The five stages

Surveyed: the manuscript is read for ground rather than plot — what places exist, which are walkable, where a reader's attention actually stops. Not every chapter becomes a room, and the survey is where that is decided honestly.

Mapped: the walkable shape is drawn. Rooms, gates, the order they open in, and what a player must do to pass each one.

Scripted: the prose that survives into the game is chosen and placed. Your sentences, unchanged — a novel-game performs the book, it does not rewrite it.

Compiled: the ground is built and made to run, then walked end to end until it holds. Delivered: laid in your sealed vault, yours to keep.

What actually drives the time

Not word count alone — room count. A 200,000-word epic set almost entirely in one keep can be quicker to build than a 70,000-word novel that crosses nine countries.

The second driver is how much the story asks the player to do. Walking and reading is one thing; gates that must be solved differently in each room is another, and each distinct kind of gate is built once and tested many times.

The third is you. Stages wait on the author's word, and a fortnight's silence on the map is a fortnight added to the build. Nothing here moves without your agreement, which is a protection and a cost at once.

The Proving Chapter

One chapter, forged into walkable ground for $2,000, so you can see your own words as a place before committing to the whole. If you go on to commission the full build within ninety days, that $2,000 is credited into it — you do not pay twice for the same ground.

A full novel-game is 20% of the word count with a $3,000 forge floor, because below that figure the ground is not worth walking. There is no companion audio edition on a game — a game is played, not listened to.

Asked and answered

Do you rewrite my novel into a script?

No. The prose that appears is yours, unchanged and in order. What is chosen is which prose survives into playable ground.

Can I try one chapter first?

Yes — the Proving Chapter is $2,000, and it is credited into a full build commissioned within ninety days.

Does a novel-game come with an audio book?

No. The matching audio edition rides with a film book, not with a game.