Sherlock Holmes 1 [universal]

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[ip4weather]

this looks like book,is it?

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Originally Posted by ip4weather

this looks like book,is it?

Yes. But not a regular one.

It's a "gamebook". In other words, a little bit of a game in the form of a book.

The way it works is: You read the story and at the end of each "chapter", you decide what to do next, which in turns determines what chapter to read next. Sometimes you have to roll the dice or pick a random number in different ways, other times you have to decide which path to follow yourself (e.g. do I take the left road or the right road).

You play a character (in this book, it's a cousin of Dr. Watson) similar to a roleplaying game, including various skill like Athletics, Communications, etc. which you can determine yourself, and have to solve two mysteries with the help of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

So yes, at the core it's a book. You read text (an entire novel, with nearly 200 pages of text) as you progress through it. But it has game elements in it, and every time you read it, the outcome can be entirely different (there are more than a dozen possible endings to the story, you can even die and have to start anew).

Hope that helps

Martin

[iPadisGreat]

Can cheat? Can you just turn to the next page regardless of the dice rolls or must you keep re-reading and rerolling until you get the rolls just right?

[Dahak]

Is this an old I.C.E. gamebook?

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Originally Posted by Dahak

Is this an old I.C.E. gamebook?

Yes!! We are bringing the entire series of Sherlock Holmes Solo Mysteries to the AppStore. We are planning to do all 8 books (including the 8th which was never published in English).

The apps include all of the languages of the print books, btw, i.e. English, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, and French, as we licensed the foreign editions, too.

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Originally Posted by iPadisGreat

Can cheat? Can you just turn to the next page regardless of the dice rolls or must you keep re-reading and rerolling until you get the rolls just right?

A Cheat is available as an in-app purchase. You only have to buy it once, and with the cheat activated, you can simply re-roll (or flip page, or pick random number table) until you get the desired result.

So there is no automatic "read on at xyz", as that would seriously take the fun out of the story, but you do not have to start over from scratch each time, either.

Also, Game Center achievements track your progress and show you how many % of the book (575 chapters) you have completed!

Good luck!

Martin

[bastband]

Anybody tried this yet. Is it like the gamebook series by Tin Man games?

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Originally Posted by bastband

Anybody tried this yet. Is it like the gamebook series by Tin Man games?

Hi! I'm the developer of "Sherlock Holmes 1 - Murder at the Diogenes Club".

The short answer to your question is, yes. Both are gamebooks, so there are obvious similarities.

The long(er) answer is that there are also obvious differences. We're using a different "engine", and the Sherlock Holmes gamebooks (published originally in the late 80s) are of an entirely different genre. There is no combat system in the Sherlock Holmes books, for example (even though there are fights; but they are typically resolved via text entries rather than pure dice rolls, and you can even die during the adventure), while on the other hand there is a unique system of finding and piecing together "Clues", i.e. evidence, which are used at the end of the book to resolve the mysteries.

Hope this helps!

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Originally Posted by iPadisGreat

My two cents, if you are going to charge IAP for the cheats, then the game should really be freemium, otherwise it leaves the nasty taste of double dipping in the mouth...

Thanks for your two cents.

Considering that the book is only $0.99 to start with (for a 575 chapter novel in 6 languages!), and that the cheat is entirely optional and only really useful (useful, mind you, not necessary) if you want to play multiple times and explore all the different endings without having to replay too often, I don't agree at all, sorry.

BTW, there is only one IAP necessary to unlock cheat mode. Once enabled it stays enabled for ever for the entire app, and across all devices.

Martin