Hearken to me, ye olde Homedudes and Handmaidens!
Steve Jackson Games, the brilliant minds behind table-top hits such as Ogre, Munchkin, and it’s hundreds of spin offs, breathed new life into their 1980s adventure gamebook series Sorcery! written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche, and have thrust their classic story into a new era in the best way currently known. Making an app for it.
Billed as an innovative blend of RPG, table-top game and interactive story, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! from developer inkle is a blur of epic fantasy adventure genres in which every decision counts and you are the hero.
“You have walked the wilds of Kakhabad: throught Khare and the spiteful Baklands, all the way into Mampang.
You have survived traps, thieves, serpents and vengeful Gods,
And now it is here.
The Crown of Kings!“
Well that sounds awesome. Why can’t I play through that stuff?
Some crown, which is referred to as “The Crown,” was according to lengend never actually forged. By a happy chance for him, some solider called Chalanna found it and decided, “Hey, you know? I don’t really feel like being on the low end of the monarchy, our wages suck and I’d really just like to rule everything.” So he takes this crown (“The Crown”) and suddenly became Emperor of the Eastern World.
The sense of things not boding well in this land are apparent. Crowns are dangerous things to covet, you guys.
Like it’s paperback predecessor, Sorcery!s story has a natural flow that never feels forced and progresses through your own choices that, for good or ill, affect the world and your place within it. Sprinkled throughout with touchscreen sword fights, an interesting magic system with 48 different spells in your arsenal, and tabletop tactics make Sorcery! worthy of at least three play throughs to master the Spell Book alone.
That isn’t to say that Sorcery is without it’s drawbacks, because what game doesn’t have at least one instance that leaves the player frustrated? Cue several instances of the game crashing straight out of choosing my adventurer. “Sorcery! Isn’t responding. Would you like to close it?” was the phrase plastered across my screen that had me seriously considering chucking my mobile device at the wall.
Couple a few crash issues with the fact that, like its 80’s storybook predecessor, Sorcery!s app version is just one book of four parts rather than a means that the player should not be too hopeful for a conclusion within the few hours of gameplay.
However, with most mobile games fizzling out of a daily ritual about a month in (I’m looking at you, Words With Friends), Sorcery!s decide your own adventure theme and thousands of choices for every different motive have the added bonus of replay value, which makes Sorcery! a rare gem in it’s genre.
Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! is available to purchase for Apple and Android devices. And be sure to keep an eye on their Facebook page for Sorcery 2!
I’m gonna be doing a LOT of traveling this year and it’s come up several times from family and friends that I should look into some kind of e-reader. As vehemently against reading digital stuff as I am, I can’t deny it makes sense for me to carry a one pound device instead of several pounds of various books (I read fast, okay!?). My problem is…what do I get?
In my search for a capable yet reasonable device, I figured some of you might be struggling as I am so I will lay out what I’ve found in hopes it’ll help you as well. First thing on my agenda? Do I get a simple eBook type of deal or do I go all out for the schnazzy tablet I can game on? Let’s look at the choices, of which there are three: (more…)
At first glance the movie looks great. Tekken was supervised by Youchi Mori, who is known for Appleseed, and the screenplay was written by Dai Sato, who has worked on projects like Cowboy Bebop; Sato is also a fan of the Tekken series. Based on these two people alone, I would say so far there is a good foundation for the movie to be a success. If you also take into account the voice actors such as Kyle Hebert, who plays Kazuya Mishima, he is also best known for the character Ryu from Street Fighter. Kyle has also worked on several anime titles like Gurren Lagann and Dragon Ball Z Kai. Cristina Valenzuela also lends her voice talents as Alisa Bosconovitch, and while Cristina is not new to the voice acting world, she played the role of Noel Vermillion from BlazBlue. She has also played her part in the anime world by working on such titles as Blade of the Immortal and K-On! . With this line up I would say I expected the movie to be amazing. The voice acting for the most part was on point but it did have its cheesy one liners and some almost painful moments. (more…)