**Introducing Sword Dueling Mechanics**

In a bold move to add depth and strategy to our game, we're introducing a sword dueling mechanic that will challenge players to think carefully about their approach. When engaging in combat, players will have the option to choose how hard they want to attack, deciding between a full-on assault or a more defensive stance. The outcome of this decision is entirely up to the player, as they must weigh the risks and rewards of each approach.

**The More Defended, the Better**

One of the key principles behind our combat mechanic is that the more defended a player is, the less damage they will suffer if they lose. This means that players must carefully consider their defensive strategy, weighing the benefits of protecting themselves against the potential costs of missing an opportunity to attack. By doing so, players will be forced to think creatively and adapt to changing circumstances in real-time.

**The Power of Procedural Text Generation**

Another innovative feature of our game is the use of procedural text generation. When a player engages in combat, the outcome of each turn is translated into a brief paragraph that describes what happened. This not only provides a sense of narrative immersion but also serves as a tool for players to learn from their mistakes and adjust their strategy accordingly. The paragraphs are full of clues and hints that can give players valuable insights into what their opponents are likely to do next, allowing them to make more informed decisions.

**Stats and Progression**

As players progress through the game, they will encounter various stats that track their performance and health. One persistent stat, stamina, serves as a crucial indicator of the player's overall well-being. When it depletes, the player is forced to conserve energy and manage their resources carefully. Other stats, such as rations, allow players to recover from injuries and replenish their energy.

**The Village of the Elven: A New Chapter**

After defeating an enemy, players are rewarded with a brief summary of the battle in the form of a tweet-like achievement. However, this is not just a one-off experience; it also serves as a gateway to new storylines and gameplay mechanics. In our game, the village where the player was captured becomes a central hub for further exploration and progression. The player's character will be saved and carried over into subsequent chapters, allowing them to continue their journey with all the collected knowledge and resources.

**Future Development: Pricing and Release Schedule**

As we prepare to release Sword Dueling Mechanics as a standalone app, we're carefully considering pricing strategies to ensure that our game is accessible to players. While we're not planning to release it for just 99 cents, we'll need to stay flexible and adjust our pricing based on market conditions. The game's release date is set for May the 4th, followed by subsequent chapters in August and September. We also plan to release a box set of all four apps, allowing players to embark on an epic journey with their character from start to finish.

**Design Challenges and Inspirations**

Our design team has been inspired by various RPG elements, including stamina as a persistent stat that tracks the player's health. The idea is to create a sense of realism and risk-reward management, where players must weigh their resources carefully to succeed in combat. We're also experimenting with procedural text generation to add an extra layer of narrative depth to our game. By pushing the boundaries of what we consider "game" and embracing new ideas, we aim to create an immersive experience that sets a new standard for interactive storytelling.

**Competitive Pricing**

We'll need to monitor competition in the App Store to determine pricing for our standalone app. We don't want it to be too cheap or too expensive; we're aiming for a balance that will appeal to players while still ensuring we can sustainably produce high-quality content. It's an ongoing process, but we're committed to finding the right price point that meets our game's value proposition.

**May 4th Release Date**

As of now, we're expecting the Sword Dueling Mechanics app to release on May the 4th. We'll be announcing more details as the date approaches and will likely make some exciting announcements about subsequent chapters in August and beyond.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody this is Simon Sage from imore uh we are checking out Steve Jackson's sorcery uh it is coming soon to iOS uh we've got John and and Joe okay uh and they are showing off the game here uh it's got a great literary feel uh those of you who have played Steve Jackson or red Steve Jackson sour before we'll uh definitely recognize some of the stuff that's going on here so how's it going guys great good thank you so uh what What's the game all about so uh Steve Jackson sorcery is a four part Epic Fantasy Quest across a a Land Of Monsters and magic um you can see the map here this is this is episode one this is part one and we're going to be journeying across the shaman tany Hills uh we've got a map of it which is kind of where the core of the game Journey happened and you can see it's in the beautiful 3D very cool you got a nice hybrid of like 2D and 3D there I like it yeah it's a very nice effect there's some lighting and Shadows on it to really bring it out but uh let's find out where we are so this is very the start of the game we've just left the uh our homeland where the tutorial is and uh we're going to start this story and the idea is as you move across the map the each little place you go to has a little bit of story associated with it and sometimes there are some choices you make and sometimes there are quite a lot of choices you make which will determine exactly how that story goes and every choice you make will be remembered by the game so this is the start we're just going to walk on kind of introduce ing us to our new area and then we're on a journey and part of the journey is choosing which way we want to go so either we can follow the path or we can cut across the grass so this time let let's cut across the grass we're going to break off the path what's up and it starts to tell us the story of what happens when we do that so let's keep moving yes we have another couple of choices here so kind of a more graphically Rich Choose Your Own Adventure kind of thing yeah definitely this has Choose Your Own Adventure in its blood but there's a couple of big differences I think a choose own adventure is uh tends to have lots of text and then a few choices and what we've got is is little these little nuggets of text these little nuggets of story and then lots of choices and the the big thing that you you can't really see the app doing but you get a feel for it once you play it is that the more choices you make the more the game learns what kind of player you are what kind of character you are and also keeps track of what you've done uh and changes the story on the Fly it's not quite all pre-written some of it is actually dnamic put together um so you'll find that characters talk to you differently if you play a different way and some options will become available that were not available before and actually the story starts to write itself based on what you do and the kind of decisions you make so in this case here we're going to we're going to play a little bit cautiously actually so I'm using all the options of of waiting around and the game is paying attention to that and that will note that I'm a little bit of a cautious player it's given me the option to to retreat back to the path even it thinks I'm cautious like creatures but I think I'm going to approach them instead uh and show some of this oh that Something's Happened I've started to fall down a slope so again I've got some choices and I think actually I'm going to I'm going to try and cast a spell to deal with it so sorcery obviously by the name has a spell book in it and there are 50 spells um you don't have to learn all of them you can use none of them at all if you like but if you if you do learn them and there's a spell book you can you can do some nice powerful effects so you can learn for spells that are really suitable for All Occasions so right now I'm tumbling down a slope so I'm going to cast a foul spell which is perfect for floating safely to to the ground oh cool so but I've landed near some creatures so I'm going to talk to them so I'm going to try and threaten them tell them I'm great warrior and uh I'm going to put this creature in his place and tell him that he'll suffer and die oh goodness all right and this is launching our combat mechanic so the combat is really elegant really simple but quite deeply strategic and basically what I do is it's a sword dueling mechanic and I choose how hard I want to attack do I want to go full on and an attack or do I want to defend myself and he's going to do the same thing he's making a decision whoever attacks hardest wins but the more defended I am the less damage I'll suffer if I lose and if I do a heavy attack now I'll have less power to play with next time right so basically I'm placing a bet how high is he going to go I want to go slightly higher but not too much higher so I'm going to go for a medium one see what happens so he went very defending so I wasted a lot of my attack power there if I'd have gone much lower and still one right but notice when I did that up here at the top where the story is this paragraph got written in here and that's a bit of text describing the outcome of that turn and that's procedurally generated so it takes what I did it takes what he did takes what the damage and the outcome was and it turns it into a bit of text we kind of set us our design challenge we wanted something that wrote about as well as DAV G and I'm not sure if we've managed that but it was a great thing to wait for um and sometimes in the text uh you get little Clues as well by reading it it can give you a suggestion of what the character what the what the enemy is going to do next and that can help you play a better strategy and find ways to out with them cool so I'm going to I'm going to this guy is I'm going to go for another heavy hit and that time he went for a heavy one and I managed to do him a lot of damage and finish him off nice and when you beat an enemy you can tweet that cuz we quite we're quite like we're using tweets as achievements basically you can tell the world cuz we've got such a branching story but that's full of things you can do and things you can find and we like the idea of people being able to tweet all the strange and weird and wonderful things they've done for sure I'm noticing a few kind of RPG Style Elements out there we got stamina on the top left what's that all about so uh we've got one persistent stat really and that's your stamina that's your health it's how much uh it's how much health you've got and if it hits zero then you're going to die so you lose it in combat you can lose it in accident here I lost one cuz I was uh knocked on the head by a creature I didn't see from behind me so I have to conserve that uh couple of the other stats at the top the rations well that's a way of popping my health back up again okay so if I uh here I've got a little bit too little so maybe I can even go to my items now I've got a ration and I can eat it and you see it's put my health back up again there you go but now I've got one less ration so I've been uh taken to the Village of the elen now you been captured yeah been captured so the next day that's how the story carries off sure so uh when is this coming out like how how is going to be framed are these going to be Ina purchases separate apps or what so this is book one and it's going to be released as a separate app uh we're aiming for May the 4th if you follow us on Twitter at inkle Studios you'll know the exact date as soon as we do that's what we're shooting for so that's in studios cool and uh the second and third and fourth books will be separate apps the next one's hopefully going to come in around August uh and we'll make a box set of four apps but at the end of app one you'll be able to save your character and then use that same character in the start of book two be carrying one character all the way through all four books and there's lots of things in book one that you can collect and find which give you an advantage in book to but if you want to just drop in and play Only book four and just get the climax then you can do that too nice uh do you have pricing set on any of these not yet we need to look around see what the competition is like I don't think it's going to be a 99 Cents app I think we need to go a bit higher than that but you know we'll have to see what the App Store is like at the time oh it looks fantastic thanks a lot guys thank youhey everybody this is Simon Sage from imore uh we are checking out Steve Jackson's sorcery uh it is coming soon to iOS uh we've got John and and Joe okay uh and they are showing off the game here uh it's got a great literary feel uh those of you who have played Steve Jackson or red Steve Jackson sour before we'll uh definitely recognize some of the stuff that's going on here so how's it going guys great good thank you so uh what What's the game all about so uh Steve Jackson sorcery is a four part Epic Fantasy Quest across a a Land Of Monsters and magic um you can see the map here this is this is episode one this is part one and we're going to be journeying across the shaman tany Hills uh we've got a map of it which is kind of where the core of the game Journey happened and you can see it's in the beautiful 3D very cool you got a nice hybrid of like 2D and 3D there I like it yeah it's a very nice effect there's some lighting and Shadows on it to really bring it out but uh let's find out where we are so this is very the start of the game we've just left the uh our homeland where the tutorial is and uh we're going to start this story and the idea is as you move across the map the each little place you go to has a little bit of story associated with it and sometimes there are some choices you make and sometimes there are quite a lot of choices you make which will determine exactly how that story goes and every choice you make will be remembered by the game so this is the start we're just going to walk on kind of introduce ing us to our new area and then we're on a journey and part of the journey is choosing which way we want to go so either we can follow the path or we can cut across the grass so this time let let's cut across the grass we're going to break off the path what's up and it starts to tell us the story of what happens when we do that so let's keep moving yes we have another couple of choices here so kind of a more graphically Rich Choose Your Own Adventure kind of thing yeah definitely this has Choose Your Own Adventure in its blood but there's a couple of big differences I think a choose own adventure is uh tends to have lots of text and then a few choices and what we've got is is little these little nuggets of text these little nuggets of story and then lots of choices and the the big thing that you you can't really see the app doing but you get a feel for it once you play it is that the more choices you make the more the game learns what kind of player you are what kind of character you are and also keeps track of what you've done uh and changes the story on the Fly it's not quite all pre-written some of it is actually dnamic put together um so you'll find that characters talk to you differently if you play a different way and some options will become available that were not available before and actually the story starts to write itself based on what you do and the kind of decisions you make so in this case here we're going to we're going to play a little bit cautiously actually so I'm using all the options of of waiting around and the game is paying attention to that and that will note that I'm a little bit of a cautious player it's given me the option to to retreat back to the path even it thinks I'm cautious like creatures but I think I'm going to approach them instead uh and show some of this oh that Something's Happened I've started to fall down a slope so again I've got some choices and I think actually I'm going to I'm going to try and cast a spell to deal with it so sorcery obviously by the name has a spell book in it and there are 50 spells um you don't have to learn all of them you can use none of them at all if you like but if you if you do learn them and there's a spell book you can you can do some nice powerful effects so you can learn for spells that are really suitable for All Occasions so right now I'm tumbling down a slope so I'm going to cast a foul spell which is perfect for floating safely to to the ground oh cool so but I've landed near some creatures so I'm going to talk to them so I'm going to try and threaten them tell them I'm great warrior and uh I'm going to put this creature in his place and tell him that he'll suffer and die oh goodness all right and this is launching our combat mechanic so the combat is really elegant really simple but quite deeply strategic and basically what I do is it's a sword dueling mechanic and I choose how hard I want to attack do I want to go full on and an attack or do I want to defend myself and he's going to do the same thing he's making a decision whoever attacks hardest wins but the more defended I am the less damage I'll suffer if I lose and if I do a heavy attack now I'll have less power to play with next time right so basically I'm placing a bet how high is he going to go I want to go slightly higher but not too much higher so I'm going to go for a medium one see what happens so he went very defending so I wasted a lot of my attack power there if I'd have gone much lower and still one right but notice when I did that up here at the top where the story is this paragraph got written in here and that's a bit of text describing the outcome of that turn and that's procedurally generated so it takes what I did it takes what he did takes what the damage and the outcome was and it turns it into a bit of text we kind of set us our design challenge we wanted something that wrote about as well as DAV G and I'm not sure if we've managed that but it was a great thing to wait for um and sometimes in the text uh you get little Clues as well by reading it it can give you a suggestion of what the character what the what the enemy is going to do next and that can help you play a better strategy and find ways to out with them cool so I'm going to I'm going to this guy is I'm going to go for another heavy hit and that time he went for a heavy one and I managed to do him a lot of damage and finish him off nice and when you beat an enemy you can tweet that cuz we quite we're quite like we're using tweets as achievements basically you can tell the world cuz we've got such a branching story but that's full of things you can do and things you can find and we like the idea of people being able to tweet all the strange and weird and wonderful things they've done for sure I'm noticing a few kind of RPG Style Elements out there we got stamina on the top left what's that all about so uh we've got one persistent stat really and that's your stamina that's your health it's how much uh it's how much health you've got and if it hits zero then you're going to die so you lose it in combat you can lose it in accident here I lost one cuz I was uh knocked on the head by a creature I didn't see from behind me so I have to conserve that uh couple of the other stats at the top the rations well that's a way of popping my health back up again okay so if I uh here I've got a little bit too little so maybe I can even go to my items now I've got a ration and I can eat it and you see it's put my health back up again there you go but now I've got one less ration so I've been uh taken to the Village of the elen now you been captured yeah been captured so the next day that's how the story carries off sure so uh when is this coming out like how how is going to be framed are these going to be Ina purchases separate apps or what so this is book one and it's going to be released as a separate app uh we're aiming for May the 4th if you follow us on Twitter at inkle Studios you'll know the exact date as soon as we do that's what we're shooting for so that's in studios cool and uh the second and third and fourth books will be separate apps the next one's hopefully going to come in around August uh and we'll make a box set of four apps but at the end of app one you'll be able to save your character and then use that same character in the start of book two be carrying one character all the way through all four books and there's lots of things in book one that you can collect and find which give you an advantage in book to but if you want to just drop in and play Only book four and just get the climax then you can do that too nice uh do you have pricing set on any of these not yet we need to look around see what the competition is like I don't think it's going to be a 99 Cents app I think we need to go a bit higher than that but you know we'll have to see what the App Store is like at the time oh it looks fantastic thanks a lot guys thank you\n"