds counterparts)

History

For a full history, see the Wikipedia article here.

The first Lost Worlds combat books were created by Leonardi in 1983 for Nova Game Designs – two years after the success of his other designed game books such as Ace of Aces. Since then, there are 75 games created by various companies, such as Greysea and Flying Buffalo, in the late 90's, ranging from original characters to licensed ones. The Lost Worlds system, known for it's dice-less move-matrix system, was also used in by other companies, particularly Battlebooks and Games Workshop.

The current owner of the series is Jill Leonardi, Alfred Leonardi's daughter and a game designer as well, who also designs new matrices for use in Queen's Blade as well as a new brand, Legend's Gauntlet, by her new company, Firelight Game Company. The current distributor of the old books is Flying Buffalo, Inc who also worked some characters from their own franchise, Tunnels and Trolls, to Lost Worlds as well.

Today, the system is widely know for being the system used in the Queen's Blade series, which began in 2005.

How to Play

See How to Play in the Queen's Blade Combat Books article for more information.

Link with Queen's Blade

The combat book featuring Leina with the Lost Worlds logo in the bottom.

Aside that the Lost Worlds system is used for the Queen's Blade game books, the matrices and move sets of some of the characters in Queen's Blade uses character matrices from some of Lost Worlds characters except from a few characters where the Lost World counterparts don't have ability from.

Some of the characters have linked similarities (Leina and the Man with Chainmail) while others were just used their matrices, since their movesets were somewhat same for what the Queen's Blade character was designed for (Nyx and Tefflon Billy from Knights of the Dinner Table LW game book). Some characters like Melona are new characters with new matrix values and move sets that are not utilized in the Lost Worlds series (such as Shapeshifting in the case of Melona).

Since they are Lost Worlds compatible (as having indicated such in the covers), they can be used with other Lost Worlds books except for new ones who have compatibility issues.

External Links

• Flying Buffalo site for Lost Worlds (they also sell Queen's Blade books).
• Firelight Game Company website.
• Gamebooks.org description of Lost Worlds and list of available game books.
• Queen's Blade Battle website (where they also have Queen's Blade and Lost World derived game books)