“80 Days” turns Jules Verne’s book into a choose-your-own-adventure game

Meg Jayanth was asked to adapt Around the World in Eighty Days into a steampunk-y iOS adventure game. The only problem? She hated the book’s character Aouda, the English-imperialist-fantasy of an Indian princess who falls in love with Phineas Fogg. But what if “the damsel-in-distress is actually a sabre-wielding revolutionary leader, where she is not only not in need of rescuing, but in fact, sees herself as rescuer?”

This begs a larger question: is it possible to write a game in which your protagonist isn’t the hero? Or maybe, less provocatively: can you write a game in which your protagonist isn’t the only hero? …

[“80 Days” is] a world where the protagonist’s story of racing around the world isn’t necessarily the most important, or the most interesting one available to the player.

(via @robinsloan and @aaronissocial)

• Jules Verne
• video games