Thursday, March 3, 2011

Catacombs of the Undercity released on iTunes!

Dare you enter the
Undercity of Orlandes?

Thanks to the guys at Tin Man Games, my Catacombs of the Undercity Gamebook Adventure is now available to download at iTunes! I'm totally stoked - this was huge piece of work - nearly 800 paragraphs by the time Neil Rennison had finished editing it, and I'm thrilled it's finally out in the marketplace.

Better yet, for this week it's available at the knock-down price of $2.99, so if you've got an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, and you like old-school retro-dungeon-crawl gamebook adventures, then you've really got no excuse not to download it and give it a whirl. By all means give me some feedback too!

My only dilemma now is whether to grab a cheap iPad now so I can join in the fun, or instead wait until the new one that was recently unveiled by Steve Jobs is released...

12 comments:

  1. Hello Andrew,
    iPad is too expensive, but I am playing the whole serie on iPodTouch (but not mine, I am using my brother's one)...
    I finished An Assassin in Orlandes some weeks ago, and I liked it. The atmosphere is immersive and the story exciting. I am now playing Siege of the Necromancer and that's a very good book too. The story is more classical, in the way of Fighting Fantasy or Golden Dragon dungeonesque stories, but with a better ambiance.

    So keep up the good job, Tin Men and long live Gamebook Adventures !

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  2. I also need to save up to buy an iPad or wait until they become cheaper, but all these gamebooks are a good incentive for me to get one.

    Congratulations, Andy!

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  3. Instead of spending money on an iPad I spend mine on books. Printed ones. Long term a much better investment! Tin Man doesn't come as real book so off to DestinyQuest I go :-)

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  4. @Salla: Very glad to hear that you're enjoying them! If COTU does OK, I've got some ideas for a projected trilogy, but nothing definite as yet.

    @Stuart: You and me both Stu! Apparently the new iPad will cost the same as the old model, so I'll wait til 25/3 when it turns up in Bangkok and think about buying one.

    @Anon: DestinyQuest is awesome! You won't regret it!

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  5. Just purchased it, and have had a few goes on the wife's Ipod Touch. It's great fun, very well written. So far I've been killed by a Cephalopod and an Albino Ape!

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  6. Congrats! This is great news. Of course, I have an Android phone so..... I guess I'll have to dream. :)

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  7. @Pal: Glad to hear you're enjoying it! Let me know if there's any bugs or errors so we can include them in any patch updates.

    @Anjin: I think Android is eventually a plan for Tin Man Games but it may take a while.

    cheers

    Andy

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  8. I spent a couple of hours of unadulterated pleasure playing this last night, the perfect salve for a shit cold! I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the gameplay. I usually don't play gamebooks by the rules, but it was strangely liberating being made to, and not being able to flick back to the previous paragraph continuously (helped of course by knowing that you're not the sort of author who kills people for choosing one random option over another).

    As for the dice, I loved them. I know it's just random number generation, but having dice on the screen made it seem less random than 'you lose/win'. And it seems to me, although I need to play a lot more to be sure, that the Tin Man system makes the most of random rolls, with players getting more random rolls the higher their stats are, so that the randomness comes down as you get better.

    Looking forward to playing more. I have to work out how to power up without losing all my health and money...

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  9. Just to add to that, I've also just bought 'The War Torn Kingdom' for the Ipod, and it has dispenced with dice. It just seems a bit more random and unfriendly being told you have an 83% chance of succeeding, and then just being told whether you've succeeded or not.

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  10. Thanks for all the positive feedback! I must admit I do prefer dice over percentages expressed. I guess it breaks the fourth wall a bit to see them bouncing around the screen, but then again it is a game!

    I'm not too sure how easy it is to power up or advance in COTU so I'm keen to hear your continued thoughts on the adventure and its difficulty rating. It is multi-path, but hopefully not too difficult!

    cheers

    Andy

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  11. Can the developers please post a guide of the gamebooks? It would be nice for the people who get stuck on certain parts... or find out what routes they are missing after playing through the book a few times.

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  12. @Anon: I think there's a walkthrough for An Assassin in Orlandes, but I'm not sure about the others. Why not send them a message, or post on the Tin Man Games website?

    If you have any specific problems with Catacombs of the Undercity, let me know and as the writer behind it I may be able to help out! :-)

    cheers

    Andy

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