TouchArcade: Frequent readers of TouchArcade know that I enjoy gamebooks quite a bit. What can I say? I grew up during the rise of Choose Your Own Adventures, when a pocket RPG meant a bunch of words written by Steve Jackson that you had to steal the dice from the family Monopoly set to play. It's more than just simple nostalgia, though. Call me an old curmudgeon, or maybe just a guy looking out for his livelihood, but I feel like there's a particular imaginative power to the written word that can't quite be matched by any other form of expression. That fight with the giant lizard king never turns out quite as awesome in illustrated or animated form as it does in your mind as you read the words off of a page. I'm thrilled that gamebooks have come back with a vengeance on mobiles. It's a perfect home for them, and allows developers and authors to push their ideas beyond the constraints of a physical media, while still using good old-fashioned words to beam the finest of adventures into your head.
Lately, inkle has been putting out some quality "games" for mobile platforms, playing a digital edition of the oldschool Choose Your Own Adventure books. With the highly acclaimed Sorcery series and 80 Days under their belt, they take a shot at the swashbuckling high seas with Down Among the Dead Men. Is this matey worth the doubloons to have 'er be a crew hand on your ship, or should they be walking the plank?
