In-Game Novel: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Many video games have backstories, often told via tidbits of [[Flavor Text|information]] that the player can only read a little of at a time. This is the [[Pamphlet Shelf]].

 

 

{{examples}}

=== Action Adventure ===

=== Adventure Game ===

* As books are a major theme of the ''[[Myst]]'' series, naturally there are several readable books in the games. Most of them give you backstory to the various worlds and characters, also occasionally giving puzzle clues.

** As a bonus, part of the walkthrough guide book of the second game - ''Riven'' - is written like a novel.

* One of the books in ''The Riddle of the Sphinx'' is the entirety of the third book of the Old Testament.

=== Edutainment Game ===

* An educational game example. The original [[JumpStart|Jump Start 1st Grade]] contained a modest bookshelf of in-game stories to teach young children reading. The books typically contained short stories that the game would read aloud with limited animated illustrations. Combined, there were 52 unique stories on the shelf, subjects of those stories ranging from counting, telling time, animals, caricatures of world cultures, silly poems, and entertaining short fiction, and at the end of each story the game would give a simple comprehension question at the end before proceeding to the next. Each story was an average of 3-4 pages each, the shortest stories were the Mother Goose rhymes at one page each, and the longest story was a whopping 10 in-game pages, seven at a close second. This meant the game featured a cumulative number of over 200 pages of fiction. For an educational game for first graders made in 1995, that does seem rather impressive.

* [[Ultima Online]] not only had books that were readable (though none as long as a full novel), you could also buy blank books and ''write'' your own story, for the public to read. Some of these could be quite epic in length.

* ''[[Video Game]]/Mabinogi'' has literally dozens of readable books, ranging from a few pages to over 20. A handful concern game mechanics; but the majority are purely flavour text, and unnecessary to actual gameplay. Most of those are concerned with the main storyline for the game; but some are just standalone stories of adventurers, or musings by [[NPC]]s. Many are required for skill advancement, but only possession is necessary, reading them isn't.

=== Platform Game ===

* ''[[Super Mario Bros.|Super Mario Galaxy]]'' contains a full illustrated children's book in the game. The book is substantial by video game standards, contains painted illustrations on each page, and could easily pass for an actual children's book. It details the backstory behind Rosalina.

=== Real Time Strategy ===

* Completing a mission in ''Outpost 2'' unlocks another chapter of the game's pair of novellas, uncovering a tale of survival for your chosen colony of Plymouth or Eden. The novels tell much the same story, but from the perspectives of two Elders (the original colonists from Earth); one of whom stayed with Eden, and the other left to found Plymouth. The only difference, {{spoiler|in the end, is who comes out on top.}} Also, three quarters of the structures have short stories associated with them, too, such as a father showing his son the newly built light towers - and receiving a complaint about not being able to see the stars now, to combat stories around manually piloting the robotic vehicles. More than a few of them tie directly into the novellas, and all take place in the same continuity. In all cases, the quality of the writing is remarkably high, for being written to go with a relatively old RTS game.

=== Role-Playing Game ===

* ''[[Deus Ex]]'' contains a handful of chapters of a book that you can read. The protagonist discovers them as he goes along, and the book happens to uncannily mirror his current situation. One, "The Man Who Was Thursday", is a real novel; the other, "Jacob's Shadow", is not.

** The Sequel ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War|Deus Ex Invisible War]]'' included several chapters of "Jacob's War", which was apparently a sequel to "Jacob's Shadow".

* ''[[Divine Divinity]]'' is chock full of those, there is at least one long series about the adventures of an ork pirate, others are about summoning demons and spells, yet others are either short stories or about the in-game world, teaching about plants, animals and monsters, or history.

* ''[[Wild ARMs 3]]'' and ''[[Wild ARMs 1|Alter Code F]]'' have chapters of a book that you can collect and read. The first being a ''[[Wild ARMs 2]]'' [[Fanfic]] with Marivel and Anastasia, the second being some other story entirely.

=== Stealth Based Game ===

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'' includes a humorous short story tying into the events of the first game, a book review on a novel written by one of the support characters in the first game on its events from her POV and the book itself as extras.

=== Survival Horror ===

* ''[[Silent Hill 3]]'' has a "crappy fairy tale", as Heather put it, that can be read. It's divided into a beginning, middle and end that can be read out of order, yielding different thoughts from Heather based on what order you read it in. You're only required to read the ending to leave the office building.

=== Turn-Based Strategy ===

* In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', you can read a book full of backstory. It's pretty long for an in-game book, and even then, Ramza admits that he ''can't even read most of the text'' due to it being written in an ancient language; he's just reading a different character's notes and translations written in the margin.

=== Wide Open Sandbox ===

* Odd non-game example: The book version of ''Penn & Tellers Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends'' contained fake compilation of Sci-fi short stories that was used for only a single trick. However, aside from the one caveat of the trick, the stories were all fleshed out and some were written quite well.

 

{{reflist}}