Inkle is a video game development company based in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a 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. Cambridge beca ...
, 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!'', a recreation of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! gamebook series.
Inkle has also created ''inklewriter'', a tool for creating
interactive fiction
''
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the f ...
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 e ...
'', 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 b ...
. It received mixed reactions, earning a
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fi ...
“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!'', based on gamebooks by famous UK games designer Steve Jackson. The adaptation was widely praised, with IGN 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, 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
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fi ...
' Best Books of 2013. In the same year they worked with author
Kelley Armstrong
Kelley Armstrong (born 14 December 1968)Bio for school projectsCainsville book series.
Gamasutra 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 ...
'' 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 charact ...
” 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
''
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the f ...
. 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.
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
Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the documen ...
for interactive fiction and a specialised editor ''inky''.
The language is available under the
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
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 ...
and can be integrated in
game engine
A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software in ...