Smartphone game developers were doing some very impressive things with the gamebooks of old, but none have had the impact that Inkle has made. These guys have reinvented the concept to such a degree that I’m forced to wonder whether apps like Sorcery! 3 is still even a gamebook.

That’s not a criticism, mind you. It’s an effort to impart just how advanced the mechanics have become; leaving the old “turn to page 305” system long dead in the literary dust.

3 is easily the biggest and most robust gamebook inkle has produced to date. It offers all of the strengths of the previous chapters and builds a ton of improvements on top of them.” 100 – Touch Arcade “This brilliant mix of old and new sets a fresh benchmark for the genre.”.

Sorcery! 3 picks up right where Sorcery! 2 left off, as you stumble out of the city of Khare. The action begins right away as you set out on a new quest across the Baklands to track down seven magic serpents. These deadly creatures are servants of the Archmage, and you need to prevent them from warning him about your impending arrival at his fortress doors.

It’s a quest that’s packed with twists, turns and RPG-like battles. These fights employ a superb mechanic that fits with the interactive fiction style while still adding some skill to the mix. Gauges are used that allow you to set how much of your resources are ploughed into a fight, and by paying attention to the narrative cues interspersed into the combat sequences you know whether to expend all your energy, turn and run, or play the fight out as frugally as possible.

Much like the spectacular 80 Days, Sorcery! 3 makes use of an open world map that you can navigate with an impressive amount of freedom. Especially considering that it doesn’t seem to harm the strong story at the game’s core. Exploration becomes much more of a factor in your success that it did (or could) in the original dead tree version, and that includes slipping in and out through time to investigate the Baklands wasteland across millennia.

There’s actually a brilliant mechanic at play here that’s akin to a hidden pop culture reference. The kind of reference that super-fans will delight in, especially as the noobs pass it by without noticing, only further enriching our sense of quiet, elitist delight. Sorcery! 3’s time rewinding option is not just inspired, but essential to a well-played game that adds a Braid-like puzzle element to the gameplay.

For those of us who thumbed — literally — through the gamebooks of yore, it’s so much more. For the first time since choose-your-own-adventure stories went digital, you can effectively keep your finger in the page once again. And like so many other ways Inkle has evolved the gamebook, doing so is no longer a simple way to cheat but is an active and essential part of the gameplay. This time travelling addition is new to the Sorcery! canon, but it’s a worthy addition that makes the game significantly more playable on the digital medium.

It must be said that there’s some loss of nostalgia in Sorcery! 3, however. It’s an amazing game that you absolutely must play, but it’s much less of a gamebook than similar apps are. If you harbor no such nostalgia for its paperback ancestors, I could almost envy you, because it’s perhaps the one shadow cast across the pages of Sorcery! 3 for me.

Win steam games. This shadow isn’t nearly enough to spoil anyone’s enjoyment, of course, as this is once again a seminal moment in interactive fiction.

Developer:Price: $4.99Version Reviewed: 1.0.2App Reviewed on: iPhone 5Graphics / Sound Rating:Game Controls Rating:Gameplay Rating:Re-use / Replay Value Rating:Overall Rating:Remembered fondly (and sometimes not so fondly) as the trickiest installment of the four books, Sorcery! 3 also feels like the most impressive of the episodes we’ve seen so far on iOS. You can dive straight into it if you want, but I’d strongly recommend playing the previous two games as the sweeping narrative is worth exploring.This time around, you’re exploring the bad lands of Kakhabad, as you attempt to track down seven evil serpents that must be defeated. It’s about as easy as it sounds, so it’s fortunate that you have a few skills up your sleeve. As before, you can import your character from the previous book and you’d be very wise to do exactly that, providing your earlier character had some handy equipment with them.As before, you choose where to go from a series of options, with a wide variety of paths to take.

Combat is turn based with you dragging your finger towards the enemy to represent how strong you want the attack to be. You can cast spells too, by spelling out the relevant word. It's all that bit more interesting than mere dice rolls.Unlike in the book, the serpents can move around, providing a much more open world experience. In a similar vein, time becomes so much more important here with you able to manipulate it. This manipulation is provided through a series of tower that you can track down, changing an area of the map to its past self. Throw in the rewind feature that allows you to retrace your steps as well as go back in time, and it’s clear that Sorcery!

3 has been heavily influenced by what’s worked so well for. Wrapping it up leaves you with information on how many days it took to complete Sorcery!

3, adding an almost micromanagement-eque feel to things.This ensures that Sorcery! 3 feels fresh to both newcomers to the series and to those who loved the books before. It also makes Sorcery! 3 the most well-rounded of the books so far, being challenging yet consistently gripping. As before, you can still cast spells by picking out letters, and the world map is so much more gorgeous than simple text options.

It’s more than just a regular interactive fiction game, and so very worthy of your attention.