PixlBit

With hundreds of new indie games spilling onto the scene each month, it's easy to overlook some of the more deserving but obscure titles. Thus, this blog.

 

Sorcery!--iOS, Android, Amazon Appstore--inkle

Long car rides, slow nights at work…long before there were smart phones and tablets, what did people do to while away their empty hours? Options were scarce in those days, but the answer for some of these individuals came in the form of Fighting Fantasy—a series of “interactive” fantasy books not unlike the “Choose Your Own Adventure” titles also popular at the time. The key difference between these two series, however, was the pen-and-paper, RPG-emphasis of the former. Via a round of dice rolls, the reader could build the stats of his very own adventurer before forging into the world each book offered. But like the PC text adventure, the advances of time and technology eventually relegated these “game books” to obscurity. Why read The Warlock of Firetop Mountain when the much more dynamic Final Fantasy Adventure was waiting to be devoured on the Game Boy?

Fortunately, recent years have been kinder to that once esteemed series of books. Indeed, the increased interest in interactive fiction coupled by advances in portable computing have, perhaps ironically, granted this style of storytelling a second chance. Hence Sorcery!, a sublime mobile adaptation of the four-part book series released originally in 1983.

Like its print counterpart, this digital retelling is split into four parts and details the journeys of the “Analander,” a lone hero who must somehow locate and retrieve a magical artefact (the Crown of Kings) from an evil Archmage intent on abusing its power. Two of these installments—The Shamutanti Hills and Khare: Cityport of Traps—have already been released, the first of which will be examined here.

The game/story begins simply enough—in strict no-frills fashion, Sorcery! opens with a worn map of the land and its many exotic locales. Starting in the character’s home village, the player will soon embark on his journey and chart his way across the land. Should I cut through the forest or go around the long way? Should I approach that old woman beckoning me from afar? Should I take the old man’s advice and explore the cave for treasure, or just assume he’s up to no good?

The map is sprawling and allows for numerable routes to choose from.

And those are just basic choices. As the player proceeds towards his ultimate destination (the City of Khare), he will encounter villages ravaged with pestilence (should I help these people and risk getting infected?), annoying sidekicks who may or may not have the purest of intentions (should I put up with his antics or ditch him?), and shopkeepers whose items you may crucially need (but do you really want to part with your remaining bit of gold?). Each choice can potentially prove fortunate or fatal, either now or later, and part of the fun is replaying the adventure to experience alternate outcomes. And if the player simply can’t live with a particularly unfortunate result, the game provides a handy “rewind” feature to allow for extra attempts.

Sorcery! doesn’t forsake its past, either; in keeping with its printed counterpart, the game displays its prose and options in an elegant, fluid typeface, with newer segments of the story scrolling upwards to smoothly “bump” previously read material. Balancing this text-heavy approach is the story’s distinctive artwork, which helps contextualize the important scenes without usurping the enjoyment of using one’s imagination.

But it’s not all reading and decision-making. The game also features a limited battle system in which the player will occasionally find himself confronted with an opponent of varying skill and power. Strictly turn-based, these “battles” require equal parts strategy, guess work, and luck as the player tries to second-guess his enemy’s next move so that he can respond accordingly. In the end, however, these fights are usually easily won and can be repeated without penalty, rendering them as largely inconsequential, if still mildly entertaining diversions.

Vaguely reminiscent of Paper, Rock, Scissors, Sorcery!'s battle system is simple but still somehow fun.

Sorcery! is in many ways the perfect retro experience; it plays tribute to its origins while still offering just enough modern adjustments to attract contemporary audiences. In other words, it retains the spirit of its printed predecessor within a much shinier package, and should appeal to anyone looking for something a little different from the norm. And better yet, the software powering the game—Inklewriter—is available for free to anyone looking to start their own interactive stories.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to www.multiplayerblog.mtv.com and www.inklestudios.com for the pics