After many months of toil we are very excited to be able to show a sneak preview of An Assassin in Orlandes, one of our first Gamebook Adventures releases for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The video should give you some idea of what to expect from our Orlandes fantasy-based gamebooks due to be released in January 2010. Expect to see a whole range of these hitting the App Store next year as we’re bursting with gamebook content and not only from the fantasy genre! "Set within Orlandes City, nobles are being systematically murdered by a ruthless assassin no-one seems able to catch. Finding yourself thrust in the middle of a large conspiracy, you must make decisions that may put yourself and one other most precious to you in great danger. Can you locate the Assassin in Orlandes before it is too late?"
yeah great video these will be alot of fun.... i also like what u said in the other thread about achievements and the encylodeia that will update as the new books are released
Specs... @aricall and @tumbleninah - Thanks for your comments! Assassin will be the first of many upcoming titles over the next few months. It is a newly written story (not just a re-issue of some old books from years ago) and the first of many that we hope to release throughout 2010. We've hired experienced and passionate gamebook writers to work on these, some of whom have written for other popular gamebook series in the past that you would no doubt recognise if you're a fan of the genre. The gamebooks will average out at around 500 unique sections each with a multitude of options and story arcs. We've even written a program to calculate all the possible combinations of story and in Assassin alone we were running over a million different possible combinations! We have a fully designed character creation and battle system that are completely new and as you will have seen in the video a realistic dice rolling system that uses real physics. Along with the normal gamebook we will also be including an updated map and world encyclopedia that will grow as more books are released. Along with a bookmarking system to effectively save your progress, a range of achievements to unlock, and a story that twists and turns keeping you guessing, we're hoping that An Assassin in Orlandes will easily keep you occupied for many hours!
Will there be a way to speed up the dice rolling process. It looks cool but it will get tedious after hundred rolls... Anyway, looks extremely good, can't wait for the whole range of books. Shouldn't the necromancer be out before this one? do you have a date of release to apple ?
the first game thats caught my eye for a long time, and since its tinman you can expect quality are any of the stories written by Joe Denver or J H Brennan? Grail Quest series were quite humurous inorporating quite a bit of mythology. As for the Lone Wolf series, total legendary! anyways, i'll be supporting this all the way, looks fantastic.
Ah Grail Quest!!! It still is one of the most incredible gamebook series of all time for me! Puzzles were really good, story was hilarious, quite difficult as well.
Replies to some questions... @thevagrant Yes we are looking into skipping the dice rolls if you require a faster action fix. Assassin will now be released before Necromancer for logistical reasons although don't worry it won't be too far behind if you would rather wait for that gamebook. Grail Quest! I loved those books too - I found them more involving than Fighting Fantasy in terms of the narrative. My fave was Den of Dragons. @acidbottle No, none of these are written by those legends, however we do have potential upcoming contributors who have been involved with a number of the classic gamebooks. I'm keeping schtum for the mo as to who they are and what their involvement will be but lets just say I am VERY excited to get them on board. @Asphyxiation - Thanks! Hope you like them!
Orlandes map revealed... As a little taster for our upcoming Gamebook Adventures releases, we thought we would share with you guys, the TA faithful a map of Orlandes, which is the main location where the first six GA books will primarily take place. The first book, An Assassin in Orlandes will begin in Orlandes City, situated to the East of the country and your adventure will take you north into the "Montes Del Fuego". Our second book, The Siege of the Necromancer is based on the West coast of Orlandes in the township of Myr, where a mysterious dark presence has the Emery Lands in the grip of fear. We're busy as Goblyn-folk getting these finished and will release more info as and when we have it! We can't wait for people to start reading and playing these books. For now I hope you like the map! Enjoy.
This looks fantastic!! I loved all of the books that have been mentioned thus far and am extremely excited to get my hands on the first of these! Keep up the terrific work!!
Looks pretty awesome... I've been playing the Warlock of Firetop Mountain since getting it yesterday and I've been hooked on it. This one looks like it might be more complex and have a more involved battle system. Really can't wait for this one, any idea on price range? Just figured I'd ask.
@ stigmeyer Awesome! It's positive comments like yours that keep us pushing forward to make these as good as we can. @ Somerandomdude Yeah I downloaded Warlock too but sadly it crashed after 5 mins. Used to read the FF books a lot as a boy so looking forward to some nostalgia when they update it again to fix the bugs. Our books are a bit more complex than FF although not too much. We've tried get a good mix between keeping it easy enough to pick up and read in short blasts while also having a depth for those readers that want to delve a bit deeper. As for price, we're still pondering that one and seeing how much Warlock is priced is interesting to us. Our books are not simply re-prints of 25 year old source, and are brand newly written tales by experienced gamebook authors so obviously we have different costs associated with these. Added to that, that ours are longer tales and have extras such as an updated encyclopedia and achievements. So overall we feel we have a bit more to offer. Whatever we go with you will get value for your cash! The Tin Man
I'm so glad mine isn't having any issues so far... It's such an awesome game. And with all the features you're including and the slightly deeper combat system, I'll gladly pay a higher price for a game like this. Crap, I want this now!!
That can be arranged - how would you like to become a beta tester for us? We've got a spare opening over the coming weeks.
As long as it isn't as currently-crashtastic as the Fighting Fantasy game out now....I love this style of game.
Please, please, please make a free gamebook hub app with in-app purchases so that we don't need tons of icons on our phones.
Hey Tim, Excellent Idea! I am the dev on GA. I think I might have met you guys at WWDC this last year? At the time I was trying to pimp out my snowball rolling app.. anyway.. We are definitely looking to make a 'player' app and have DLC books. This first one, Assassin in Orlandes will be standalone as we are still working out a good generic format for all the data so we can bundle it and present it properly. (the second book, Siege of the Necromancer is nearly done so it may also come out as a standalone, depends on how far we get with it) However, at the point which we do make the hub app work we will update these standalone apps so that they can act as a a hub, (so you wont have to buy another app if you already bought one). In any case we are pretty excited about these books, they are tons of fun. (I may be a bit biased Cheers! -B
sounds great. i really like the hub idea as well will make purchaseing alot of the books and keeping them on my device alot nicer. and the map looks very cool will the map show points of interest as you read more books or anything like that?
