For a student of the humanities, I really dislike reading. Most of my friends from other faculties will disagree, because I do read a lot, but firstly I don't read enough for what I do, and secondly I don't necessarily enjoy the process. There are three ways that this issue is usually circumvented. First, I will try and read the damn thing, and if the writing is intriguing enough I will read on. If that fails, I will find a video or an audiobook of sorts that reads and summarises the material I wish to read about. Or lastly, I will wait for the book or essay to be presented in a more interesting format, such as the abovementioned video or audiobook. Poorly written books are, in my opinion, the lowest denominator of the written artform. Books that are unable to draw in its readers through its language are unworthy of read, and for that I'd even argue I like my books to be bias and heavily emplotted than treating me like an idiot by being overly expository. Mangas, for instance, is a higher artform than books, using visual images, intentional framing and placement of those frames for visual story telling, that often prioritises dynamic dialogues and character interaction over narrative and commentary. Visual novels and RPGs on the other hand, allows the player to be part of the narrative by giving player's choices to affect the outcomes and endings in the story. Both games and manga creates a stronger bond between the reader and read, providing immersion that I would say even the greatest of written novels are unable to achieve simply because it is so easy to enter this world via the visual representation and in RPGs, actually being part of that world.
80 Days, a choose-your-own adventure game created by Inkle, and writtten by Meg Jayanth and Jon Ingold, is a step forward for the interactive fiction genre for people not so enthusiastic about books like me. As I am writing I am on my third playthrough of the game, and it surprises me because the game is almost entirely text driven and I generally don't like reading as stated above. It may be because of the topic - Journey to the Centre of the Earth remains one of the books I remember fondly from my childhood to this day, and 80 Days is adapted from another of Jules Verne's famous novel - but I think there are things that 80 Days does more that allows for my attention to be held for so long.
The first aspect has to be the 'choose your own adventure' element present within the game, something derived from text-based MUD games in the earlier days and heavily inspired by pen and paper board games like D&D. And because of these choices, players will be exploring new towns and unlocking different story pieces each time they play - if they choose to do so, that is (I did) - and through that allow for multiple read through of the same adventure with very different stories. By taking on the form of a game, 80 days took the best of both world's of books and visual novels and created an unique experience that is neither dull and linear like books would be, nor so focused on character interaction that in is on telling the story and being an adventure piece. As much as I enjoyed the Zero Escape series written by the genius that is Kotaro Uchikoshi, it relied heavily on the characters and mystery to drive its plot, and the tightness in the world building and narrative kept it constantly interesting and enjoyable. 80 Days differs from Zero Escape by having very few memorable characters, (with Passepartout and Fogg being the only ones with any personality) hence sacrificing the chance to use well written dialogues to drive the narrative and plot, and relied solely on exposition - and it did that amazingly. 80 Days also differs from games in general by removing that more 'game-y' part of visual novels and focuses solely on text, instead of environmental story telling elements present in Bioshock and the upcoming We Happy Few, again, falls back on its strong writing to keep the reader enthralled.
Making this post any longer will be an ironic thing to do. Let me just say this, I am not quite sure whether 80 Days is a game, I definitely cannot say it is a good game, but it is an amazing read. I paid $15 for a book, and I read it 3 times. I had my friend read it while I watched and managed to see some new stories from that run too. It is a fantastic book and I do hope more of my future reads can exist in this very format.
80 Days, a choose-your-own adventure game created by Inkle, and writtten by Meg Jayanth and Jon Ingold, is a step forward for the interactive fiction genre for people not so enthusiastic about books like me. As I am writing I am on my third playthrough of the game, and it surprises me because the game is almost entirely text driven and I generally don't like reading as stated above. It may be because of the topic - Journey to the Centre of the Earth remains one of the books I remember fondly from my childhood to this day, and 80 Days is adapted from another of Jules Verne's famous novel - but I think there are things that 80 Days does more that allows for my attention to be held for so long.
The first aspect has to be the 'choose your own adventure' element present within the game, something derived from text-based MUD games in the earlier days and heavily inspired by pen and paper board games like D&D. And because of these choices, players will be exploring new towns and unlocking different story pieces each time they play - if they choose to do so, that is (I did) - and through that allow for multiple read through of the same adventure with very different stories. By taking on the form of a game, 80 days took the best of both world's of books and visual novels and created an unique experience that is neither dull and linear like books would be, nor so focused on character interaction that in is on telling the story and being an adventure piece. As much as I enjoyed the Zero Escape series written by the genius that is Kotaro Uchikoshi, it relied heavily on the characters and mystery to drive its plot, and the tightness in the world building and narrative kept it constantly interesting and enjoyable. 80 Days differs from Zero Escape by having very few memorable characters, (with Passepartout and Fogg being the only ones with any personality) hence sacrificing the chance to use well written dialogues to drive the narrative and plot, and relied solely on exposition - and it did that amazingly. 80 Days also differs from games in general by removing that more 'game-y' part of visual novels and focuses solely on text, instead of environmental story telling elements present in Bioshock and the upcoming We Happy Few, again, falls back on its strong writing to keep the reader enthralled.
Making this post any longer will be an ironic thing to do. Let me just say this, I am not quite sure whether 80 Days is a game, I definitely cannot say it is a good game, but it is an amazing read. I paid $15 for a book, and I read it 3 times. I had my friend read it while I watched and managed to see some new stories from that run too. It is a fantastic book and I do hope more of my future reads can exist in this very format.
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