Random House releases story-driven F2P title

Book publisher Random House has enlisted Failbetter to release a story-driven free-to-play title for web browsers.

The Black Crown Project is a free-top-play game that uses Failbetter’s StoryNexus, a browser-based tool for creating interactive fiction.

“Supported and funded by Random House, Black Crown is powered by Failbetter Games’ StoryNexus platform, with special functionality created for the Black Crown project. Additional features by Popleaf. The author will be revealed on launch in May,” an announcement reads on the game’s holding page.

Failbetter is best known for making Fallen London, a mix of RPG, text adventure and parlour games that has been praised critically by the likes of The New Yorker and The Guardian.

Black Crown is pitched as a “new kind of narrative experience”. It will be free-to-play, with opportunities for dedicated users to make micropayments to unlock story strands, expedite the narrative and acquire items and status within the gameworld.

Failbetter has previously worked with Random House to a create narrative game as part of the marketing campaign for Erin Morgenstern’s 2011 novel The Night Circus.