Insanely creative “Choose your own Adventure” kind of mobile game, where I was scared that the phone limitations would result in Sorcery’s gameplay crying to be put onto something else, but instead it all really shined. It came off like reading and playing with a book you could actually interact with - it was perfect! The combat especially, which had a really creative and thought-provoking battle structure. The entire game really makes you sit and think each decision you make, while at the same time being kind enough to allow you to rewind if you really fucked yourself.

The only thing that pissed me off about Sorcery was how I finally got to the final destination and was told I had to go buy the second game to finish it! I was so invested too! Like come on, we were RIGHT THERE, MAN!!!

But besides that, Sorcery was an absolute treat to play with lots of replayability in deciding different ways to reach (or fail to reach) your goal. I really would rate this higher if not for the ending essentially being behind a paywall.

4/5

I'm not sure why, but I didn't expect this to be so similar to 80 days. and yeah, almost everything I love about that game is here: interesting choices, subversion of your expectations, playful writing, a large cast of characters with a short time in the limelight, connecting threads through the narrative. 80 days is still the greater work, though, because for all that's great about sorcery, it says quite little about the world real people inhabit. you can't really blame Sorcery! for that though.

side note: man, I love short games

Muy entretenido, la verdad. Los mundos de Fighting Fantasy y Sorcery! siempre han permanecido apartados de las conversaciones en torno a videojuegos, pero su importancia histórica como antecesores del tipo de diálogo complicado que juegos más caros y chupa-cámaras se vanaglorian de innovar los hace inmortales. Al igual que sucediera en Baldur's Gate, la lenta pero constante progresión de dificultad, sumada a la libertad que se te ofrece para tomar una ruta, conseguir unos objetos u otros, y en general adoptar una actitud u otra ante el mundo de Titan, hacen de éste un lugar mucho más misterioso e insondable que incontables mundos abiertos desesperados por enseñarte todas las esquinas de su mapa.

------------------------

A highly entertaining game, indeed. The worlds of Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery! have always remained apart in conversations around videogames, but their historical importance as predecessors for dialogue-based gaming that more expensive and attention seeking games boast around proves their eternal value. As with Baldur's Gate, the slow but steady progression of difficulty, coupled with the freedom you're given to take a route, get some items or others, and generally adopt whatever action you wish in the world of Titan, makes this setting far more mysterious and wondrous than countless desperate open worlds.

Uma adaptação do livro-jogo Sorcery!, que é por outro lado um spin-off da série de livros-jogos Fighting Fantasy.

Não joguei o livro-jogo original - e sendo bem sincero, tenho praticamente 0 familiaridade com a mídia, fora alguns CYOA bem simples. Não obstante, parece-me uma ótima introdução ao conceito!

... E só isso. Uma introdução. O jogo parece traduzir muito bem o estilo, com uma apresentação bem bonitinha bem próxima do que se esperaria de um RPG de tabuleiro. É bem legal brincar com o game, principalmente devido à facilidade de rebobinar ações e ver os resultados de caminhos diferentes e respostas alternativas. Mas ao final de sua aventura, a sensação é de que você apenas abriu vários fios narrativos para serem explorados devidamente nos outros capítulos. Sozinho, sem a presença de suas sequências, Sorcery! é um game sobre várias escolhas, mas quase nenhuma consequência.

Vejamos o que me aguarda nos capítulos posteriores.

I'm not gonna go through each of these singularly, but yeah. I actually read/played the Sorcery! books a couple of years ago, and they're really fun! Some of the game-y-ers game books, with their prose being often short and to the point, a fun enough combat system and a bunch of interesting decision points.

The inkle adaptation of the books does everything that it should do. Streamlines some game-book-isms, adds some simple yet pretty visuals, and re-structures the combat system to be more video-game-y. All of the addition and changes not only still convey the source material perfectly, but actually end up elevating it somewhat.

Yeah, this is fun. The original books are pretty good and this adaptation is actually a great way to play them. (I would never suggest skipping the source material, because, remember: "True Gamers™ always play games in their original historical context, so that they can have a real and not corporately-curated knowledge of the history of the medium". But y'know, after you've read the original book once, this is the best way to replay them!)

Although I got the Steam version that technically collects the first and second one, and I'm struggling to figure out how to play the second one... that's probably just me being dumb tho.