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About the StoryYou are online.You are fire and order. You are here to protect. ---- "Open Sorcery" is a game about technology, magic and becoming a person. It follows the development of an Elemental Firewall--a creature of intertwined magic and code. There are 90,000 words of text, five animated sequences, and eight possible endings. In this game you can: * Search for malicious spirits * Protect your network * Make friends * Burn everything * Learn * Dream * Become sapient Game Details
Language: English (en)
First Publication Date: May 5, 2016 Current Version: 1.0 License: Commercial Development System: Twine Forgiveness Rating: Tough IFID: Unknown TUID: hslgyznv9n2hou7k |
Awards
Nominee, Best Game; Nominee, Best Writing; Nominee, Best Story; Winner, Best Individual PC; Nominee, Best Use of Innovation; Nominee, Best Use of Multimedia - 2016 XYZZY Awards
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating: ![]() Number of Reviews: 5 Write a review |
Most Helpful Member Reviews

This game plays out over the course of several days in-game, perhaps a week. It is quite large, on the order of size of Twine games like Birdland, but feels a bit smaller than Spy Intrigue. I have played it once, but it seems to have high replay value.
The visuals on this game are gorgeous, especially when sleeping. The font, letter spacing, and color choices give a DOS type feel. The game is sprinkled with occasional images and animation.
You play a living firewall, an elemental charged with protecting a magic/tech network with 4 locations.
You are presented with a sequence of mysteries, one a day, which you use clues to solve. You can then deal with the mystery in many ways, raising and lowering various stats a la choice of games.
The game includes several times sequences, some violence and some sexual activity.
My only quibble is about one image, and it's a tiny issue: (Spoiler - click to show)I didn't like the illustration of the main antagonist, I thought it was cheesy.<\spoiler>

This narrative is even better, weaving cyberpunk, horror, some incredibly moving scenes expressed very simply, and a quest arc that involves gathering powers that can be used in the finale.
It has a bit of a Choice of Games feel, where you gather stats to funnel into the correct ending, but this felt a bit more immediate and engaging with just enough formatting and multimedia glitz that does not come off as excessive or superfluous.
The finale is timed and that gives a sense of terrified urgency, but I didn't feel like the time limit was imposed to make me click faster. (Spoiler - click to show)My playthrough ended unsuccessfully, but I think that was more a matter of I hadn't learned enough during the buildup, and became more of "what else can I try?" instead of "I don't have enough time to do this." Cleverly, the game foreshadows this with a smaller timed sequence earlier on. Seeing as I lost, the game gave me the satisfying option of hurling myself at the boss in a redemptive (although sadly unsuccessful) kamikaze effort.
The timed finale feels very earned and satisfying, even on a fail, and I am actually planning to try this again soon. The game remembers your progress via a browser cookie and doesn't make you start completely over which is a huge plus.
Great game. Should be attempted by everyone who wonders how to create a Twine that actually has legitimate gaming elements.

You play to find and eliminate spiritual threats in locations of importance to your creators, and the way you eliminate them is up to you - this aspect of the game is quite tactical, allowing you to use assets and your own wits to gain more of those assets to employ in dangerous situations later.
The only complaint I can think of is the expanded version. I am not sure what "Expanded" means in this case, but if it means it is a more immersive experience then I find it irritating that I don't have an iPhone or android to download and play this "Expanded version".
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Recommended Lists
Open Sorcery appears in the following Recommended Lists:Annotated list of best sci-fi games by MathBrush
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Polls
The following polls include votes for Open Sorcery:Non-human Perspectives by Rhetta_Lynnea
I'm looking for IF narrated by aliens, animals, anything.
The Best Games of 1st Half of 2016 by Anya Johanna DeNiro
Sometimes by the end of the year and after the Comp it's hard to keep front-and-center the games that appeared earlier in the year! Here is a place to list what has tickled your fancy so far. One vote per game only please.
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I've seen many people discuss their feelings for Twine. Many of them say that they didn't think it was a 'real' platform at first, but then certain games changed them (see, for instance, the commentary in "IF is Dead. Long Live IF") For...
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