80 Days dev dates Sorcery! for PC and Mac
I have a good Inkle-ing about this.
You might know developer Inkle for BAFTA-nominated game 80 Days, but it also has another series - one that existed before and will exist after - called Sorcery!.
Sorcery
Spotlight
Wand direction.
VideoSorcery waves its wand in new trailer
PS Move game out next week.
VideoSorcery gameplay footage details story
PlayStation 3-exclusive finally due later this month.
VideoNew Sorcery trailer shows off story, gameplay
PS3 Move adventure casts its spell.
Key events
9th April 2015
21st May 2012
17th May 2012
8th May 2012
2nd May 2012
16th April 2012
7th March 2012
80 Days dev gives Sorcery! 3 iOS and Android release date
The penultimate adaptation of Steve Jackson's 1980s book series.
The limelight shines on UK developer inkle at the moment for its superb mobile game 80 Days, which won an IGF award and was nominated for four BAFTAs.
But it has another lovely series it's been plugging away at for a few years now: Sorcery!. As in, a digital adaptation of Steve Jackson's Choose Your Own Adventure-style Sorcery! book series from the '80s.
The third and penultimate part of that series now has a release date: 23rd April. It will arrive on iOS and Android simultaneously, which is a first for the series. It'll cost £3.99.
Touché.
Steve Jackson's Sorcery! Part 2 out 7th November
A lovely adaptation of those age-old adventure books.
UPDATE: The Android version of Sorcery! Part 1 will be released in December, developer Inkle has told me.
Sorcery! Part 2 due late Sep/early Oct on iOS
With nearly twice as much content.
Sorcery! Part 2 - Kharé, Cityport of Traps - is coming to iOS platforms in late September/early October, developer inkle told Eurogamer this morning.
You are the hero: A history of Fighting Fantasy
Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone on creating a page-turning legend.
Choice is a powerful thing. It's what differentiates video games from other mediums of entertainment. Outside of watching alternative endings on DVD, the outcome of a movie cannot be influenced by the viewer; likewise, a great album's track listing can be randomised, but the songs remain the same. In games, the player is able to directly impact the world with their own actions. This liberating and intoxicating sense of involvement was also central to the appeal of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy line of interactive gamebooks, first established in 1982 - ironically, a time when the video game industry appeared to be tiptoeing dangerously close to oblivion.
Steve Jackson's Sorcery! screenshots
He of Fighting Fantasy fame.
He of Fighting Fantasy fame.
Fighting Fantasy author's RPG Sorcery! re-imagined for and released on iOS for £2.99
You should choose to own this adventure.
Ye olde book-based role-playing series Sorcery!, written by Fighting Fantasy legend Steve Jackson, has been digitally re-imagined for iOS and released today for £2.99.
UK Top 40: Ghost Recon beats Dragon's Dogma
DiRT Showdown in fourth.
Sci-fi shooter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has shot to the top of the UK all-format charts, beating Max Payne 3, last week's number one.
Sorcery, Dr Who and Ghost Recon on PlayStation Store
Dalek table.
PlayStation Move game Sorcery, two-player scrolling action game Dr Who: The Eternity Clock and huge new squad-based shooter Ghost Recon: Future Soldier dominate the PlayStation Store today.
Wand direction.
Sorcery's a game about wizards - and wizards, it transpires, spend a lot of time strafing. In Sony's delicately pretty spell-'em-up, your Move controller is a wand, see, and your wand, in turn, is essentially a gun.
If this calls to mind the recent Harry Potter outing with all the shooting and the taking cover, don't worry. That was thick corporate slurry from concept to implementation - just another unpleasant by-product of the increasingly grim Hogwarts machine. Sorcery's an entirely different proposition. It's slight, but it's also lively, personable, and rather sweet while it lasts. If you have any kids knocking about the place, it might even be a little bit, you know, magical.
It's a simple tale, too, about a boy who's a sorcerer's apprentice, and a cat who might not be a cat at all. The boy, as the format more or less demands, likes to mess around with dangerous things he doesn't understand, and pretty soon he's gotten himself involved in a whole mess of magical trouble. After that, the duo is off to save the world - and probably right some ancient wrongs along the way. That's how it generally is with sorcerers and apprentices. And cats, come to think of it.
VideoSorcery waves its wand in new trailer
PS Move game out next week.
Sorcery first PSN game available to pre-buy
PlayStation Store adds pre-order option.
Magical PlayStation Move title Sorcery is now available to pre-buy from the EU PlayStation Store.
VideoSorcery gameplay footage details story
PlayStation 3-exclusive finally due later this month.
Sorcery Preview: The Wanderer Returns
Sony's long lost Move adventure is conjured up at last.
When Eurogamer first went hands on with Sorcery, Sony's magical motion-controlled adventure, we described it as "one of Sony's first titles for Move". That obviously didn't happen. After an eye-catching debut at E3, where it was a centrepiece of Sony's Move presentation, Sorcery completely dropped off the radar, prompting speculation that it had been scrapped. Not so. True to its name, Sorcery magically reappeared earlier this year in a puff of PR smoke, having been retooled and reworked as the vanguard of Move's second wave of titles.
The gameplay, however, hasn't really changed at all since its original aborted debut. You still control Finn, a cocky young sorcerer's apprentice with a typical disregard for sensible advice, as he battles a variety of fantastical monsters and supernatural threats, using the Move wand as a wand.
The motion-controlled spell casting is delightfully intuitive as well. A flick of the wand sends your spell on its way, with an obvious touch of automated aiming helping to bridge any gaps between your intentions and the hardware. Context sensitive moments add new tricks to your arsenal - an upwards flick to levitate obstacles out of the way, or a flamboyant swirl to repair broken bridges - without cluttering up the controls with too many arcane movements.
VideoNew Sorcery trailer shows off story, gameplay
PS3 Move adventure casts its spell.
Sony has shipped 10.5m PlayStation Move units
It's "successful".
Sony has shipped 10.5 million PlayStation Move units.
PlayStation Move exclusive Sorcery launches in Europe on 23rd May 2012, Sony has announced.
Sorcery, which requires Sony's motion controller to play, releases in the US a day earlier, on 22nd May.
In December Sony announced a spring 2012 release window for the game, and revealed it had "re-tooled" the experience.
Sony explains PS Move Sorcery "re-tooling"
"There were some things we weren't happy with."
Sony has explained why PlayStation Move game Sorcery - re-announced yesterday with a spring 2012 release window - was "re-tooled".
PlayStation Move game Sorcery still alive
Fully playable next month.
PlayStation Move game Sorcery is still alive, Sony has said.
Sony: Sorcery "still in development"
M.I.A. Move adventure lives.
Sorcery, the promising Move-enabled action adventure title Sony showed off at E3 last year, is still in development, the publisher has confirmed.
Move-enabled wizarding.
Move-enabled wizarding.
It's a kind of magic.
Apart from LEGO Harry Potter, which truly warms the cockles of my childish heart, there's been a surprising dearth of wizard-themed action on consoles recently. Motion control should already have ushered in a new era for this sub-genre. You'd think somebody would have spotted the potential for wand-waving with a Wiimote by now - although Billy the Wizard might have driven any inspired developers to suicide.