Разработчик: inkle Ltd
Описание
+ Explore freely - go where you want through a hand-drawn, 3D world, creating your own unique story
+ Totally dynamic storytelling - the story adapts itself around everything you do
+ Thousands of choices - all are remembered, from the big to the small, and all will shape your adventure
+ Disguise yourself - adopt different disguises as you infiltrate the Citadel. Characters react differently depending on how you are dressed
+ Uncover the secrets of magic - secret spells to discover, and new forms of magic to master
+ Multiple endings, and hundreds of secrets - the game is stuffed with secrets and hidden content. Can you enter the vaults? Will you find the grave of the invisible girl?
+ Cheat, swindle, deceive, or play with honour - how will you win the trust of the citizens of Mampang? Remember, every choice matters...
+ New enemies, including mutants, guards, merchants and the undead - each with their own strengths and weaknesses
+ Adapted from the best-selling gamebook series by legendary game designer Steve Jackson
+ Swindlestones is back! The game of bluff and deceit is back, with the toughest opponents yet - the Gambling Monks of Effe
+ Seven Gods, all with different quirks and powers
+ Start your adventure here, or load your character and all your choices from Part 3
+ New music from "80 Days" composer Laurence Chapman
+ New 3D hand-drawn maps to explore by Mike Schley
PRAISE FOR PART 3
"This is spectacular, a brave and fascinating evolution of what can only just be described as “interactive fiction” at this point. A bold step away from the confines of the source material, and a coherent and completely novel experience." - Rock Paper Shotgun
"Sorcery! 3 is unlike anything you’ve ever played. Its mix of puzzle-solving, combat, and choose-your-own-adventure stylings have created a unique form of entertainment that I cannot wait to get back into" - Pocket Tactics, 5/5
"[One] of 2015’s best iPhone games", TIME magazine
"This dragon-centric chapter of Sorcery! 3 does a fantastic job of keeping things dynamic and interesting, and better yet, its new puzzle-like aspect gives it the kind of magical, surprise-filled, combat-related fun fantasy fans live for." - Examiner, 5/5
THE STORY
The Crown of Kings has been stolen by the Archmage, and he intends to use it to decimate the Old World. You have been sent, alone, to break into the Citadel of Mampang and get it back. Armed with only a sword, a book of spells, and your wits, you must make your way through the mountains, into the Fortress, through the city within and finally locate the Archmage himself. If you are discovered, it will mean certain death - but sometimes even death can be overcome...
From the creators of TIME's Game of the Year 2014, "80 Days", comes the final instalment in the acclaimed Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series. An interactive story told through thousands of choices, all of which are remembered, where no two adventures are the same. Part 4 can be played on its own as a complete stand-alone adventure, or players can load their games from Part 3 to continue the narrative where they left off.
Adapted and expanded from the million-selling gamebook series by legendary game designer Steve Jackson, co-founder of Lionhead Studios (with Peter Molyneux) and co-creator of Fighting Fantasy and Games Workshop (with Ian Livingstone).
Using inkle's unique inklewriter technology, the story is written in real-time, built around your choices and actions.
Praise for the Sorcery! series:
* "I love this app... better than any gamebook ever was in your head when you were a kid" - 5/5, Interactive Fiction of the Year, Pocket Tactics
* Top 20 Mobile Game of 2013, Touch Arcade
* Top 25 Mobile Game of 2013 Gamezebo
* Gold Award, Pocket Gamer
* "Some of 2013's best interactive storytelling" - IGN
* "inkle's adaptation of Sorcery! takes the genre to a whole new level" - Kotaku
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows Vista
- Processor: 1.4 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Requires OpenGL 2.1
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 500 MB available space
- OS: OS X 10.11
- Processor: 1.4 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Mac
- Processor: 1.4 GHz
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Storage: 400 MB available space
- OS: OS X 10.11
- Processor: 2 GHz+
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 400 MB available space
Отзывы пользователей
The devs ended the series out on a hard note. The first and second game served as an introduction to the genre, the third game showed the players how the devs had mastered it, and this one is for the player to show the game how they've mastered it. The most important change to this game is that halfway through they remove the rewind mechanic a lot of players have depended on for a while. Some are bitter, and may call this cheap. Believe what you want about it, but the game WILL be hard, and WILL require you to restart the run a couple of times if you mess up somewhere. Getting the best ending possible will take plenty of effort. Buy this game expecting it to be a jarring change in difficulty, because it will be.
I've enjoyed the entire series (which I started years ago and just finished part 4 today).
I enjoyed the previous versions but this is the worst one. It's easy to get stuck, backtracking is often impossible, resources impossible to get at times. But the most frustrating thing is the designers decision to prevent backtracking making the game and unpleasant trial and error that kills all enthusiasm and interest. Pity really.
just an awful ending to a fun story , their was 0 need to over complicate things. sending players back and hour because they are not allowed to save is not fun
The rewind mechanic saved you from a LOT of BS and tedium in previous games. Getting rid of it makes the game an absolute slog.
To get the best ending, you have to spend some time in a permadeath-esque state, where you can either rewind to the point where you went into this state and lose your chance at the best ending, or start completely over. If enough of the aforementioned BS happens between starting permadeath and the final stretch of the game, you have to start the game over. That stretch of time between CAN be fairly short, but there are a lot of potential combat encounters and other opportunities to die even if you make a beeline.
I really liked the last 3 games, but it's honestly kind of impressive how removing a single mechanic makes the game so irritating to play.
The first entries in the series were really great, too bad they decided to ruin it all in the last part. Not only removing the rewind part so you have to play through half the game over and over again in a tedious repetition, but also making it virtually impossible to get a "good" ending without consulting numerous FAQs, walkthroughs and guides.
Disappointing and a letdown after such a great beginning.
I spent all my money I'd been saving the entire game right before making it to Magpang thinking it would be my last chance, so I had to spend another hour gambling various monks in order to get a sword once my character threw out my ultra rare legendary sword I had previously spent another hour gambling for in part two. Best game
i absolutely LOVED this entire series!! part 4 introduced a new mechanic that i thought was really cool as a lore concept; the minor stamina loss as a result of it didn't hinder me too much (especially as you also get multiple opportunities to increase your max stamina anyways), and the new mechanic got much easier to deal with once i got further in and sorta knew what i was doing. overall, i really enjoyed playing through this part as much as the others. an incredibly cool series that deserves way more attention!
also FLANKER. IMMEDIATE 10/10
The rest of the series is fun. By part four, there are two things that make the experience worse
1) The mechanics and its quirks wear thin
2) The game removes a core mechanic for part 4, which just results in the game becoming significantly more tedious and annoying.
The writing is cool, the art is neat, the atmosphere is great. Parts 1 and 2 are good, 3 is a decline from there, 4, is a steeper decline. The game clearly wants tor raise the stakes for part 4, but the game's design isn't nearly mature enough (Or tested enough - you will encounter many bugs, some of which might result in you wasting hours) for that to be palatable.
Edit: Magnify all of what I said above by one. In addition to being a buggy mess by the end, the game will erase your entire save / make a full success impossible. It's fine to raise the stakes in a game. It's irritating if this is done and the game literally breaks in a way that makes it impossible for you to be successful.
terrible conclusion to an otherwise great series, felt like i softlocked myself and had to keep doing the same section over and over again
I have absolutely loved the rest of the series, and I get that it's supposed to be the dramatic finale, but removing the ability to rewind time leaves you with the consequences of your poor decisions and I get enough of that in real life.
The thrilling conclusion to the Sorcery trilogy of games, if you have the courage and time to venture upon this quest you are in for a truly excellent experience
The fact that the game prevents rewinds in the seconds half really keeps you on your toes, but can lead to some frustration as you'll probably die a lot and keep getting booted back to your one checkpoint,
The objective time is firstly to get into the fortress of Mampang. Then once inside, you'll have to spend a while learning which spells counter each other in order to get past the protective charms on Archmage's Palace, there is even a significant part of the map dedicated primarily to testing your magic out against a variety of magical obstacles in order to learn these counterspells.
Dying so much and losing my progress was pretty annoying and made me put the game down for about a month, but finishing it was absolutely worth it.
If you made it this far then You pretty much have to see it through.
I just hope Inkle gives just as much love to another gamebook series as they have to this one.
From someone who loves the first three games in this series, having played them multiple times on iOS to try and discover each and every little secret, this is an extremely disappointing conclusion. For those who have played the earlier games, the biggest draw for me was the ability to rewind time and re choose your path. It allowed players to explore a wide variety of paths, much like how I used to 'flip back' to a choice in a CYOA book.
Unfortunately, this feature is removed a short while into the game, mainly for plot purposes. What follows is an extremely frustrating path, where a single wrong choice means death and replaying a good chunk of the story again. Exploration is discouraged. Intentionally making stupid choices just to see what happens is discouraged. I had to resort to a walkthrough to finally get to the end.
Not recommended, unless you were really invested in the series like I was.
On my first time through the Sorcery! series, this was by far my least favorite of the bunch, but it's grown on me in a few subsequent playthroughs. One of this entry's strengths and weaknesses is how incredibly complex it is, even compared to the other games: there's so much you can find and experience, but only if you trigger very particular events in specific ways and keep track of a whole lot of secret or semi-secret information.
Overall, a fine capstone to the incredible Sorcery! series, although it's still not quite as great as 2 or 3.
tldr - not recommended because repetition (they removed rewind mechanic) and tedium.
Ok, amazingly I am going to NOT recommend this one. Sorcery 1-3 are excellent. Sorcery 4 takes away the rewind mechanic halfway through, so BAM, you now have to tediously replay sections, clicking through the exact same text till you get back to the choice that insta-killed you so you can try a new option via trial and error, or discover a new clue that let's you proceed.
In summary - this game is highly repetitious, and I detest repetition! If you are like me, avoid it! The lack of rewind also highlights exactly how irrational and contrived many of the game's scenarios are, wrecking suspension of disbelief and pulling you out of the world.
Edit - further note - others have said that the replacement for the rewind mechanic just drops you back at a 'death' checkpoint and you retain all gear. This is NOT correct - it does drop you at a 'death' checkpoint but it is entirely possible to lose gear, plus you permanently lose a stamina point. The stamina point is not a big deal, as there quite a few 'boosters' around, but I hate arbitrary item strips and they can hurt your ability to proceed without going back to the last available rewind checkpoint (at the halfway point) to regain lost gear. I lost all my rations and all weapons, and most of my gold and my disguise several times. This can make proceeding forward even more annoying since now you are missing those things to help you go forward again. I don't know if losing these things is a bug or intentional but it just means if you are really unlucky you eventually have to go back even further than the death checkpoint to that last rewind checkpoint and replay even more of the same clicks, to proceed.
Why make us repeat 'success'? It is like a big fight in an action game that checkpoints just before you watch an unskippable cutscene and then fight 500 guys and then after you chop them all up the big bad finally shows up, but he can kill you in one hit. So you have to repeat a lot of grindy literally identical 'easy' stuff just to get another chance to kill him. This is not fun to me.
Well, after 9 months of trying I finally achieved my mission of reclaiming the Crown of Kings from the Archmage !!!!
It really did take me that long though I must stress I don't play every day - only when time allows - be that as it may, the game as a whole was tremendously challenging with well above average graphics and very addictive once you settled down for the day to play it
With regard to Part 4 in itself, by far the most challenging part of the game was in finding a way to open the Throben Doors and I have to be honest and say I had to look on the chatroom forums to get help as regards to opening them up - it took several attempts and I very nearly gave up completely at one point which shows how challenging and difficult Part 4 was.
Once you get through the Thoben Doors I did manage to figure out quite quickly how to dispatch the Archmage but I won't spoil it for those who have not yet conquered the game as to how to do it - you will have to use your wits - but all-in-all a fantastic game to play in the computer era - every bit as much fun as the pencil and rubber era of the 1980's - it is also a very good idea by Inkle once you have won the game to have the option to play the game again with increased difficulty (the plus-one option) -I i will have a break from it for a while and maybe try that option in a few months time.
Also - the Part 4 rule once you get into the fortress that does not allow you to cancel and rewind is superb and should apply to Parts 1,2, and 3 - it removes the easy option of cheating when you have taken the wrong path/direction
In conclusion - a fantastic game to play
The game punishes you constantly with no-win situations. I am sick of tired of this game resetting my progress every 30 minutes every time I fail to guess the correct outcome for it's stupid encounters. Not only that, but it also decides you lose a point of max health- making it even more difficult to continue playing.
I spent real money on all other three parts only to reach a rage inducing and poorly designed fourth part. This game tricks you and makes you feel like an idiot. The only good moments in this part are the parts where you don't play the game. Every time the game challenges you, you have to guess these character's intentions. I literally walked into a room and died instantly. No clues or anything.
I put on someone's cloak and died. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have trusted them. I guess that's my fault. Why are there people standing in the middle of a crowded area instantly killing people? I don't know. These people shoot fire out of their eyes and kill me instantly for lying to them about a small thing. Every time I die I lose a stamina point. Every time I die I have to decide if it's worth wasting my time to redo the things I just did. As soon as the game earns my trust back, it breaks it again. Have fun redoing the last 15 minutes! What if something I did was important? I met someone- will they help me later if I don't redo everything? Who knows. I don't. The game has no intention of telling me. So once again I'm in the middle of a stupid alleyway with 16 health points, down from twenty.
You need those health points- too. That's a powerful spell and a weak spell I could cast- things I could potentially use to get me out of a future encounter.
If the game lets you use that spell at all- or in the way you intended too. There's WAL and FOF. Wal creates a magical barrier in one direction, a wall. FOF creates a magical barrier 360 degrees. Clearly FOF is a better spell in every way. And yet, when surrounded by people in a street who want to kill me for literally no reason, I can only cast WAL. I cast it two block out two people, and fully intended to cast another spell and kill the guy behind me. But no, the game only lets me walk away or taunt the people behind the wall- and then accuses me of forgetting the third guy.
Well, screw you, game. I hate being your stupid toy to play around with.
I'm here to tell you not the buy the other three parts. As good as they are, your hours and hours of free time will come to nothing- unless you want to slog through hours and hours more of rage inducing repeition and helplessness.
EDIT: Well...I beat the game.
My review still stands.
The ending was incredibly unsatisfying- and there were some things I had to do to get the best ending. I'm not even sure what the best ending is. A God even tells me I have brought a great peace by saving the day- but no. Not really.
Because when I die of old age, my character will go right back to where he was. Probably with one less max stamina. Because he's cursed with an infuriating checkpoint system. Screw that. All that hard work and the game tells me to go fuck myself. "But you dread the day you die, and return to the Archmage's castle..." Screw you!
What was even the point, game? Why didn't you just tell me to give up?
I have to do a challenge run of part three to get the best ending. Who told me that? No one. Nobody at all. Way to make me regret my purchase even more- all of my game time and money wasted, and I don't even get a 'happily ever after'? My character could live a full and happy life, but he's stuck in a fucking time loop- like this was an artsy movie meant to teach me a lesson.
All I learned is that I'm glad gamebooks are out of business- because they sucked.
I've been shilling for the Sorcery series for a while now - writing walkthroughs and FAQs, doing an LP, recommending the series to fellow posters - but I've reached the conclusion that I don't much care for Sorcery 4.
Mind, it's a really complex game with an excellent climax. It keeps track of and reacts to the disguise you're wearing (out of 4-5 options), the level of alert you've left behind - not just in this game, but in previous installments as well - and to time shenanigans. Can't imagine how hard all that stuff was to map out.
Your endgame can vary greatly depending on exactly which people you've met and left alive 2-3 games ago!
But, with all that in mind... I have the most fun in these games when I keep rewinding a situation to see how different solutions can shake out. Some of the weirdest outcomes in these games result from pursuing a marginal and seemingly irrelevant tangent. And Sorcery 4 kinda puts a stop to that. At some point, as a part of raising the stakes, your rewind ability is sharply limited. You can no longer fuck around and try everything :(
Now, the above is a matter of taste - I'm sure most people play "fairly", just accepting whatever outcome the game throws their way and carrying on if they haven't died. What's actually a problem are the towers of magic. They're basically a series of puzzle rooms that you'll have to solve if you don't have specific information / allies from a previous installment. They don't react in the slightest to your disguise, the guards alert state, or time stuff. Basically, every time you replay, the towers are exactly the same, and it gets annoying quickly.
Still a game with a very impressive bunch of scenarios. Just... not as much fun to replay as 2 or 3.
Also, on a petty personal note; the fact that I've spent a long time hunting for spelling and grammar errors, yet never got a response from the developers and the errors remain unfixed in the final update is fairly discouraging.
I want to like this chapter, I really do.
The complete randomness of choices detract from what could have continued an interesting tale. Much of the game involves guessing what you think the designers want you to do--instead of choosing your own path--and you are often punished for choosing incorrectly, even if you follow gameplay logic already presented to you. The story is also stymied by situational puzzles that bear little if no connection to the larger story.
Navigation, sadly, is also a mess. Once you pass through a location, sometimes you are able to backtrack, and other times you are not. And then, sometimes when you are allowed to, there is no purpose to it, as the game indicates that there is nothing more that can be done here. The mix between linear progression and choice of movement is, again, unfortunately, stymied by an overall lack of structure and greater intent.
What was once a charming little adventure has collapsed upon itself, lacking the structure of a cohesive story and consistent gameplay rules; often, too often, random situations are presented to you with random choices to select -- with no consistent logic. Options in one situation for example, are often not presented in another, similar situation. Good games create an environment with a set of rules and provide interesting choices within that structure. This chapter lacks that systemic structure.
The primary weakness of this chapter is a lack of focus of intent. There is scant evidence of a lead designer, as the volume of random situations and random choices scatter what could have been--what I hoped would have been--a satisfying conclusion.
6.5/10
A overall good part of a 4 part game series. However I can't help but feel that they rushed through the process of making this simply to put it out there.
The visuals: Plain and simple, it does not contain as much details as the previous parts, which is sad because I had hoped the parts would only become better along with the experience this rather new company got from the 3 last parts of Sorcery. Most of the map is simply mountains that you can not go to, and the inside of Mampang does not contain much more than large deserted areas of dust and crops. Once you enter the buildings inside of Mampang, you get a little better view of what's inside, yet you still feel isolated. You can hear a hint of people surrounding you everywhere you go, but visually you only see a open field of dust. So imagination is the key here I think.
Aside from lack of visuals, the visuals that do exist are pretty good, I like the way they draw everything and use pictures from the orignal books to describe characters appearences (perhaps more pictures of characters for the future though? Newely drawn of course).
I'm not a big fan of the 3D elements that they incorporate like the timewarp towers or the large tower of Mampang, mainly because the timewarp towers fly around the screen when the game decides to steer the camera around for visual effects, and that the high tower of Mampang is quite chunky, you can see that they tried to make the tower round but it came out more like a stop sign than a circular shape, however this may just be a difference in taste.
The sound: Not much to get here either I'm afraid, mostly the sounds you will hear outside are the whisperings of the wind. Once inside of the fortress the background sound effects like the laughter of the townsfolk gets dialed down enough to barely be heard, you will mostly sit in the quiet and read the story that is written in this game, until you turn your volume up, only to fly out of your seat when you open your spells which has this loud bang that will wake up the dead on that kind of volume. So unless you feel comfortable turning your volume up and down every time you go to your spells (in a game called SORCERY), then you will have some trouble with this.
However some soundeffects are rather nice, for instance the soundeffects in the sewers are well made, there are areas where the sounds are quite good, but this is still a big concern for me.
The story: Really good, this is where the game truly gets brilliant, and the reason for why I personally play it. They've taken the story from the famous books "Steve Jackson's Sorcery" which makes this game come together so very nicely. They've managed to incorporate the story of the books nicely into this game, you feel free as there is no lack of decisisions to make, and you keep your interest from the story which you get to read, and take part of above all.
Tips: One thing you should be vary of when playing this game, you can never be quite sure if your game will be saved if you press "Quit" in game. Personally I played for quite some time, I ended coming far into the game when it got very late and I decided to press "Quit" in the game (There is no save button which is a major flaw), and I woke up this day to open sorcery when I got to the main screen and apparently had to choose adventure all over and do it all again. So my advise is to test it a few times to make sure it will save, and perhaps if you can leave the game on at all times until you've finished the game.
I have been following Sorcery! since the release of the first game, when I watched Simon and Lewis from the Yogscast play it on their channel. And boy, am I happy that I decided to buy that game. Sorcery! has been one big journey for me, a nearly four year long one, and it was worth every minute I waited for the next in the series. The story, visuals, sounds, and gameplay are superb and stunning, and the amount of choices you get to make is extremely satisfying and totally changes the way your game plays relative to someone else's. I only wish I had the time to go back to part one to enjoy the series again. I can't recommend this game enough; buy it now, you won't regret it.
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | inkle Ltd |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 31.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 78% положительных (79) |