computer science

Inkle (company)

Inkle (company) is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Inkle (company) rather than just read about it. In short: Inkle is a video game development company based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, that specialises in interactive narrative, i.e. text-focused computer video games. They have created games such as 80 Days and Sorcery!, a recreation of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! gamebook series.

Key takeaways

Inkle (company) belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Inkle (company) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Inkle (company) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Inkle is a video game development company based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, that specialises in interactive narrative, i.e. text-focused computer video games. They have created games such as 80 Days and Sorcery!, a recreation of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! gamebook series. Inkle has also created inklewriter, a tool for creating interactive fiction that was online from 2012 until 2018. inklewriter was subsequently revived as free and open-source software in 2019.

History Inkle was founded in November 2011 by Jon Ingold and Joseph Humfrey. Their first project was an interactive, choice-based version of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, written by gamebook author Dave Morris and published by Profile Books. It received mixed reactions, being described by Laura Miller in Salon as "maybe the best interactive fiction yet" and earning a Kirkus Reviews “Best of 2012” star, while The Guardian described it as “digital butchery”, noting its “bewildering” format and how, despite being billed as “interactive”, users cannot change how the base story plays out. In May 2013 they released the first game in a fantasy series, Sorcery!, based on gamebooks by famous UK games designer Steve Jackson. The adaptation was widely praised, with IGN calling it “a prime example of what can happen when traditional storytelling gets along with contemporary game design”. The first sequel followed in November 2013 and was substantially larger in scope, with the final two installments published in April 2015 and September 2016. They have collaborated with Penguin Books on two apps. “Poems by Heart” is a memorisation game intended to help readers learn poetry and was chosen as one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2013. In the same year they worked with author Kelley Armstrong on The Cainsville Files, a visual-novel style interactive prequel to her Cainsville book series. Gamasutra named them one of their top 10 developers of 2014, saying their game 80 Days “set an exciting bar for what mainstream interactive fiction could look like... without sacrificing sophistication and depth for accessibility”. The New York Times cited it an example of successful interactive storytelling while The Telegraph called it “one of the best branching narratives ever created” and “one of the best books of 2014”. Pendragon, a “narrative roguelike” game based on Arthurian legend, was released in fall 2020. Inkle subsequently announced the development of A Highland Song, a 'rhythm survival story' that retained narrative elements but departed further from their text-based roots.

Authoring tools In 2012, Inkle created inklewriter, an online tool for creating interactive fiction. It was used in schools and was awarded a “Best Website for Teaching and Learning” award by the American Association of School Librarians in 2013. It was also used by some game developers, such as Stoic Studios, to aid in development of their game The Banner Saga. In August 2018, Inkle closed inklewriter, citing lack of time to resolve its issues, but it was later released as free-to-use open-source software. Instead, Inkle promotes ink, a scripting language for interactive fiction, and a specialised editor, inky. The language is available under the open-source MIT license and can be integrated in game engines such as Unity using open-source plugins. Inky is a freely available, open-source editing software for use with Ink. Ink is suited for crafting dialogue trees and branching narratives.

Games

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Inkle (company)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Inkle (company) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Inkle (company) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Inkle (company) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Inkle (company)

In research: Inkle (company) appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Inkle (company) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Inkle (company) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2011 establishments in England, British companies established in 2011, Electronic literature software, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Inkle (company) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Inkle (company) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Inkle (company) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Inkle (company) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Inkle (company) in simple terms?

Why does Inkle (company) matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Inkle (company)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Inkle (company).