You should probably also add King of Dragon Pass and Fablelands Gold too, both I think are also worth owning!
If you're neurotic about series that get cut off mid-stream, however, it is worth noting that Megara Entertainment won't be finishing the Fabled Lands series for iOS, so the two books currently available in that app are all you're going to get for the foreseeable future. That won't bother everyone, of course, but we've already seen people concerned that the three other books in the Sorcery! series won't see the light of day.
I have fabled lands and The keep of the loch lord but deleted them both as I didn't like them as much as the traditional gamebooks. Haven't tried king of dragon pass yet though, it's been on my wish list for ages just never sure about picking it up. Anyway I think this is enough off topic stuff Can't wait for the rest of the sorcery books if they keep up this level of standard there going to be an amazing series.
Considering that the second book takes place entirely within one city (Khare), getting to travel around the actual map of the place with a solid visual record of what took place where is going to be quite neat, especially for those of us who played through the original book. I think the same thing done for the City of Thieves gamebook would prove to be rather interesting - if not a little confusing.
I wonder what Tin Man's response to this Sorcery! series will be? I think they still have the license for the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and Appointment with F.E.A.R. is supposed to come out soon. Will they still stick with their traditional format, or will they adopt some of the advancements shown in Sorcery! ?
Honestly, I do think faithful gamebook adaptations such as those TMG make have a place, and there's definitely something great about an app that looks and "feels" like the actual physical gamebooks we grew up playing. The Sorcery! series shows that there are definitely other ways to approach the translation process, and there's no argument that inkle have done it very, very well, but I don't think every gamebook needs to follow this approach, or that developers should feel pressured into following somebody else's design concepts. A bigger problem arises when games get caught in limbo between the two ends of the scale, and you end up with confused, middling efforts like Fabled Lands or, more recently, Dark Quest, which gave the impression that the developer couldn't decide whether he wanted to make a virtual board game or derivative video game, especially with that title's deliberately-chosen classic boardgame appearance conflicting with the developer's controversial insistence that virtual dice have no place in digital games (my copy of Alien Frontiers would beg to differ ). Such situations create a glaring incongruity, one that several people pointed out in that game's thread. It'd be like House of Hell trying to shoehorn in the new combat system from Sorcery! while retaining the rest of its "classic gamebook" style and appearance. As long as the developer decides on an ultimate goal and commits to it fully, the results should pay off for them. There's definitely a thrill in picking up House of Hell and having it be the House of Hell I remember, although I'm also loving what inkle has done with Sorcery!, so I'm torn on the issue.
^^ I agree, while this is nice for a change there's something I really like about the TinMan books, they have the feeling of the old books complete with dice rolls and everything. IMO the TinMan series are pretty much prefect as they are and don't need any changes. Having said that sorcery is also very good at doing the same thing but in a slightly different way. I think there's probably room and fans for both apps to survive in the App Store.
Even though I've outgrown COYA in its traditional format (I tried 'Assassin in Orlandes'), I agree that there is space for both the traditional approach ala Tinman (with a few updates for the digital medium) and the approach that Sorcery! has taken. The Sorcery series - along with the Cretan Chronicles - remains my favourite COYA. 'Khare, Cityport of Traps' was much darker in tone, and the environment suitably harsh.
Just finished Chapter 1, and I gotta say, that was awesome. This genre isn't anything I've ever messed with on iOS, but I'm glad I jumped at this.
Both very important to gaming in a niche way. BTW, anyone remember which Steve Jackson had a node in Uplink (I know this isn't obscure in THIS thread)?
I loved this chapter, never played a gamebook before. I also thought I had missed a few things, only went back for a few options. Dissapointed it wasnt longer tho, Id have liked the whole story intact, but oh well.
Also, KODP writes itself around what you do (somewhat). Sure, you could say that this game does, but it's tied to the limitations of a "real" gamebook: there are only so many paths to travel down, and most result in the same outcome. KODP was a PC game and can really throw the (metaphorical) book at you.
My dock always has the last four apps I bought (or the four I'm playing if theres been nothing exciting out that week) AppStore&safari
BTW: in case anybody is reading this before playing it, if you are worried about game length, be sure to play it 'hardcore' i.e. don't take advantage of the constant stream of "Replay Combat" and "Backtrack to ..." options provided - keep each combat result and start over when you die! If you do choose to redo, make the smallest change possible and see if you survive. Oh, and that also means study the spellbook well before you play and don't look at it while playing! (Though this hoses you with pages found in-game as the spells aren't mentioned in the text in this version...) It's good that the options are there for people to 'cheat' but I feel they're way too plentiful/in your face, especially the replay combat. Here, I like the Gamebook Adventures format better - first they offer you different game modes at start, and with redos they give you bookmarks to set and go back to. After beating the game they turn on cheats like auto-win combat so you can explore freely.
I've got a lock screen pic but I always have my background as plain black I like how it makes all the apps stand out, and I go through fazes of folders I find when I put stuff in folders I don't use them as much as when there all in plain view.
That's the way I always play always on classic mode in the TinMan books and I've never used a replay or backtrack feature in this. I'd prefer to die and replay the game/book rather than backtrack as it feels like cheating, also it means I get a lot of play out of the gamebooks as I die a lot
