The talented Dane Barrett kindly gave The Altimer a five-star review recently, in which he pointed one particular section out as “very strange”. The section in question is one in which you lose some SPIRIT points, and then ultimately die. And in some ways it’s definitely odd to have to mark off something immediately before dying anyway – so it got me thinking: why did I do that? 1 The mechanics are telling their own story Your SPIRIT score – or any score for that matter – should be more than just a number. If you’re reading and your SPIRIT score is 10, your character will be feeling invigorated and optimistic, whereas if it’s down at 1 or…
Author: Sam Isaacson
I’m not sure how serendipitous this is, but I did an interview with the lovely James over at My Gamebook Adventures when The Altimer first launched, and it was published this week, right as New Gaia is hitting the (virtual) shelves!
I had great fun doing an interview with Gamebook News – enjoy finding out about New Gaia and how I don’t really see myself as a sci-fi fan…
The sequel to The Altimer – New Gaia – will be launched later this week, just in time for Christmas. In celebration, the Kindle version of The Altimer is reduced to only 99p for the whole week! Get your copy here now, and watch this space for the launch of New Gaia. I’m excited about this…
It’s difficult to know whether it will be worth paying for a new book until you’ve read it. That’s part of the fun I suppose, and apart from reading it yourself the only thing you often have to go on is customer reviews. Reviews of The Altimer so far have been very positive – I’m really pleased people have been enjoying it – and now there’s a way for you to get a glimpse of the story before making the financial investment. There is now a taster of The Altimer available; it’s only the first part of the story but will introduce you to the world, right up to the moment just before it collapses around you. I…
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Interactive stories don’t just land on the perfect round number they’re so often presented as. “Turn to paragraph 400” has to be designed that way, and as a result there are occasionally extra bits of story added in to pad out the main story, or entire sequences removed to get it down to the magic number. The Altimer has 300 sections…but you will only ever read 299 of them if you’re exploring the story. One section in the book has no inputs and no outputs, it simply exists – for two reasons: It makes the book a nice, round 300 sections. It contains a tasty red herring for…