Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! Review

I had quite a collection of Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was younger. When I noticed that many of these game book adventures were getting digital releases on the Apple Store and Google Play, I couldn’t help but be drawn to them. There was one in particular that stood out, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery!; it was nothing like the books I read as a child. Its narrative was greatly enhanced by a number of RPG systems, such as inventory, combat, and a detailed map. At the time I was very impressed. Now, almost ten years after the first installment was released on mobile, the developer, Inkle, and publisher NO Gravity Games have combined all four installments of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! and released them as one package on Xbox (as well as Playstation and Switch). Does the series still hold up? Have they made any quality-of-life additions for the console version? Read on to find out.

Each of the four entries in Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! gets more complex in terms of gameplay and scope. Personally, I enjoyed the first one the most because it reminded me the most of my choose your own adventure roots. The first book, “The Shamutanti Hills”, tasks you with going from point A to point B and you have multiple branching paths to choose from, each with a number of different events. The game takes place on a map and reminds me of a single-player board game. At each stop, there is a section of text to read which I assume is pulled straight from the original book, and you have to decide what to do next. You typically have a few different options to choose from at each point, and your past actions or inactions will affect your current and future options. Not only do choices change in your current book, but actions you take in the present can also have consequences in later books. Occasionally there are pictures to accompany the text, which I also assume are pulled straight from the source material. These pictures are fantastic, and combine them with the old-school style maps and you have a great-looking game. 

The later books introduce more mechanics and feel less like a typical game book and more like a regular RPG. The second book “Khare: Cityport of Traps” sees you searching a large city weaving your way back and forth through its streets, alleys, and pathways trying to piece together the spell lines that will open the north gate of the city. It also adds in a prayer system letting you pray to a god for guidance or help. The god changes after a set period of time and can be seen displayed in an icon at the top of the screen, this adds a layer of randomness to the game because you will have different outcomes depending on which god it is.

One other new element that first appears in the second book is interior spaces being depicted on the map. When you go into an important structure, building, temple, or sewer, a new piece of art appears on the map with your character inside. This made the game world feel more alive and I loved being able to witness more of the fantastic art style of the game. Book three, “The Seven Serpents” takes it up another notch, allowing you to pretty much freely explore the large Baklands area. In past books, you normally couldn’t revisit spots you already went through but that is not the case anymore. Book three also has a day/night cycle with different encounters depending on what time of day you visit a location.

Not all of the new mechanics add to the enjoyment of the game. Swindlestones, the gambling game introduced in the second book, is extremely boring, but I felt like I had to play it at every opportunity to maximize my gold in order to buy plenty of supplies and quality items. In addition, the game froze multiple times while I was playing Swindlestones – it seemed to happen when I made my selections too quickly.

One of the most interesting mechanics in Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! that really helps set it apart from its peers is its spell system. When making choices you are often given the opportunity to cast a spell. Overall the game features a large variety of spells and most of them are extremely useful in many situations. To cast a spell you have to select three letters (one at a time) from a pop-up menu that looks like the night sky. Most spells consume stamina (health points) but some require specific items to use such as the TEL spell, which requires that you have a skullcap in your possession and allows you to read the mind of someone in the vicinity. Some spells can be cast as many times as you want, but others use the item in question when you cast the spell, such as GOB which summons a goblin to fight for you but costs one goblin tooth. The spell system gives the game an extra layer of replayability. When replaying the game, not only can you take different paths through the game world, but you can also make use of different spells throughout your adventure. Or perhaps there is a spell you were never able to cast because you never found the necessary item component. Well, on future playthroughs you can keep an eye out for that item.

Speaking of items, the game features a large assortment of them; much like a pen and paper RPG or their video game counterparts. You have weapons, treasures, keys, food, plus many more. Food in this game is very important because it can restore your stamina. You have to eat at least once a day, if not you will lose a small amount of stamina. During the first two books, it’s hard to forget, but the third book’s day/night cycle makes things more difficult because time seems to pass much more quickly, and I learned that you should try to stock up on as many provisions as possible in the first two chapters.

An RPG would not be complete without a combat system, and while the one featured in Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! might appear somewhat simple, I can assure you it gets the job done. During an encounter, you can either defend or attack. When you attack it’s sort of like placing a bet, and whoever bets higher wins that round causing the other combatant to take a few points of damage. If you block (choose the value zero) you will only take one damage – unless the opponent also blocked. You only have a limited amount of attack points and they will deplete after making an attack, but by blocking you will regain some. Despite its simple nature, it more than gets the job done. In addition, before most encounters, you usually have the opportunity to cast a spell that can make the fight much easier or allow you to avoid the fight altogether.

I’ve had a lot of fun playing through Sorcery!, but I need to get to the part of the game that I have the biggest issue with. Inkle has made no changes to the menu system that was first introduced in the mobile version all those years ago. Meaning there is no manual save system, and no way to return to the main menu without ending your current run. If you want to stop playing you have to close the game from the Xbox dashboard. The game does save the exact spot where you are, which is nice. Unfortunately, the game only has one save slot so if you wish to start a new game in order to try out some other options you have to end your current run by selecting the “Return to Prologue” option in the pause menu which deletes your save. When you boot the game up for the first time you can start at the beginning of any of the four books, but because the game lacks multiple save slots once you start a game you are unable to try out another book until you either give up or reach that book in your current playthrough (as long as you started at an earlier one).

The game does feature a useful rewind feature that lets you go back to the start of any node on the map. This lone feature, however, is not enough for the console release of the four-part collection, and the lack of a regular save system is unacceptable. There is one more aspect of the interface that the developers didn’t handle properly for the console port. When picking the location you want to move to on the map the game requires you to hold RB and then flick the left joystick in the direction of the node. This is ridiculous and doesn’t work as intended. Luckily you can cycle through the available choices by tapping RB.

Conclusion

Playing through this game has made me want to check out the original Sorcery! gamebooks to see how they compare to the digital versions Inkle has crafted. I enjoyed seeing how the scope of the game expanded with each book. By the third book, things really start to feel like a regular RPG adventure. Some players will love this, but I liked the more structured approach of the first two books that feel more like the original gamebooks. Overall players can get a lot of playtime and enjoyment out of this collection, but the fact that the game lacks a typical multislot save system really hurts the product. If you like RPG games and want to try something different or have played gamebooks like the ones this is based on, then Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! is worth a try.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.