Games Should Be Epic
Not in graphics or voice acting, but in stories told and choices given
Egamebook is a project that strives to bring some of the best bits of traditional role-playing games (like Dungeons & Dragons) to a mobile phone near you. It’s not visual. It’s not a videogame. It’s 90% description. Description that you read as a book.
It is not a choose-your-path book, either. It goes beyond the traditional branching narrative that most people associate with interactive fiction or text games. In Egamebook, you can do many things, and your choice can radically change the game world. In fact, many of the paragraphs that you read are unique to your experience because the paragraph is generated from the internal state of the world, as opposed to being pre-written by the author.
Egamebook is immersive through its open-endedness, like a good Dungeons & Dragons session.
Simulation,
rendered in text
Not just pre-written paragraphs
Behind Ralof’s back, and beyond a large rock formation, you see a sleeping bear.
App-Class User Experience
Respects your time and your phone
There are no loading screens here, and it takes well under one second for the game to start. Scrolling behaves the way you expect from any app on your phone. Exiting the game at any time preserves your progress.
Egamebook doesn’t drain your device’s battery the way most games do, despite doing some complex simulation in the background.
The design of the game is deliberately as close to a reading app as possible: no superficial animations, thrown dice, or skeuomorphic buttons. The game interface is clean and minimal. If a random stranger looks over your shoulder, they won’t think you’re playing a text-heavy videogame. They will think you’re reading a new kind of book.
This approach also means you aren’t watching loading screens for long seconds. Egamebook doesn't demand time for compiling shaders or reticulating splines. You can be back in the game only a few short seconds after you tap the game icon.
Fewer Numbers,
More Immersion
Leave the math to the Dungeon Master
Deep down, Egamebook uses more sophisticated game simulation than any table-top role playing game — and most videogames, too. Game characters have full simulated anatomy. Monsters plan ahead. Any combat action’s result depends on wounds, stance, weapon, armor, and much more.
Yet, all this is kept at an intuitive level, so that you — the player — don’t need to keep track of hundreds of different variables. If you understand that being out of balance is bad for you in a swordfight, you don’t need to know the exact math of the simulation.
Introspective Leisure
Read a book, play chess, explore an Egamebook
Have you noticed how taboo it is to play a videogame in some situations? For example, if you’re in a room with a person who is not into videogames, playing feels weird. Yet, substitute the videogame with chess, for example, or with reading a book, and it’s all good. Why is this?
Most videogames require real time attention. So by playing them, you are effectively forced to ignore the people around you. Videogames can be disrupting others with sounds, music and fast moving visuals. And they can be frustrating to play when you can’t give them the attention they need.
There are times for videogames — and then there are times when you want something less demanding of your real-time attention. That’s what Egamebook is for.
