Here at inkle we've just submitted our release build for Sorcery! 2 , and finished up our trailer for launch, which leaves us with nothing left to do but sit back and wait for launch. So we've been filling the time with talking.

First up, a guest post about the creation of Sorcery! for Pocket Tactics, talking about how we developed the first game, and what we've done to make the second one bigger and more expansive. Want to know why the Blade Runner adventure game was one of our influences? Read on...

Today is not the launch day for Sorcery! Part 2. Today is, instead, the day we reveal why Sorcery! Part 2 has taken so long. Here's the first one (and she's just gone live on the App Store right now):

We've been busy for most of the last two months wrestling the city of Kharé into some kind of shape, and while we're still a short way off announcing a release date for the sequel to Sorcery!, we've been talking a lot recently about working with text, and what we discovered over the last two years.

A few weeks ago, Mostly Books, an independent bookshop in Adelaide, South Australia, ran a competition for short stories by young writers made using inklewriter. The entries were judged by recent Creative Writing graduates from Flinders University and the results are now in, and we're pretty impressed, and wanted to share them here.

Last fortnight, we did a podcast with the guys over at BigSushi.fm which has now gone live.

If you've not listened to their show before, BigSushi does podcasts with indie developers but with a twist - they ask as much about the games as they do about the people who make them, and their programs always make for really interesting discussions that go all over the place. We talked to them for about an hour about inkle, game narrative, Sorcery!, the console industry and a whole lot more. Take a listen. There's also a few bits of exclusive information about our plans for Kharé in there too.

We got in touch with them through our friends over at Nyamnyam, so do take a listen to their show if you're interested; and they've also interviewed Jonathan Myers whose interesting audio project, Codename Cygnus, is busy working itself into a Kickstarter frenzy.

It's been nothing but announcements here at inkle in the last couple of weeks, and here's the latest bit of news: surprise! inkle's latest interactive story, published by Dutton and written by best-selling author Kelley Armstrong, will be hitting the US App Store this Thursday!

Since the release of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! in May we've been a little quiet on this blog. Partly we've been reading all the reviews - and partly we've been working hard at Book 2, mapping out the twists and turns of the city of Kharé, and cooking up ways to bring its inhabitants, traps and puzzles to vibrant life.

And partly we've been trying to crack the multi-platform problem. So far, all of our games have been iOS-only, but these days everyone knows there are a lot of Android users out there (and if we didn't know, they email us quite often to remind us!)

So: for all you Droiders who have stuck with us over the last year and a half, your moment has come. This week we're announcing not one Android release, but two.

A quick note to all Sorcery! players - if you've finished already and are thinking of replaying, but are worried about your save game, we want to reassure you: in Part 2, you'll be able to choose which of your save-games to continue, but you only need one cloud save spell to reference those saves (so there's less to remember!)

It's celebration time at inkle: as Part One of the Sorcery! saga is now available for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch from the App Store. The Shamutanti Hills await!

Two weeks since PAX already? Seems like only yesterday when we were stepping into the main hall of the Convention Centre bleary-eyed and jet-lagged, with a hundred printed Sorcery! maps, and a build with a 3D version of the same, ready to let some journalists play.

Nerve-wracking stuff: our first big games convention - arguably our first game, unless you count Poems By Heart - but also the first time anyone outside of inkle had played the game. Would they get it? Would they like it? Would they get destroyed by the first Bandit and never see the Hills?