This week's inklecast is Part 2 of our Sorcery! special. In this episode we talk about all the elements of Sorcery! that aren't story choices: in particular, the combat system and the dice game.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to see a little Sorcery! in action, including some good commentated demonstration of the combat, we've been enjoying SplatterCatGaming's Let's Play series.

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Today, Sorcery! hits Steam with a combined release of Part 1 and Part 2, bundled together into a single volume, with a new theme tune courtesy of Laurence Chapman.

To celebrate, we've recorded a special episode of the inklecast talking about how the game. We cover how the game came to be, how we developed it and how it changed along the way.

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Welcome to the inklecast, bite-sized snippets of game design. This week: how do choices help you roleplay, and are Bioware games just a quiz with the answers already pencilled in?

This one's gone up a day early, as cast-master Tom is at the Global Game Jam in Oslo tomorrow.

And with next week seeing the release of Sorcery! for Steam, so we're considering a Sorcery! special. Let us know in the comments or via Twitter if you have questions. (But, please, no "how do you visit the Gardens of Briar"?)

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Welcome to the inklecast, episode two! This week's bite-sized chat is about choices - are they worth it, or are "analogue" controls in a game always better?

Never miss an episode - subscribe on iTunes or use the RSS feed!

We teased this a few days ago, and now it's ready to go live - the first episode of the Inklecast is up! (And on iTunes!)

We've been meaning to do this for ages - at least, since Tom Kail joined the company and insisted that we should. The idea is simple - we get around a table, talk about interactive fiction, narrative games, game design or whatever else comes along, then cut out the best bits and put it up in bite-sized chunks.

For our first episode, we're talking about games that encourage players to rebel against the rules. Enjoy - and let us know what you think!

And here's an RSS-feed for those of you who like such things.

With writing on Sorcery! 4 now at fever-pitch, we took a little time out to talk to Rock, Paper, Shotgun about Sorcery!'s past and present. A few minor spoilers for Sorcery! 2 here and none for Sorcery! 4, but if you're interested to hear a little about the history of the project and how we go about designing it, this might be an interesting read.

As designers, we’re incredibly restless. We like trying new ideas, and in a way Sorcery has turned into our prototype testing pot for new concepts. As soon as we realised that Steve and the fans are happy for us to take it to new places, it’s been really fun to build on things.

The full article is here.

In other Sorcery! news, we've just had the final mix of Sorcery! 4's theme music from the composer and it's... jaw-dropping.

With Sorcery! 4 well underway, we're looking ahead to our next big project. After four years of adapting books - interactive and otherwise - into great, interactive reading experiences, we're looking to expand outwards a little.

A new game is a precious, fragile thing: this game doesn't have a name, and any mechanics and systems it might contain could be flung away at a moment's notice if a better idea comes along. 80 Days went through ten or so major iterations before reaching its final combination of cities, journeys, trading, health and conversations.

The Pillars of the Game

But there a few things we're certain of - the pillars of the game, around which we hope to build our temple.

• It's going to be made in Unity. After so long making iOS-first games, this is quite a change for us, but we want to be releasing our games across as many platforms as we can.

• It's going to use a next-generation version of our ink writing engine. We'll talk a bit more about this in the coming months, but ink2 takes all the best parts about ink1 and adds more flexibility and power.

• It's going to use dialogue. A lot of dialogue. In every game we've made, we've found dialogue is what works the best - so much so, that we told 80 Days entirely through one character's voice.

• It's about a partnership. Two characters are better than one, especially if your game is about dialogue! We discovered this the moment Jann the Minimite first appeared back in Sorcery!, and the combination of Passepartout and Fogg is at the heart of 80 Days.

• It's going to be beautiful.

• It's going to take you somewhere you have never been before. For the first time, we aren't adapting anything, but starting from scratch. That's exciting, but also terrifying - what if people don't like the world we've created?

That's what we know for certain so far. Discovering the rest of the game is like caving - exploring dark passages, retreating from dead-ends, and occasionally holding one's breath to swim through a flooded, darkened chamber in the hope of coming up on the other side...

We'll tell you more, once we get there.

Going the Extra Mile

We've been lucky enough to enjoy some excellent reviews of 80 DAYS since its launch (such as this one). But we've never seen anything quite like this from Cool Ghosts... Moustaches at the ready!

Time to Set Sail!

We're popping champagne corks and tossing our top hats into the air here at inkle HQ - because 80 Days is out right now for PC and Mac on Steam.

A year in the making, this is the original, award-winning mobile game, rebuilt from the ground up for desktops. With a streamlined user-interface, bigger and brighter visuals, this is the ultimate 80 Days experience.

We've added thirty new cities and 150k words of new content. We've opened up Canada, North and South America, as well as adding a few pitstops along the way - Port Moresby, Pitcairn Island; Zurich, Meteora Valley and Tunis...

Around the World, In Your Lunchtime

There are smaller tweaks too - for instance, background play: if the original 80 Days was good for curling up with on the sofa and going on an adventure, we've built this version to be played in a window, so you can travel around the world while you work. (And to ensure you don't miss anything, the clock will automatically pause when you're in another window.)

Of course, you can still play full-screen for an immersive experience as well.

Unexplored areas

When we released 80 DAYS last year, it was something special for us, but we didn't expect people to take it into their hearts the way they did. But we also knew we weren't quite finished with the game, either. There were still more adventures to tell and more places to explore.

Last Christmas, when we brought the game to Android, we indulged ourselves a little by including a new journey - a perilous, possibly even fatal trip to through the Arctic to the North Pole itself.

Over thirty new cities

Now, to celebrate the PC and Mac editions coming on the 29th September, we've added a huge new update - so big we've been calling it internally "Season 2".

If you want to embark on new adventures without spoilers look away now! Otherwise, here are a few juicy details about what's coming up.

 Major new storylines!

The update also adds one huge new plot-line, which sees Passepartout falling prey to Europe's most notorious international jewel-thief, the Black Rose. Is she friend or foe? What is her interest in the valet and his master? And will she be able to discover the Artificer's greatest secret?

“I have learned that the wealth of the Artificers has grown beyond what they might keep in the banks of any one nation without paying large sums of taxes. So they have begun, in secret, to store it away in a vault of their own devising.” - The Black Rose

But who is she, really?

 More Extraordinary Voyages

We've also returned to Verne for more inspiration: most notably, somewhere in the world, a certain Verne hero is preparing a ballistic rocket, ready to fire himself into the sky...

“Hold on. I dare say this will be somewhat more dramatic than last time!” - Michel Ardan

And that's not all...

Deputise for a corrupt Sheriff, play poker with a billionaire, go over Niagara Falls, rekindle a lost romance, discover Port Moresby (to the surprise of its inhabitants) and soar skywards with the curious Levitating Atheists of Valaam.

Hundreds of new people to meet, with secrets, hopes, dreams and grievances to discover.

“It is too refreshing to be anonymous for a few minutes, out here above the world.” - 'Lalla'

80 DAYS isn't a game about endings, but there are a few more of those to be found: two in particular, we think, are destined to be real crowd-pleasers...

The new release brings the game's total word count to nearly 750,000 words, longer than the first five Harry Potter novels combined. It's also pushing our inklewriter engine to its limits.

“I suppose that's the real truth. We are all connected by a hundred untaken journeys.” - The Lady Aodha

This is, we think, the definitive edition of 80 DAYS, and it'll available to play in just two weeks time. We couldn't be more excited. And if you're looking forward, do stop by the Steam Store's community page and let us know!