Ice-Bound pushes the limit of what's interactive in interactive fiction
An ARG gamebook on Kickstarter
Like your mobile games meta with a side of avant-garde, ergodic lit?
Ice-Bound has what you need.
Calling itself "a novel of reconfiguration," Ice-Bound is an upcoming interactive fiction that reimagines what it truly means to "interact" with a text-driven game.
Breaking away from the focus on branching narratives, the developers aim to create a "dynamic, evolving" story that more deeply experiments with the intersections of prose, visual art, and game design.
What immediately sets Ice-Bound apart is its use of augmented reality.
The game requires both an iPad or webcam-enabled PC and the game's physical art book.
The importance of both the digital and physical parts of Ice-Bound manifest in their direct interaction with each other.
Through the lens of your device's camera, you'll be able to watch the physical art book change and morph in accordance with the game's story.
Inspired by the "dense, nested fictions" of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, the actual narrative of Ice-Bound follows the story of a dead author, and the post-mortem AI simulation designed to complete his unfinished novel.
Speaking of his literary inspirations, co-creator Aaron Reed explains, "We wanted to bring that sense of exploring a literary labyrinth to an indie game."
Ice-Bound is designed by Down to the Wire, composed of Reed, creator of Blue Lacuna (rated among the top 10 text adventures ever on the IFDB), and Aeon Award-winning writer Jacob Garbe.
They are looking to raise $9,500 on Kickstarter for Ice-Bound, to cover the costs of professional printing for the physical, 80-page full color art book.
Only the book - required for the full game experience - costs money, as the app itself will be free.
While the developers are planning for iPad 2+ and Windows PC releases for sure, they are also interested in Android and Mac ports later down the line.
Expect Ice-Bound to launch sometime in 2015. The first three chapters of the game (out of eight) will be playable at IndieCade later this week.
