Teaching a new book?Teaching a new book tomorrow? Then give the class a password for EnterTheStory. Tell them their homework is to play a game for ten minutes Then when you start the lesson everybody knows the plot. |
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Students don't care?How do you get a whole class interested in literary themes? Show a game to the whole class. Have them vote on the choices. Can they beat the previous class score? A student isn't busy?You're very busy, and one of the students says they've finished their work. What do you do? Just point them at the game, and you know they're learning something. |
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Can't find a book you want?If it's on the syllabus and published before 1923 then it's on our "to do" list. Talk to us, and maybe we can do your story next. |
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The quickest way to teach a novel:
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EasyEnter The Story is quick and fun. It's a game! Short sentences, dramatic events, gory deaths and high scores to beat your friends. Just start clicking. |
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Memorable
Enter The Story is based on the best memory research: Players have to make all the decisions, and more involvement means better recall. The stories are constant action from start to finish, because more surprises means better recall. The stories are linked together, because connecting ideas (mnemonics) means better recall.
Accurate
With Enter The Story, you get the main events, characters, motivations, and conflicts. In the case of Shakespeare, you get key quotations as well.
Nothing is changed or added, except:
The player becomes a character
in the book, and he might remember other stories. The 'Sam' character
makes things happen: When the book has an event happen at random, the
game might have Sam causing it behind the scenes. This added layer does
not contradict the original book, but the author just forgot to mention it.
When the book hints of great danger, the game lets you actually do the wrong thing and die. You can then start that chapter again. The game might let you play minor events in a different order, but not if it affects the story.
The quickest way to learn anything
The human brain is designed to learn through stories, not lists, or equations. One day Enter The Story will expand to include stories from history, illustrations from economics, and metaphors from science.
Prices
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Future stories
We plan to include every Shakespeare play, every Charles Dickens novel, all the world's myths and every other classic, from Jane Austen to Xenophon, plus every book of the Bible (including the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha), and a lot more. We just love to get into a story!
Frequently asked questions
Keyboard shortcuts and zooming in
Each page has up to four story choices. If you don't have a mouse or touch screen, you can use the keyboard numbers 1 to 4. If you just need the screen to be bigger, most browsers let you zoom in and out, using "Ctrl" and "+" or "Ctrl" and "-".
"Why can't I save my score?"
For security reasons, scores can only be saved from the online web site.
When you buy all the games in a big bundle you get all the games in a download. This is so you can play them forever, or play them offline. The games are yours to keep and use wherever you want. Games stored on your own computer will still show a score for each story, but will not update with your online score, even if you are online.
Copyrights
These stories are all out of copyright, from Project Gutenberg, usually from before 1900.
Game, site design, and simple art is by Chris Tolworthy.
Professional images (mainly people with books) are from 123rf.com.
This copyright image is "Large copyright sign made of jigsaw puzzle pieces" by Horia Varlan.
The bookshelves on the home page are based on Creative Commons "build upon; attribution only" images from Flickr:
'Bookshelf' by 'striatic'
'Bookshelf' by 'E.Drake'
'Day 48 - Some books' by 'Phil and Pam'
'Igaku Chuo Zasshi' by 'Peter Kaminski'
'maybe I've found my calling...' by '_overanalyzer'
'my old schoolbooks, phrenology, reference books' by 'Muffet'
'Remnants from my bookshelves' by 'illustir'
'Tabby Cat Stack' by 'AlishaV'
Many thanks to those generous photographers!
The shelf and main book are by Chris Tolworthy, and the pile of disorganized books is from an old painting.
Images used for score certificates are from Liam's fromoldbooks.org, and pre-1900 images from Project Gutenberg.
The first five games contain backgrounds based on thousands of images, including classic paintings and photos generously donated by others, plus licensed music - for full details on any screen, play those games and press 'C' for copyright. Many thanks to all who have helped.
Any stories added by others are copyright to them. If you see something that needs to be removed for copyright reasons, please let us know.
Anything else (e.g. the main stories and art) is copyright Chris Tolworthy.
Anything by Chris may be considered public domain after 18 years.
Terms of service
If you by a game and change your mind, you get a refund. But if you don't like it, please tell us why and we'll do everything we can to make it better. If you play a game and like it, tell your friends!
Privacy policy
We never ask for your email. We don't know who you are, so there is no information to be lost. The sign-in system use a cookie (a tiny hidden text file) so you don't have to sign in again every time, but that stays on your computer. When you buy a game the payment people (BMT Micro) might ask for an email address, but if you pay by Paypal or similar then they may not even need that. If you come here from Facebook then Facebook will know who you are. If you want to avoid using the feedback pages on Facebook, feel free to contact us direct.
About us | |
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Enter The Story is based in Caithness, on the north coast of Scotland: It's a Viking land of stone circles, and tombs that pre-date the pyramids. |
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We only employ teachers and trainers, Graham Winkle is a husband, and father of five children. He is also a children's author [lochmeymonster.com] who visits schools around the country. As a qualified coach, staff trainer and assessor, he covers all areas of the business as CEO of Enter The Story Rebecca Winkle is a professional artist, businesswomen and special needs aux.teacher, helping children with special needs. |
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The Castle of Mey, across the loch from Graham's croft. |
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Special Adviser to Enter The Story; Chris Tolworthy trained as a physics teacher, then created computer based training for the energy, safety, heritage and inward investment industries. But his real love is stories. |
Imagine all the world's greatest stories, condensed,
so that every child in the world could read them all.
That's our goal.
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