Open Sorcery

Developer: Abigail Corfman | Publisher: Open Sorcery Games | Release Date: 2017 | Genre: RPG / Adventure / Indie | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

One of the three laws that the British science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke came up with is that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Open Sorcery is a text adventure that embraces this law while proposing that the opposite is also true. The result is a fascinating game that fuses magic and technology in such a creative way that you can’t help but get sucked into the story. Plenty of games have combined the different worlds of science and magic, but in almost all of them, these two forces are at odds with each other. The opposite is true in Open Sorcery, and the two forces feel like a natural match.

The story of Open Sorcery is viewed through the “eyes” of BEL/S, a fire elemental bound with C++ code to serve as an elemental firewall. As BEL/S, it is your responsibility to keep an eye on four locations and protect the people there from harm. Two of the locations are the homes of your creators, but you must also serve as the protector of a school and a nursing home. This task is complicated by threats that can take the form of anything from poltergeists and curses to other elementals and things even stranger. As a fire elemental, eradicating these threats with fire is entirely within your power. Still, a whole new world of possibilities can open up if you engage them in conversation instead. You might discover that some threats are more of a nuisance than a threat, while others could even become allies. Choosing words over flames is also the only way that you will learn anything new, which is quite important for BEL/S.

Although Open Sorcery is a text-based adventure, you don’t have to worry about typing obscure phrases into a parser. Apart from one section that requires you to put together words to answer a few riddles, the rest of the game merely requires you to click on keywords to make your choices. Initially, we thought this would limit your freedom in the game, but nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are there numerous choices to make, but they actually have consequences that affect what you can do down the line and even how the game ends. Do you stick to your programming and simply fulfill your duties? Do you test your limitations and improve yourself through the things that you learn? Or do you go off the rails completely, burn everything in sight, and turn on your creators? All these options and more are at your disposal, meaning Open Sorcery has a lot of replay value.

The game takes place over the course of one week, and each day, you are in charge of the choices that BEL/S gets to make. Most days begin with you scanning the four locations for threats and then dealing with them in some manner. All threats have to be identified first by determining what their matter and motives are.

Matter ranges from light, fire, and earth to air, water, and dark, while motives consist of chaos, fear, death, and love. So, for example, if you read about something scaring someone at night, the chances are good it is something with dark matter and a motive of fear. All of the matter and motives in the game can be learned from these threats if you play your cards right, but it is impossible to learn everything in a single playthrough.

Your time in the game isn’t just spent searching and eliminating threats; you can also interact with the humans under your care. Contacting people who are under threat can help strengthen your bonds with them, and gaining their trust is often vital if you want to depend on them later. The way in which BEL/S learns new things and incorporates them is pretty cool, and you eventually gain the ability to dream at night when your tasks are completed. The fact that the story managed to suck us in so quickly is all thanks to the excellent writing style of the author of Open Sorcery. She has somehow managed to weave an enchanting tale without drawing anything out unnecessarily. Just like a good book, this game can make you care about the characters and what happens to them, even if you have only known them for a few paragraphs.

Although Open Sorcery features a couple of somewhat unexpected images late in the game, most of it is played out on a text screen that looks a lot like MS-DOS. Characters have different text colors for their dialog, and the game sometimes uses unique text placements to emphasize actions, which is rather neat. Clicking specific keywords in the game might even open up external websites and Wikipedia articles. The audio is as minimal as the visuals, so there is basically no music and only the occasional sound effect to liven things up. Playing Open Sorcery is as easy as pointing and clicking at your available options and then reading how things play out. In a nice touch, sometimes some options are grayed out if you still need to unlock them, so you’ll always know if you missed something during a playthrough. The game can also be saved at any time, allowing you to explore different paths without worrying about being locked in.

Overall, Open Sorcery is a game that caught us by surprise and had far more of an emotional impact on us than we had ever expected from a text adventure. The intriguing world setting, interesting characters, and unique situations all add up to a game that is engaging and addictive. Anyone who has grown up reading those choose-your-own-adventure style books will feel right at home with Open Sorcery, but it keeps the text brief enough that it never makes you feel like you just want to skip to the good parts. This is just one of those games that you simply have to experience for yourself if you can appreciate a good story and imaginative setting.