Open Sorcery
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
A game about technology, magic and becoming a person.
Open Sorcery is text-based. It follows the development of an elemental firewall. A creature of magical fire bound by C++ code.
In this game you can:
- Search for malicious spirits
- Protect your network
- Make friends
- Burn everything
- Learn
- Dream
- Become sapient
There are 40,000 words of text, five animated sequences, eighteen achievements to pursue, and eight possible endings.
Play the Sequel! Open Sorcery: Jingle BEL/S
Content Warnings: Violence. Depression. Self-harm. Violence against a teenager. Emotional abuse. Abuse of an elder. Implied suicide. Body Horror.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $3.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Also available on
Comments
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I found this game years ago (on Google Play, just found it here on Itch while looking for Jingle BEL/S, which was also fantastic!) and it's honestly part of what got me into interactive fiction (along with "With Those We Love Alive" :P ), and this is one of the games I use to introduce people to IF.
Of all the IF I've played over the years, OS ranks up there as one of the best pieces of art I've had the pleasure of reading <3 Thanks so much for sharing your work with us!
GLEE! I'm so happy you think so well of it! And what a glorious thing to be used to introduce people to IF.
"With Those We Love Alive" is mind changingly amazing. Wonderful taste.
Oh my gosh this was incredible. I adore interactive fiction, and this might be one of my favorite pieces I've ever played. Reminds me a lot of With Those We Love Alive, which is another one of my absolute favorites.
Thank you, and I'm so excited to check out all of your other works!
Oh, I adored 'With Those We Love Alive'. Porpentine's just amazing.
Thank you so much!
I'm enjoying it so far! I love text-based games, and this one feels challenging but kind enough that getting all the endings won't be impractical.
It could use a content warning for self harm.
Thank you!
You are completely right. I made this before I knew what those were and I should add them in.
Awesome, I'm glad to hear you're open to adding that :)
It took me a while to get to this game, despite devouring a lot of the interactive fiction classics, but I’m glad I finally got to this. It still feels innovative and the character moments are so wonderful.
Thank you for making this game!
I am IMMENSELY flattered by your implication that OS could aspire to be an IF classic. That is very kind of you.
Thank you for playing it!
When playing the Mac version, it seems like the game crashes at certain points. I'm unsure what triggers this, but it consistently happens during the tutorial (as well as in the main game itself). For reference, I'm on Mac OS 12.6 (Monterey) and I'm using an Apple Silicon macbook. I haven't tested if the same crashes occur on Windows yet, although I can try to test it.
Thank you for letting me know! I'll take a look at this.
Okay! It looks like the problem was that I left the hookups for triggering achievements in Steam in this version, and it was crashing when it reached those.
I just stripped them from the Mac version--it should work now.
Thank you! I look forward to playing Open Sorcery in it's entirety now! :P
Really fun game! :D
Thank you!
I opened it expecting I wouldn't like it and instead found out it's one of my favorite games on Itch. 10/10
Amazing, text-based game! The idea of mixing technology and magic is performed in such a great way, it is really able to make you empathise with BEL/s. And in addition to this, it's also funny. The only negative aspect: it's far too short for being this good!
Stumble on this page? If you have any interest in IF you should play this. Superbly written and the concept is executed far better than you'd imagine.
I don't have the funds to spare at present, but I do appreciate the bold idea. Feel free to join Dream Jam if you are thinking about developing anything in this vein of a surreal nature, and do check out my own text-based game if you get the chance to. Keep it KLASS!CK.
https://itch.io/jam/dreamjam2020
[({L.J.)}]
Unable to launch the game on Arch running the AMDGPU driver on kernel 5.6. Works fine if I load index.html in my browser, but whatever wrapper is there to make it work natively doesn't seem to be keeping up.
as sam beastie said go throught the local files for the game then run the index.html in your browser if it doesn't work I managed to play throught the whole game this way and it's great definitely worth the price but I received it free so that was awesome
Sadly, I'm getting the same crashes in the same places. It's so infuriating, because this game feels right up my alley. I don't dare try the Jingle one, to avoid spoilers.
Ditto, crashed during the intro very shortly after finding Toto. Windows 10.
Opened index.html in my browser and so far I've gotten past the part in the intro where it crashed. Hopefully I can just play it this way...
Experiencing the same bug on a Mac. Has crashed in the same places. The game is absolutely delightful and I would love to play through it without crashing!
strange happenings. shuts down at the exact same point, repeated 4x. wonderful game nonetheless, wish i could finish it haha
This is a fantastic game!
TL;DR: download Linux version and open index.html in your browser.
The game engine is pretty out-of-date; the game engine won't run on OSX Catalina and on linux you'll need (at least) these 32-bit libraries: libxrender, libgobject, glib, cairo, gtk2, nss, alsa, xcomposite, and gconf.
Note that gconf was deprecated 6+ years ago, so unless your linux system is 32-bit and at least 5 years out-of-date, it'll be very difficult to get it to run.
As a workaround (that seems to work for all platforms), since it's all html-based, it'll run just fine in the browser – download the Linux version (even if you're on Mac/Windows) and open index.html in your browser.
I've only tested with Firefox, but everything seems to work, including saving/restoring.
This worked for me. It runs in both Safari and Chrome, but no sound in Safari. They both save, but it looks like saves are tied to the browser, as they don't transfer between the two.
Still a great game, that hasn't changed. Also cheap AF.
Norton put an Alart on it. And the game often shut down suddenly
uninstall norton, windows defender is actually stupidly good and mac has a lot of better alternatives. if you are using linux tho... why are you using linux to play games in the first place?!?
Is Jingle BEL/S included, will be patched in later, or will it be a stand alone game on Itch?
Thanks for reminding me! I just published it as a stand alone game.
Now i know the game engine, i only have to assimilate your twine engine mlg master skillz
<3
The game looks great but I see there is only a demo available here. Can you make the full game available here for PC? It is at Kongregate for 3.99 for PC. I would happily pay that for it here.
:)
its on steam
Just grabbed it on Steam. thanks