The Novelist is a voyeuristic ghost story about life, family, choices and achieving your dreams without pushing away the ones you love.
The Novelist is the debut indie offering from Kent Hudson, formerly of 2K Games, whose credits include Deus Ex and its sequel Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows and, most recently, BioShock 2. He embarked upon the indie dream in late 2011 and has now unveiled the first fruit of his adventure, an unusual tale about a writer trying to balance his career and his family.
It’s not going to burn up the mainstream charts, but the premise is intriguing. Novelist Dan Kaplan takes his family to a remote coastal home for the summer, trying to satisfy their needs as he works on the most important book of his career. Little does he know that the house is haunted, which is where you come in: You play a ghost, observing the family, exploring their memories and thoughts and ultimately intervening in their lives. But you must stay out of sight, I suppose because the Kaplans will book if they figure out their gorgeous vacation home is possessed by a spirit of the undead, and then what good will you be?
The Novelist promises “tense, first-person stealth gameplay, as the player tries to remain undetected while shaping Dan Kaplan’s life,” and story elements that react and change to the player’s decisions and actions. That’s hardly an unusual claim for a videogame press release these days but the concept is great and the trailer, for what little it shows, looks very promising.
Hudson is offering a preorder deal on The Novelist and soundtrack for $14.99, 25 percent off the release price, and it’s also up for voting on Steam Greenlight. It’s currently slated to come out later this summer.
Source: The Novelist
