Stride & Prejudice

Stride & Prejudice is an endless running game developed by No Crusts Interactive and directed by Carla Engelbrecht Fisher. It is based on the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Players control Austen's character Elizabeth Bennett in a two-dimensional perspective as she runs along the words in the novel's text, tapping the touchscreen to jump whenever a gap appears. Players can either choose to play until they fall or play endlessly regardless of falling. Fisher designed the game with the intention of creating a gateway to both game players and book readers, as well as to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice. It has received a generally positive reception for the cleverness of the concept, though reviewers were also critical of the constant pace of the reading and the relative difficulty involved in retaining information.

Stride & Prejudice
Developer(s)No Crusts Interactive
Publisher(s)No Crusts Interactive
Director(s)Carla Engelbrecht Fisher
Platform(s)iOS, Fire OS
Release
  • iOS
  • October 31, 2013
  • Fire OS
  • April 1, 2014
Genre(s)Endless running
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay

Players control Elizabeth Bennett, the protagonist of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, from a two-dimensional perspective. Elizabeth automatically runs along the text of the book.[1] Players must prevent Elizabeth from falling off of words by tapping the screen to jump over gaps in the text. Stride & Prejudice has two modes of play: Survival mode, where players see how far they can get in the story before Elizabeth falls, and Reader mode, where players can play endlessly with infinite attempts.[1] The game's scrolling speed can be increased or decreased and the color of the text and background can be changed.[2]

Development and release

Stride & Prejudice was developed by No Crusts Interactive and directed by Carla Engelbrecht Fisher, who created it with the intention of it being a gateway work for both gamers and book readers.[1] Fisher sought out subject matter that was public domain, and chose Pride and Prejudice to coincide with its 200th anniversary.[3] During development of the game, Fisher created demos in order to get feedback and create press for the game.[4] She has considered making more games in this vein based on other books, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and "Anna Karenina", but felt that Pride and Prejudice lent itself better to this style than those did.[1] While she admits that endless runners are not a good means by which to read a book, due to the effort it takes, she argues that interactivity has a place in literature.[5] Stride & Prejudice was released for iOS devices on October 31, 2013, and for Fire OS devices on April 1, 2014.[4][6]

Reception

Stride & Prejudice was met with a generally positive reception. It reached number 14 on the Apple Education Store, though fell out of the top 100 after four days.[4] It was included in a recommendations list by Eric Smith for The Mary Sue of "bookish iPhone games", which praised the quality of the game and its value.[7] Eli Hodapp for TouchArcade found the game clever and readable due to its ease of play, though they noted that iOS has better auto-runner titles.[8]

Stride & Prejudice faced criticism for the relative difficulty faced by players trying to follow the story. While Philip Michaels for PC Gamer found the game clever and entertaining, he found it sub-optimal for reading due to the genre.[3] Simon Sharwood for The Register also found it a poor means to read, and felt that it would not appeal to players of more "hyperkinetic fare".[9] Michelle Parnett-Dwyer for The Strong National Museum of Play found it difficult to keep track of the characters and felt that people who want to read Austen's work would not bother with Stride & Prejudice.[10] Ryan Vogt for The Independent found the Reader mode to be an interesting take on the autorunning genre, and felt that the Survival mode helped put early passages, including its opening line, into players' heads. He was less enthused by its pace, which made it, he suggested, difficult to follow along with the novel. He ultimately felt that the designer succeeded in getting him interested in the book, but he opted to read it instead of play it.[1]

gollark: It seems useful, although BEELIKE to implement.
gollark: The function, or the website for chicken?
gollark: I could make some kind of callback-based thing, but æ.
gollark: The current version uses a bunch of `defer`s to deallocate stuff as needed (I don't *think* it has any horrible memory leaks!). This works fine given that that stuff is all within one function, but I need similar logic in another one.
gollark: I just want to know how to idiomatically make GCable wrappers for the various C objects.

See also

References
  1. Vogt, Ryan (November 13, 2013). "'Pride and Prejudice' has been reimagined as a computer game – with Elizabeth Bennet constantly on the run through the classic text". The Independent. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  2. Grubb, Jeff (October 31, 2013). "Stride & Prejudice is exactly what you think it is — a Jane Austen endless runner". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  3. Michaels, Philip (November 1, 2013). "Sharpen your Austen powers with Stride & Prejudice". PC World. Archived from the original on June 10, 2016. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  4. Engelbrecht Fisher, Carla (November 6, 2013). "How my game reached #14 in the Apple Education Store". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  5. Brown, Mark (November 1, 2013). "Stride & Prejudice is the App Store's first endless-reader". Pocket Gamer. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  6. Engelbrecht Fisher, Carla (April 11, 2014). "Developer Dissects the Performance of Stride & Prejudice". Games and Learning. Archived from the original on September 26, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  7. Smith, Eric (March 25, 2014). "Five Bookish iPhone Games You Should Be Playing Right Now". The Mary Sue. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  8. Hodapp, Eli (October 31, 2013). "'Stride & Prejudice' – The Weird Result of Mixing Reading and Running". TouchArcade. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  9. Sharwood, Simon (November 14, 2013). "Oh Mr Darcy! You're PRESSING MY BUTTONS". The Register. Archived from the original on August 23, 2019. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
  10. Parnett-Dwyer, Michelle (June 16, 2014). "Explore Your Reading List with These Video Games". The Strong National Museum of Play. Archived from the original on August 23, 2019. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
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