This addictive browser game will make you finally write that novel you’ve been ‘working’ on

Have you ever wondered if you’ve got the commitment and willpower to write a book? Well, whether you’ve tried and failed or you’re just toying with the idea of exercising your writing skills, this free browser game might be just what you need for inspiration.

Eveline is a game where you play the role of an aspiring writer with one task – to write a novel.

The whole game takes place in your living room where you sit at your desk attempting to churn out the next Ulysses on your typewriter. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to come up with the story yourself. You just push any keys on your keyboard the game comes up with the story.

Sounds easy, right? It’s not.

Sure, it’s entertaining at first to see what the typewriter comes out with but after a few minutes, your hands get tired and you start to get a little bored. If it was any other game, you’d probably turn it off at this point, but the idea with Eveline is that you see what it’s like to be ‘chained to the typewriter’ trying to write a book – a feeling that almost every writer has at some point in their life.

When the game decides you’ve had enough, it gives you your final tally for the day’s writing, which is always underwhelming. You feel like you’ve been sitting at your desk all day and yet you’ve only typed around 300 words.

Feeling dejected, when the sun rises on another day, you don’t immediately jump at the chance of getting the next chapter done. Instead, your character is wandering around the room procrastinating – the cycle continues day after day until you’ve painstakingly completed your novel after eking out each and every word.

But look, you finished it and that’s what matters. So you send your novel off to the publisher but it turns out that you’ve managed to rewrite James Joyce’s Eveline – word for word – so your story is rejected despite it being really well-written.

It’s a game that probably won’t appeal to everyone but as someone who writes for a living and for pleasure, it’s a great way to get yourself thinking about the process of writing and why you, or anyone else, does it.

The story your character writes is great, but it’s just that it’s been told before. That’s something that happens every single day in novels, articles, essays, games, music, etc. It’s nothing new. People have been telling the same stories for years and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Created by Pippin Barr in just 48-hours, the game packs a powerful punch and if nothing else, you’ll read a fantastic Joycean short story in a very non-traditional medium.

So if you’re about to embark on a writing journey or you just have an essay that you really need to finish, take a break and check out Eveline for some indirect, but still divine, inspiration.