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Well, two of 'em.
BOOK!
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. The world has suffered an energy crisis and is pretty much a collection of overpopulated and polluted cities. The only solace is OASIS, which is what replaced the internet: a virtual reality MMORPG. Teenager Wade Watts, like most people, use OASIS as a refuge for their incredibly crappy lives. The creator of OASIS has died, and because he was a bit of an eccentric, his will has an interesting little quirk: there is a giant Easter egg hunt in OASIS, and the person who finds the egg inherits his fortune. The only clues are buried in the creator's writings, and the only cipher is...1980s pop culture.
It's pretty much a love letter to the 80s, especially "nerd" culture in the form of shows, movies, books, and video games from that decade, in a sci-fi plot.
VIDEO GAME!
Gone Home by the Fullbright Company. Gone Home is...difficult to describe. It's more of an interactive story than a "game". The year is 1995. You are Katie Greenbriar, a 20-year-old who just came back from a year overseas to a house your parents bought while you were away. You take an earlier, cheaper flight back and a shuttle home so your mother doesn't have to pick you up. From there, nothing is quite like you expect: you arrive at a locked, empty house, in the middle of the stormy night, and you have to figure out where everyone is, why no one is home, and how to get in the house.
I really can't say more without spoiling things. Like I said, it's more of an exercise in interactive narrative. The story of the year is told through narrated segments and through the bits and pieces of ephemera that exist in peoples' lives.
You can buy it directly from the publisher here.
It also exists on Steam and from the Humble Store.
(As a note: the game is fairly short for it's list price. I finished it in about 1.5 hours. Exploring fully could probably get you 3-4 hours. They recently added a developer commentary track. Whether or not you want to wait for it to go on sale [the annual Steam Holiday Sale is likely to start in a few weeks] depends on your own heuristics for evaluating time and craft. I will say that it is entirely worth playing.)
BOOK!
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. The world has suffered an energy crisis and is pretty much a collection of overpopulated and polluted cities. The only solace is OASIS, which is what replaced the internet: a virtual reality MMORPG. Teenager Wade Watts, like most people, use OASIS as a refuge for their incredibly crappy lives. The creator of OASIS has died, and because he was a bit of an eccentric, his will has an interesting little quirk: there is a giant Easter egg hunt in OASIS, and the person who finds the egg inherits his fortune. The only clues are buried in the creator's writings, and the only cipher is...1980s pop culture.
It's pretty much a love letter to the 80s, especially "nerd" culture in the form of shows, movies, books, and video games from that decade, in a sci-fi plot.
VIDEO GAME!
Gone Home by the Fullbright Company. Gone Home is...difficult to describe. It's more of an interactive story than a "game". The year is 1995. You are Katie Greenbriar, a 20-year-old who just came back from a year overseas to a house your parents bought while you were away. You take an earlier, cheaper flight back and a shuttle home so your mother doesn't have to pick you up. From there, nothing is quite like you expect: you arrive at a locked, empty house, in the middle of the stormy night, and you have to figure out where everyone is, why no one is home, and how to get in the house.
I really can't say more without spoiling things. Like I said, it's more of an exercise in interactive narrative. The story of the year is told through narrated segments and through the bits and pieces of ephemera that exist in peoples' lives.
You can buy it directly from the publisher here.
It also exists on Steam and from the Humble Store.
(As a note: the game is fairly short for it's list price. I finished it in about 1.5 hours. Exploring fully could probably get you 3-4 hours. They recently added a developer commentary track. Whether or not you want to wait for it to go on sale [the annual Steam Holiday Sale is likely to start in a few weeks] depends on your own heuristics for evaluating time and craft. I will say that it is entirely worth playing.)
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