The Novelist, a video game that will be available for PCs by the end of the summer, was "created not to satisfy primal bloodlust, but to tell a story about a single family's struggles," in which players guide an author named Dan Kaplan and decide how he will spend his days. Kotaku reported that there "are no bullets or rocket launchers here: the core conflict revolves around Dan's ability--or inability--to balance his career, his marriage, and his relationship with his son." Check out the developer demo here.
"There's no winning or losing," said designer Kent Hudson. "You play through and get a story that my hope--and this sounds so pretentious--but my hope is that as you're presented with the same fundamental question in nine different ways over the course of the game, that you start to learn about your own values. And by the end... maybe your guy has written the greatest book ever but his wife left him and his kid is getting in trouble at school at the time. Well, I guess when push comes to shove you've decided that career's more important than family. Or vice versa."
Kotaku noted that "your Dan Kaplan could be the writer who published a great book, had an okay relationship with his son, and did just enough to stave off divorce. Or maybe your Dan Kaplan is an amazing father and husband who just lost his book deal because he missed all his deadlines."
