14 DAY TRIAL // George R.R. Martin, the writer of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of books, is endorsing the recently launched Game of Thrones Ascent social game, which is available on Facebook.
The novelist states on his official blog that, "This is not only the first social game based on the events and characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, but it gives fans an opportunity to live the life of a noble within the world of Westeros – something that you don’t necessarily get to do by just watching the television."
Apparently Martin has not actually played the Facebook title but he has had extensive discussion with the development team at Disruptor Beam about the way players interact with the game world and the decisions that they make.
Game of Thrones Ascent was demoed for the writer, who admits that he is not too knowledgeable about social gaming and that he left the big development decisions in the hands of the team at Disruptor Beam.
He adds, “We were given tons of custom artwork and dialog text to approve (The game is huge, I went through approvals on inventory lists that were infinity long), so Radoff and company seemed to care a great deal about getting the details right.”
Game of Thrones Ascent is in many ways a typical Facebook based experience, with long waiting times for actions and repetitive aspects.
At the same time the experience manages to leverage the A Song of Ice and Fire universe beautifully, tackling the same themes and weaving quests that are linked to the main story beats of the books.
Familiar characters pop in and out of the narrative and the overall presentation is stylistically appropriate.
Game of Thrones is free-to-play but the developers encourage players to use real world money to get access to certain buildings and items.