nkle’s groundbreaking narrative game series, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery!, ends on a high note today with Sorcery! Part 4: The Crown of Kings now available for iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows, and Mac. The mobile versions are priced at $4.99 with no in-app purchases. The Windows and Mac versions, normally $9.99, are on sale for $5.99 (40% off) through September 29.
The Story So Far
The Analander’s quest to recover the stolen Crown of Kings began in Sorcery! Part 1: The Shamutanti Hills, a treacherous landscape peppered with monsters, magic, and traps to snare the unwary. But those hills were a cakewalk compared to Part 2: Kharé, Cityport of Traps, where restless citizens, crazed nobles, and a brutal goblin army were about to come to blows. Next came the cruel, cursed wasteland of Kakhabad in Part 3: The Seven Serpents, where there was no set path to follow and time itself rippled like a flag on the wind.
Now the hero’s greatest challenges beckon in Sorcery! Part 4: The Crown of Kings. Stolen by the evil Archmage, the elusive Crown has been hidden in the Fortress of Mampang, high in the mountains. Armed with only a sword, a book of spells, and your wits, you must negotiate the cruel mountains, break into the Citadel, and sneak through the city within to confront the Archmage himself. You cannot hope to survive. But, sometimes, even death is not the end…
About the Sorcery! Series
With today’s Part 4 release, inkle concludes an innovative series that has grown and evolved in substantive ways since its May 2013 debut. Built on the strong foundation of Steve Jackson’s 1980s gamebook series, the Sorcery! games are high fantasy epics cleverly told through tens of thousands of choices that are recorded and remembered by inkle’s robust storytelling engine. These choices ensure that every Sorcery! playthrough is personalized and unique even across multiple chapters, with certain consequences carrying over into the finale in unexpected ways. (That’s a lot of unique stories considering the Sorcery! games have had more than 1.5M downloads to date…)
Along with sharp storytelling, lush illustrations, creative spell casting, tense turn-based combat, and loads of replay value, each Sorcery! installment has introduced new elements that have gone on to become hallmarks of the series. Early on, the choice between a male or female hero was added to Part 1 as a result of player feedback. The dice bluffing game Swindlestones first appeared in Part 2, while Part 3 adopted a complex open world format inspired by inkle’s other acclaimed narrative game, 80 Days.
Building on its predecessors, Part 4 includes all of these elements and more:
A full tutorial gets new players situated while suitable difficulty challenges those continuing an adventure.
Over forty magical traps await your unique, cunning, and devilish solutions.
Disguises will allow you to slip around unnoticed, but be warned, some people you meet won’t like who you’re pretending to be!
Multifaceted supporting characters can be befriended, betrayed, manipulated… and even seduced.
Past choices and old friends will come back to help – or haunt – as you look for a way in to the Archmage’s impenetrable Citadel.
Stunning new cartography, hand-drawn by illustrator Mike Schley, includes 3D buildings that can be explored inside and out.
A plethora of possible endings are in store – both triumphant and tragic.