Inkle is a video game development company based in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
, United Kingdom that specialises in interactive narrative, i.e. text-focused computer video games. They are notable for games such as '' 80 Days'', which was ''Time'' Magazine's Game of the Year in 2014, and ''
Sorcery!
''Sorcery!'', originally titled ''Steve Jackson's Sorcery!'', is a single-player four-part adventure gamebook series written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche. Originally published by Penguin Books between 1983 and 1985, the titl ...
Sorcery!
''Sorcery!'', originally titled ''Steve Jackson's Sorcery!'', is a single-player four-part adventure gamebook series written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche. Originally published by Penguin Books between 1983 and 1985, the titl ...
gamebook series.
Inkle has also created ''inklewriter'', a tool for creating interactive fiction that was online from 2012 until 2018. ''inklewriter'' was subsequently revived as free and open-source software in 2019.
History
Inkle was founded in November 2011 by Jon Ingold and Joseph Humfrey. Their first project was an interactive, choice-based version of
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...
's novel ''
Frankenstein
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ...
'', written by
gamebook
A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...
Profile Books
Profile Books is a British independent book publishing firm founded in 1996. It publishes non-fiction subjects including history, biography, memoir, politics, current affairs, travel and popular science.
Profile Books is distributed in the UK ...
. It received mixed reactions, earning a Kirkus Reviews “Best of 2012” star, while
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
described it as “digital butchery”, noting its “bewildering” format and how, despite being billed as “interactive”, users cannot change how the base story plays out.
In May 2013 they released the first game in a fantasy series, ''
Sorcery!
''Sorcery!'', originally titled ''Steve Jackson's Sorcery!'', is a single-player four-part adventure gamebook series written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche. Originally published by Penguin Books between 1983 and 1985, the titl ...
'', based on gamebooks by famous UK games designer Steve Jackson. The adaptation was widely praised, with
IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
calling it “a prime example of what can happen when traditional storytelling gets along with contemporary game design”. The first sequel followed in November 2013 and was substantially larger in scope, with the final two installments published in April 2015 and September 2016.
They have collaborated with
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2013. In the same year they worked with author
Gamasutra
''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...
named them one of their top 10 developers of 2014, saying their game ''80 Days'' “set an exciting bar for what mainstream interactive fiction could look like... without sacrificing sophistication and depth for accessibility”. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' cited it an example of successful interactive storytelling while ''The Telegraph'' called it “one of the best branching narratives ever created” and “one of the best books of 2014”.
''Pendragon'', a “narrative
roguelike
Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player charac ...
” game based on Arthurian legend, was released in fall '20, and ''PC Gamer'' considered the game to be “an accessible strategy game tied to a powerful, dynamic story generator”, giving it a 78% score.
Authoring tools
In 2012, Inkle created ''inklewriter'', an online tool for creating interactive fiction. It was used in schools and was awarded a “Best Website for Teaching and Learning” award by American Association of School Librarians in 2013. It was also used by some game developers, such as Stoic Studios to aid in development of their game
The Banner Saga
''The Banner Saga'' is a tactical role-playing video game developed by Stoic Studio and published by Versus Evil. It was released for personal computers and mobile phones in 2014, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016 and for Nintendo Switch in ...
.
In August 2018, Inkle closed ''inklewriter''inklewriter is shutting down citing lack of time to solve its issues, but was later as free-to-use open-source software.
Instead, Inkle promotes ''ink'',ink - inkle's narrative scripting language /ref> a markup language for interactive fiction and a specialised editor ''inky''.
The language is available under the open-source
MIT license
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...