PixlBit

It had been such a long time since I downloaded Palidin that I couldn’t remember what kind of game it was. Turned out to be a gamebook and a very text heavy one at that. The App Store has tons of great gamebooks (so I’m told) and I’ve always wanted to try one, so Palidin’s nature seemed a fortuitous discovery. Turned out to be a very conservative experience for a digital gamebook, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The developers really ran with the idea of a physical book. You swipe to turn pages that are usually filled with just text, though you’ll get a picture now and then, and sound effects enact the described action. To be honest, it’s really more of a choose your own adventure. Sure, you gain experience and levels and can get items but there’s no combat outside of choosing whether or not to fight. The game let’s you make plenty of choices but many of them lead to your death. Seems a little arbitrary. Still, the writing is decent and the story, while just a series of choices and encounters, remains intriguing throughout. I actually beat the game over the course of one day and discovered that it is but the first part of a larger story. A quick look at the developer’s website reveals that the remainder of the game is coming sometime in the next couple of months but I’m not sure if it will be a second app or an update to the existing one.  I’ll play it for sure if it’s an update but I’m not sure I’ll plop down money for the rest of it. We’ll see. I should probably just bite the bullet and download Sorcery! or one of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.

I definitely did not meet this many characters