The world of zombie hunting has already made surprisingly interesting forays into Regency England. In Ever Jane, Austen fights back; in form, if not in content. Ever Jane is an MMORPG – a massive multiplayer online role-playing game – that swaps the usual fantasy world for that of Austen’s novels. Usually players of MMORPGs create avatars, inhabiting and developing their characters, competing and interacting with others, slaying, questing. In Ever Jane the element of interaction is there, but the social currency is reputation, not the ability to defeat a troll lord, and the fabled weapon of yore is gossip.

Ever Jane is a Kick Starter project by seasoned game designer Judy L Tyrer. The self-described ‘avid reader’ and ‘avid gamer’, who is a fan of both Austen and ‘non-traditional gaming genres,’ aims, with this project, to bring the ‘fun of virtual worlds to a non-gaming audience.’ On hearing this I felt ever-so-slightly more qualified to review a videogame than before; admittedly, I am a member of the ‘non-gaming audience’ and this is an area I know little about, having usually turned to novels to experience ‘virtual worlds.’ The virtual world of the MMORPG is, however, a very different one to that of the novel, in that you not only interact with Austen’s characters (who in this game take the form of non-playable characters, known as NPCs to gamers) but with other players as well. Players will eventually be able to form families, playing together to build the reputation of their household. Much in the same way as Lydia’s elopement affects her sisters, the status of players will be informed by whom they associate with in this online world.

As Kick Starter is a crowd-sourcing platform, the game depends on contributions. So far (at the time of submission) it has raised in excess of $70,000 but needs to raise $100, 000 by December 2nd to realise the project’s development. With increased funding the game aspires to become increasingly sophisticated: the single village setting will expand to multiple villages and eventually spa towns like Bath, allowing for travel between them; mini-games will emulate the social activities of the period and will in the first few iterations include balls and dinner parties, eventually expanding to hunting, sewing, estate planning and animal husbandry. There is potential here for a rather complex rendering of the setting of Austen’s novels as well as the ability for fans to engage in the activities that interest her characters.

As it stands, in prototype, the game occupies a single village in which players can visit each other’s characters (complete with calling cards), exchange letters and, most importantly, they can gossip and extend invitations to events. What people say about you can affect your reputation, so too can imprudent gossiping. The process of inviting and attending events is similarly strategic, and players need to think carefully about accepting invitations. The measure of reputation in relation to such social interactions is calculated by a matrix of character traits, chosen by the gamers. And so, for instance, if an invitation is accepted out of duty the benefits to the player’s status will be less than if accepted out of happiness. When personalising their avatars, players select from a series of traits, a term the designers define liberally as it includes status, happiness, duty, kindness, and reputation. Choosing one trait will reduce others in equal measure and so care of characterisation has to be taken. To explain, the designer gives the following example: ‘players can choose to be like Marianne Dashwood preferring Happiness over Duty. This decision will gain the admiration of those around her who enjoy her lightheartedness, but will offend those like Mr. Knightly who prize duty’.

Scholars of Austen will chafe against the reduction of all her characters within this rubric of six traits and will probably also be put off by attempts at contemporary spelling which are so clumsily combined with a modern day idiom that they cannot be read as anything but mistakes. Austen may have admired the emphasis placed on canny social negotiation but the model of subscription allows players to buy a higher status at the outset. It is of course unfair to expect a game to measure status by birth or estate and a higher fee is a good way to model Mr Darcy’s 10,000 a year, but those paying a lower fee start off as peasants, a designation that seems closer to World of Warcraft than to any Austen novel. For a game that draws inspiration from Austen’s keen perception of behaviour and the subtle gradations of class and status that inform it, I expected a more nuanced social scale.

It is, however, a videogame and we need to judge it as such. I found the prototype a bit difficult to negotiate, though this may be from my inexperience as a gamer. Nevertheless, it was very enjoyable and it gives fans, students, and dare I say, even scholars of Austen a mode to act out Regency sociability in the virtual realm.