Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Spell Book: Swords and Wizardry Reference App for the iPhone

I only just discovered Robertson Games' Spell Book application for the iPod/iPad/iPhone today. I like the idea of it in a way but I think the lack of additional reference available in the same place makes it more of a novelty than a utility I'd use often. I put Labyrinth Lord on an iPod Touch a while back just to see what it would look like but never used it.

With the iPad though, I can see using something like this - esp. if it combined charts, a dice roller (though I'd probably still use real dice) and the complete rules all in one. After all, the apx. 10" screen is actually larger than the 6x9 OD&D books (or BHP's White Box books), and the portability would be awesome. An additional app for creating characters with editable PC sheets would be nice too, or perhaps as an additional item in the same app. Until something like this comes along, I can't see spending $2, but if the other options were there, I'd be willing to throw down good money.

If I had an iPad that is. Sooner or later I'll end up with one. Don't get me wrong, I'm an open source, linux lovin', anti-DRM, EFF t-shirt wearing tech. But I pay the bills by being a Mac tech for the time being and what the hell, I'll be able to write one of these things off on my taxes next year.

Anyhow, it's nice to see someone's already thinking of something like this, and huge props for putting the Mullen artwork on the splash page.

edit: For the record, even if there was something more to my liking, I'd never be done with my books, pencil, and paper for gaming - the quick and easy portability here would be nice though.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for checking out Spell Book!

I don't have an iPad either, but I think on that platform a full E-Book might be more useful if you want all the rules in one place.

I wrote Spell Book as a task specific subset of the rules (spells) with a better way of collecting a specific list of spells together than you'd get with any of the iPhone e-book readers I'd seen.

The only other similar app I'd seen was for d20, and cost $5 so I figured $2 for this Spell Book was a reasonable price.

ps. Despite having written this app I agree with you about books, pencils and paper for gaming. This is an "as well as" thing for me, not an "instead of". :)

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