Enter The Story... future games

July 2009: Dante's Divine Comedy - not just Dante's Inferno, but also Dante's Purgatory and Dante's Paradise. Other games use words like 'Inferno' and 'Dante', but this game has the real thing. The story flows naturally from Les Miserables (or at least, it does the way that I'm approaching it.) Did you know that Hugo mentions Dante fourteen times in his book?

December 2009: Apeiron: the Infinite Game (based on the Roman poet Lucretius' "The Nature of things.") Apeiron is the ancient greek word for infinity. I've always been fascinated by absolutes, by higher dimensions, alien worlds, fundamental physics, ancient fantasy, the need for religion and the nature of time. This is a story I'm really looking forward to. It's my excuse to explore all the esoteric and mind expanding ideas from human history and science fiction: the Hindu and Mayan cosmology, metaphysics, the Egyptian and Tibetan books of the dead, deep magic, and more.

June 2010: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
We've had a melodrama, a religious classic, and a cosmic epic. Now it's time for a history play. My long term hope is to include the complete works of Shakespeare, and we have to begin somewhere. Caesar was an incredibly important historical figure, and the play is a classic. And the supernatural elements fit well with the previous two stories.

November 2010: Journey to the Centre of the Earth
This is my favorite novel, so it's definitely going to be in the game. I've always been fascinated by underground worlds, so expect miles and miles of tunnels to explore. Note that this one should be complete in five months, not six. As the game expands I plan to increase the frequency of new stories.

June 2011: 1001 Arabian nights
Time for real fun with the greatest yarns ever told! Once again, I'll be taking common themes that are often used in games (fantasy adventure) and going right to the source, the original unwatered down versions. And if the characters remind you of famous movies and video games, well that's just coincidence. :)

November 2011: Wuthering Heights
The game at this point is looking a bit to male oriented (with all that sci fi and heavy epic stuff) so I think a classic romance would be a refreshing change.

April 2012: Plato's Atlantis
My personal favorite game is Zak McKracken - I love how it delves into New Age ideas. This game goes back to the original sources - and beyond!

Sept 2012: Fairy Tales
This is the first story I ever began, back in 2000 when the game was first being planned. The working title is 'kids' world' because it uses background drawn by my kids when they were young. This will be the most enjoyable to create, as I plan to add in anything and everything that seems fun. It will be alight hearted antidote to all the heavy stuff in the other stories.

Feb 2013: The Apocalypse of Enoch
One of the advantages of being a one-man developer is real freedom. I can afford to explore topics that bigger games developers would never dare touch. I used to be very religious, and I still have an interest in eschatology and apocalyptic literature, so I'd love to do a faithful adaptation of some of the genuine texts. I won't touch the modern western Bible at first, as I don't want to offend anyone. But Enoch was in the older Ethiopian canon, and is quoted heavily in the New Testament, so it deserves a look.

Other stories already linked:

When you play Enter The Story you'll sometimes see links to games that haven't been made yet. The game looks for the following stories, so I'll have to add them!

Around the World in Eighty Days
The game world will eventually include the entire real world (or at least representative parts!) so it's only natural to link it together with Around the World in Eighty Days. A good old fashioned adventure, to balance the heavy stuff and the silly stuff.

Treasure Island
The world's greatest adventure story. Well it's got to be here, hasn't it!

The Descent of Man
This is non-fiction, but it can be adapted into a clear narrative. It's here to illustrate the core concept behind Enter The Story: ideas. I want all the most amazing ideas to be in this game, whether from fiction or non-fiction. And I always want to go to the source, to the original documents.

Henry V
The first story is Les Miserables, so I had to plan ahead for which other stories would take in France. I plan to have a lot of Shakespeare, so Henry V was an obvious choice.

The Origins of the Gods
This is Hesiod's Theogeny. Once again, it;'s a topic that other games cover (legends and gods!) but this game is different: in this game we have the real thing, the original, not some watered down derivative.

War and Peace
Until recently, War and Peace was going to be the second release. But that was a tiny bit too ambitious for the early days. I'll leave it a couple of years then do the job properly. Along with 'The Complete Works of Shakespeare' this is one of those titles that says 'this is not just an ordinary game!'

That makes twelve stories, or six years, taking us to 2014. By that time I hope to have other people involved, so new stories can come out more often. Either way I plan to =spend at least twenty years on this myself, and these are some of the other stories I have in mind:

Other stories in planning stages:

The Time Machine
This might be one of the earliest stories, as I'm looking forward to it. It's another one of my favorite stories, it's relatively short, and it gives me an excuse to expand the game world into new directions. The plan is to have a game world that includes all of time and space, so this story is one hundred percent certain.

The First Men in the Moon
She
Dr Nikolai
These stories will be released back to back, and closely linked. Why? It's no secret that I'm a fan of the early Fantastic Four comics. Obviously I can't create my own Fantastic Four comic for legal reasons, but I can go back to the kinds of stories that inspired them. This will be my tribute to 'The World's Greatest Comics Magazine,' then going further...

Crime and Punishment
This isn't one of my favorite ever novels, it's not something I'd want to make into a major blockbuster, but it's the kind of thing I'd like to cover in a short game. I'd like 'Enter The Story' to act a gateway into the world's greatest stories. So anyone who was mildly interested in some classic story could play the game version in a couple of hours, just to see what it is like.

Monster World
This is another 'fun' story, a tribute to (and expansion of) the best comics I read as a child. Most of those comics were frankly mediocre (most of EVERYTHING is mediocre, that's kind of what mediocre means), but there were a few stories that were genuinely new and inspiring ideas. I can't allow those things to just die and be forgotten. Once again for legal reasons I won't be able to use the actual characters, but I can go back to the stories that inspired them, and take them forwards...

And more!

I make that twenty one stories: about ten years' work, taking us to around 2019. Will people still be playing 32 bit games then? Definitely. We still play games from the 1990s, and the installed base of 32 bit computers is bigger than ever. I'm not interested in "improving" the technology as time goes by. I'm only interested in the stories.

I hope that by that time other people will be helping with this project, so it can eventually take on a life of its own. My dream is for a single game packed with the greatest stories and the most amazing ideas ever, a vast universe that you can explore and constantly stumble across new and amazing stuff.

Well those are my plans as they stand right now. Watch this space for further developments :)

Add your own story

That's right, if Enter The Story does not include your favorite (out of copyright) novel, then you can make your own story and have it included in the next release of the game! That's because this game is created with Adventure Game Studio, the world's easiest adventure game development platform. If you want to add a story, let me know on the blog. You will retain complete ownership of the game you create. I'll just show you how your game can connect with the Enter The Story universe.