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Netflix's recent interactive film Bandersnatch received mostly mixed reviews, but was wholly successful in driving interest in Choose Your Own Adventure-style (CYOA) stories. That was both a boon and a frustration to Chooseco, the owner of the CYOA registered trademark and publisher of the famous book series of the same name. There was finally a resurgence of interest in CYOA stories, but the company didn't feel it was getting proper recognition. After filing a lawsuit with Netflix, Chooseco has now taken its first step into taking advantage of its newfound popularity in the digital age with a CYOA Alexa skill. Working with Audible, Chooseco turned two of its older titles into interactive stories for Alexa: Journey Under the Sea (which takes place in the lost city of Atlantis), and The Abominable Snowman, set in the Himalayas. To access the books, you can use the command: "Alexa, open Choose Your Own Adventure" - though upon first open you'll need to provide parental permission through the app.The stories are fairly easy to navigate. You can say "go back" to go back one scene an make a different choice, or "start over" to start the story from the beginning. Alexa also tracks your progress and bookmarks if you need to stop the story before it's complete.The stories are best suited to kids, who will likely love the simplistic, non-stop action in this new format just as much as the older generation enjoyed it in book form. It's no Bandersnatch - there is no dad murder or pondering about the nature of existence, but perhaps that's best left to the makers of Black Mirror anyway. Still, here's hoping this is only the first step into the modern era for Chooseco - it'd be a shame for the self-proclaimed "OG immersive platform" to let this moment of opportunity slip by.Source: Chooseco, Amazon
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got an awesome heavy metal mosh pit game, a challenging logic-base puzzler, a minimal and relaxing drift racing game, a procedurally generated tile merging puzzler, a delightful choose your own adventure, a card game all about mushrooms, and a gorgeous point and click adventure game. Without further ado:
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a colorful pixel-based platformer, a minimal word game, an auto-runner created from the Prince of Persia license, an enjoyable arcade racer, a choose your own adventure, a spooky arcade game, and the sequel to Cat Tales. Without further ado:
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a fantastic old-school RPG, a heartfelt prologue to a captivating adventure game, an enjoyable endless runner, a Call-of-Cthulhu-based choose your own adventure, an odd tactical battle simulator, and a beautiful strategy RPG. Without further ado:
Earlier this month we learned that Jam City was planning to release their officially licensed Harry Potter choose your own adventure game on April 25th, and it looks like they have held true to their word. This means you can grab Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery from the Play Store and start on your wizarding adventure as you attend your first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Just this morning Jam City announced that the upcoming release for their choose your own adventure game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is slated for April 25th. But that isn't the only news coming from the studio. They have also announced that a few of the actors from the Warner Bros. Harry Potter films have provided voiceover work for the game.
Jam City's upcoming choose your own adventure game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is still in development, which means most regions can't access the download from the Play Store. The good news is if you would like to test it out before it officially releases, you can join the beta right now.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery may not be the first officially licensed Harry Potter game on Android, but it's probably going to be the most popular, at least until we see what Niantic has up its sleeve for its upcoming augmented reality title Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Only just recently has Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery arrived on the Play Store as a soft-launch title, which means it's getting close to an official release. But since there is still no hard date set for when that will happen I have decided to sideload the APK in order to see what it has to offer and share my thoughts.
Mighty Coconut's first foray on the Google Play Store offers up quite a unique gameplay experience. Their title is called 57° North for Merge Cube, and it is an augmented reality choose your own adventure game that requires the use of a third-party foam cube from a company called Merge Labs, Inc. Suffice to say it may be a bother to purchase yourself one of these cubes, though the gameplay of 57° North is most definitely worth the added effort and cost.
As was mentioned previously on AP, Asmodee Digital's Catan Stories: Legend of the Sea Robbers was set to release really soon on the Play Store. Well, it looks like today is the day as it is now available for purchase at the low price of $2.99. Unlike the majority of Asmodee Digital's Android games, this new release is not a board game adaptation but is more an interactive story set in the Catan game world that plays a lot like a choose your own adventure game.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a game where a frog kicks the crap out of ninjas, an interesting take on Breakout, a stacking game from Cartoon Network, a Monument Valley-style puzzler, and a text-only narrative game. Without further ado:
We've covered both of the previous entries in the Sorcery series, from 80 Days developer Inkle Ltd., when they landed on Android. At the core they're game-books, a genre that mixes old-school dice-based tabletop RPGs and structured "Choose Your Own Adventure" narratives, like those so prominently featured in the library of Tin Man Games. But the Sorcery series takes this idea further with a dynamic story engine, interesting animations, skeuomorphic interface design, and hand-drawn everything.