“Digital Adaptations is designed for people who love stories, but simply aren't reading books at all yet, but will get intimidated by exploring the multimedia contents. It's bringing them the greatest stories ever written in an exciting, new way. On the other hand, these interactive stories are also designed to attract people who already are consuming electronic text and multimedia contents, such as eBooks etc, but have not experienced interactive entertainment products yet. When Tern first approached us with the notion of taking the best of books and transforming them into digital story experiences we were blown away with its raw potential – and gob smacked that it hadn’t been done before. And Digital Adaptations is like nothing else you will have seen before. It’s certainly not a book, and it’s not really a game – it’s an interactive story, but one where you are actually there, like the director of your own interactive movie. We’re offering people to go way beyond the words in the book and step into the world in which it is set. We think the product has instant appeal to those who may not have considered playing a video game before, for whatever reason, and, on the other hand, that it's also appealing to gamers.”, says Jason Codd, Managing Director of Lace Mamba Global.

“Digital Adaptations are pure storytelling experience with a universal appeal – whether audiences are gamers, casual players or non-of-the-above. And know that the stories that we’re bringing to life in this exciting new ways are among the best that exist… they are taken straight from the book shelf, and brought to life on new platforms for new audiences”, explains Simon Meek, Executive Producer for Digital Adaptations at Tern Digital.

The Thirty-Nine Steps uses John Buchan’s original text as its framework to bring the story to life, mixing on-screen text with multimedia fragments, such as images, audio and video. It also has an array of intuitive interactive elements (Story Mechanics), that are used to give the player control over the story, so no player experience will ever be exactly the same.

The product is also being built using the Unity 3D engine, which is allowing the creation of over 200 ultra-high definition locations with real-time visual FX. On their journey, players will be infused with the story world, where they can explore key locations and examine objects, they will also collect items and gain awards according to their progress and play style. The development is supported by Creative Scotland.

Written by John Buchan and originally published in 1915, the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of Britain’s first spy thrillers and is termed a classic of literature. It gained worldwide fame in 1935 when the book was adapted by visionary film-maker Alfred Hitchcock.

In The Thirty-Nine Steps, Richard Hannay acts as protagonist and narrator. One day, Franklin P. Scudder turns up at Hannay’s London flat, desperately looking for a hideout. Scudder reveals to Hannay that he actually is a spy and discovered a political plot involving Britain, Germany, and Greece, for the outbreak of a war.

A few days later, Hannay finds Scudder murdered in his flat – and now has to flee from the police as well as Scudder’s pursuers. Hannay eventually decides to continue Scudder’s work, decipher his legacy and try to alert the politicians. There are just three weeks left, in which Hannay needs to escape his foes, survive and find someone who is listening to him and his apparently ridiculous story…