Gamebook store

Saturday 30 March 2013

Inkle's digital Sorcery

If you're a longtime gamebook fan then you'll be aware of Steve Jackson's Sorcery series of linked gamebooks with a blend of unusual game mechanics and puzzles set in a world that was part Nepal, part Middle Earth. Tekumel it wasn't, but it was streets ahead of the competition back in the '80s.

I don't know if the Sorcery books ever explicitly connected with the Fighting Fantasy world of Alan, but in the minds of the readers I'm sure it was an easy glide between the two. (And in fact Wizard Books's new edition explicitly places them in the FF series, which clinches it.)

But that was then. It was a time when trees had to die so that we could read. Now dawns the age of backlit glass and pixels, a world in which gamebooks stand blinking like a cosily familiar but hopelessly befuddled elderly relative. So I've been curious to see what Inkle Studios would do with the iPad adaptation of Sorcery.

Inkle, as you may know, supplied the luscious visual design that burnished the iOS version of my Frankenstein interactive novel. The expectation for Sorcery, then, was that we'd see a graphically enhanced port of the books onto iPad. Now that Inkle are unveiling some details, it looks to be much more interesting than that. Sure, there's a lovely drawn 3D map by Mike Schley and dynamic character animation for the combats by Eddie Sharam. But instead of just a gamebook on a tablet, what we're seeing here is an evolution of gamebooks into something new.

On the surface it looks like a top-down CRPG (which is something much more likely to get a few hours of my time than a Fighting Fantasy book) but the truth is more complex and more interesting. You can go back and forth around the world Fabled Lands style, which I don't think was a feature of the original Sorcery books. More importantly, look what they've done with the text. It develops as you go - not in a simple old-style gamebook way, where the text you read depends on whether you take the money or open the box. Oh no. The style of the narrative - the way things are described, the way you speak - is shaped by the way you're playing.

Say you stride boldly into every battle. The system learns that and gives you text that portrays you as fearless. The things you say will be forthright and challenging. It's the original concept of Fable, only here it looks like it might go deeper than the colour of armour you wear over your Union Jack underpants. And the text that is being written aggregates a complete story, right down to the level of having procedurally-generated descriptions of the fights you get into. You could give the end result to a friend and it's the novel of your imaginary life. This is sounding a lot cooler than "roll two dice and add your Skill", isn't it?

The first Sorcery book/game is coming out in May, with the sequel due by the autumn. In my view it's a game changer, and the best hope for traditional "D&D-style" adventure gamebooks to find a niche along CRPGs in the 21st century. However, don't think for a moment that I'm giving up on my forthcoming Infinite IF gamebooks. They have something going for them that FF has never been renowned for: the quality of the writing, the story and the characters. That's why we're releasing them as ebooks, not apps, and have purposely kept them free of animated frills. But more on that next time.

11 comments:

  1. Ever since I first heard of the Frankenstein interactive novel and realized who was behind it, I've been hoping for Blood Sword to get a similar treatment. The work on Sorcery seems to bring that idea one step closer. I cannot even begin to say how thrilled I'd be if it were to actually happen.

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  2. I think Inkle are going to be busy full-time on Sorcery for the foreseeable future, Johann. And Blood Sword is probably too directed a storyline (I can't quite say "linear") to fit into the freeform style and microchoice structure of the Sorcery app. It would be absolutely perfect for Fabled Lands, of course ;-)

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    1. Just to clarify that - I don't mean that we won't be releasing a digital version of Blood Sword. Whether with Inkle or Tin Man or Spirit or Megara, Jamie and I would love to see that happen, and we intend to try and get it under way later in the year. However, I don't think it will look like the Sorcery app because the Blood Sword storyline isn't built to allow that degree of sandbox freedom. That's pretty much why we created the Fabled Lands series, in fact - to reflect the way our own RPG campaigns allow players to do anything they want.

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  3. Interesting and all, but...

    It's 2013, it's The Future!

    Where are my flying cars and Fabled Lands 7-12?

    Haven't been here for some time, happy new year ;)

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  4. Well, I always think of spring equinox as New Year, so you're not that late, Alexander :-)

    As for FL... what can I say? We expected the new apps to be coming out at 4-6 month intervals, and if they had been successful then we would have geared up to complete the series. But no sign yet, I'm afraid. At least you'll have Inkle's Sorcery series to tide you over. I'd say Sorcery is the new Fabled Lands, actually.

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  5. There was a post in December 2011 about new Fabled Lands apps:
    http://fabledlands.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/shape-of-universe.html
    Are those still going to happen?

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  6. Hopefully, Gary, but I couldn't say when. In the meantime, though, I do think these Sorcery apps will appeal to anyone who enjoys FL.

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  7. I met Steve Jackson about a week ago at a publishing trade fair in Paris, and I managed to coax him into showing me the preliminary build of the Sorcery app that he was carrying around on his iPad. It looks really fantastic. I also took the opportunity to shove a copy of Arcana Agency into his hands (The Keep of the Lich-Lord came up in conversation, when he saw your introduction to the book).

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    1. I hope it does well for him. Not that I guess he really needs it, but Steve has always been one of the good guys in an industry that has precious few of those :-)

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  8. Pity it's only for Apple OS at the moment. It really needs to come out for Android as well.

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    1. That was also the problem with Frankenstein. We have had Epub3 and Kindle Active Content versions of that ready to go since November, but it has been out of my hands. As of next month, however, rights revert to Fabled Lands LLP and then we can get them out there.

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