Sorcery! - PC Version released on Steam

[HiddenX]

Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! is back: A PC version was released today on Steam. Here's a review from PCWorld:

Sorcery! Parts One and Two review: Choose your own adventure in this glorious Steve Jackson adaptation



I’ve fought an assassin. I’ve saved an orcish princess. I’ve clambered through overflowing sewers. I’ve died from drinking too much river water, and died again from contracting plague. I’ve fought monsters, eaten rations, and rested at more inns than I’d care to recall. I’ve even—don’t tell anyone—thrown rocks at a little girl in exchange for an apple. (It wasn’t one of my prouder moments.)

This is Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! reimagined for 2016. And it’s also the latest from Inkle, creator of the acclaimed 80 Days.

[...]



Bottom line

Inkle is fast becoming one of my favorite studios. 80 Days was excellent. Sorcery is much the same, forsaking the off-kilter Victorian Age for a more cliched land of swords and spells and knavery—and yet, by some combination of Inkle’s own talents and Steve Jackson’s original source, managing to wring some truly compelling ideas from the game’s thin sword-and-board pretenses.

And I’ve still got two more adventures ahead before Sorcery wraps up. Fantastic.

More information.

 

[Pongo]

This looks interesting - any Watchers play it?

There's a great link in the article as well:
https://archive.org/details/gamebooks
Which takes you to what looks like a great archive of gamebook material, including the Grailquest books (which I can't recommend highly enough) and a few I'd forgotten about.

Happy days! Ahhhh I'm having a moment here.

 

[Donkerman]

Played the original books and it was great. Played it on android and had some good nostalgia. If you used to enjoy gamebooks you should enjoy all the sorcery games.

 

[you]

This is a phone game; will joker be the first to buy ?

(btw I have these on andriod)

 

[Zerotown]

I've picked up both Sorcery and it's sequel for Android, and played them while commuting to and from work. The games are very well done: atmospheric, nicely written and with an intuitive interface. I'll buy the other parts for sure sometime for my mobile. (not a big fan of playing these kinds of games from behind my desktop - the pacing fits better with sitting on a train, sipping coffee, ignoring others . Btw: I never knew the original books, so there's no nostalgia-factor for me here.

That all said, if you like this, you ought to check out '80 days', also by Inkle. That one *really* blew me away with it's versatility, narrative and style.

 

[Wisdom]

About these books. ...
When I was younger I would read them front to back intentionally. It was hard to pick up the plot at the beginning but the farther you got in the book the more your brain filled in and followed all the pathways.
Your brain would eventually know all the choices and what outcome they lead to.
Probably sounds crazy explaining it but it was really fun for me

 

[Cronis]

Sounds like cheating Wisdom! For shame! I loved these kinds of books when I was a kid, anyone remember the Lone Wolf series? Those and the Steve Jackson stuff were awesome.

 

[Donkerman]

Read all the lone wolfs, grail quest, planet fall and lots of the fighting fantasy (special mention to creature of havoc). Enjoyed them immensly. Those were the days.

 

[Pongo]

I loved gamebooks, they led me to P&P rpgs. I never played Sorcery though back in the day. I've bought it for my phone for next time I have a long commute.

Fighting Fantasy were ace - creature of havoc was awesome, but my personal favorite was the talisman of death...

 

[Pessimeister]

Thanks for the news-bit, HiddenX, I wasn't aware this had seen a Steam release, thus to the wishlist it goes.

I'm an irregular game-book collector (and member of gamebooks.org) so it's nice to see the heritage of such an influential series live on in a new format like this.

I've still got the entire four-part series in book form on my shelf. "The Crown of Kings" is a quite an extensive game-book; I remember buying them at the end of year 9 in the summer of '93. The whole concept of actually memorizing spell codes and using them selectively in pertinent role-playing situations in the book simply blew my mind at the time.

 

[Pongo]

It's currently 40% off if you buy parts one and two on Steam together (5.99 rather than 9.99 euros)

 

[Pessimeister]

Cheers for the tip Pongo - subsequently have now bought it. Shamutanti Hills ahoy!

 

[fadedc]

The first of the sorcery games follows the book pretty closely, although it does have some additions and enhancements to take advantage of the media. For the second and third game they start to diverge from the book more and more, and to add new innovations and things that would only be possible in electronic format. In general this is a good thing, it adds some length to your playthroughs and some extra depth to the stories.