Indian to release his first multiplayer book

Imagine a storybook that can be read over and over again with a different ending on each successive reading. The concept of a gamebook which was popularised by children’s series like Goosebumps, now gets an Indian avatar for the very first time, thanks to a Chennaiite. Anshumani Ruddra, an alumnus of IIT Madras, who dabbles between writing stories for children and penning screenplays for animated and live action films has now come up with India’s first multiplayer gamebook The Enemy of my Enemy. The story of the book revolves around the dilemma of saving or terminating the life of a re-incarnated goddess who plunges the world into darkness.
The gamebook can be played out between two teams comprising the knights and the crusaders with as many players under each team as required. Explaining the concept of the book, Anshumani says, “In a gamebook, the reader (or player, in this case) gets to make choices when the story reaches a crucial juncture. For instance, on page 14, if the knight encounters an enemy, he can either choose to vanquish it and move onto the next page or he can turn to page 24 where an altogether different fate awaits him. The complexity takes on a new level when you add a multiplayer element to it, which helps you strategise your moves along with a bunch of team mates. When I took this book to DPS Bengaluru, we divided around 1,000 students into two teams of 500 each and it was a blast to see them play along collaboratively.”
Combining simple rules like that of the school kid game ‘rock-paper-scissors’ , the two teams set out an adventure that can be played for hours together. Speaking about his inspiration, Anshumani says, “I grew up reading the adventures of GI Joe and Goosebumps during my school days. My friends and I used to improvise on these stories while reading them and come up with alternate endings at each point to make them more interesting. Nowadays, this concept has been adapted even into the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, where the readers get to choose the path of action their protagonists take.”
Anshumani, whose specialty is speculative fiction comprising fantasy, sci-fi, etc has written several short stories that have been included in compilations of children’s fiction.
One of his stories Crickematics is centered on a little boy who learns mathematics through his love for cricket. The story is part of an audio book anthology by Karadi Tales which is narrated by Rahul Dravid.
Having shifted base to Mumbai a few years ago, Anshumani, a chemical engineering graduate says, “I have been working in theatre and screenplay-writing projects as well. Writing for me did not happen by accident. I’ve been a good student during my school and college days. I would not have become a writer had it not been for the freedom and student culture that I enjoyed during my stint at IIT Madras. I will be shortly coming up with a sequel to the gamebook and two novels which are aimed at grown up readers.” Anshumani is currently working out the details of penning a screenplay for a Bollywood project.