Kaitlin Tremblay - Escape to Na Pali: A Journey to the Unreal

This is the best part: the anticipation.

Unreal manual

I was ten when Unreal was released. To this day, I will never forget how engrossed I became with the world, even with Garbages Version 2.0 playing in my headphones. I still remember the first time I reached the Gateway to Na Pali, where you walk over rickety bridges in outer space. I looked down, saw the vast expanse of the galaxy and almost fainted from vertigo and was ill for the next few hours.

But it was incredible.

I never thought Id write a book about videogames, let alone my all-time favourite videogame. And I never thought Id have this much fun writing a book. Writing it was almost as much fun as replaying Unreal, revisiting worlds, maps, and castles that I hadnt visited for sixteen years.

So how did it all start? I pitched an article for Five out of Ten to Alan, mentioning Unreal. Alan wrote back and said Bloody hell, I havent thought about Unreal in ages. (You have to imagine that in Alans Irish accent, its so much better, trust me.) Then we sought the soundtrack out on YouTube. Then we talked about our favourite levels. Then we bought it on Steam. And thats when Alan said: So, I read your Five out of Ten pitch, and I dont think you should talk about Unreal. But thats only because I think we should write a book about it.

I thought he was joking. I laughed, and thought, that would make every single one of ten-year-old Kaits dreams come true. But he wasnt joking. Then when he told me we could write it in three months, I laughed even harder. I work in book publishing: a three-month deadline for a book is ridiculous. It was ridiculous. But they were the best three months, filled with many jokes, anxious emails, deadlines, spreadsheets, Skype calls, anxiety-calming puppy pictures, and lots and lots of talking about videogames. But we did it, and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Alan is a remarkable editor and writer, and a dear friend, and getting to know him over the process of writing this book has been just as wonderful as writing the book.

I hope you enjoy the sights in Na Pali as much as I did.

At various points during my writing career, friends and family have said: youre a good writer, its just a shame you write about videogames. Id acknowledge their sentiments with an apologetic shrug. After twenty years of playing games, plus a student newspaper, blog, and magazine under your belt, you typecast yourself a bit. Id actually planned to write a novel this year, building off the short story I had published in Ghosts in the Machine last year. I guess old habits die hard: here we are with not just one essay about videogames, but ten of them.

What if the real shame wasnt that I cant help writing about videogames? What if the shame was that other people didnt appreciate it? I dont mean to say that my friends are uncultured, of course: I just want the ability to bridge the gap between my interests and theirs through my writing. In his New Games Journalism manifesto written over a decade ago, Kieron Gillen mused that games writers should write travel journalism to imaginary places. You may dismiss that as pretentious, but what if we could do that? What if you could educate a reader on a place they had never been, feelings they had never experienced a whole world of videogames that was alien to them? While proof-reading this book, my friend Robbie remarked that Escape to Na Pali reminded him of the Time Travellers Guide history series, and thats really what we are aiming for: something that is both familiar and different at the same time.

Writing is an adventure. It is fuelled by excitement and passion. Its a work of love. Writing without passion is easy to spot: its disingenuous hackwork, as boring to read as it probably was to write. Escape to Na Pali was born of a conversation between two people who cared a lot about Unreal and even more about sharing our stories. It has been the most exciting three months I can remember as a writer, and I think that excitement comes across in every page, thought, and anecdote. Books allow more creative indulgence than a magazine essay, and for me thats part of the fun the seasoning that makes it extra-special.

For me, the best thing about writing this book has been writing it with Kaitlin, who is the finest co-author one could ever hope to have: someone who not only shares my love of Unreal, The Dark Tower, and the Oxford comma, but also thinks on an often-disturbingly similar level. It was like editing my own articles and laughing at my own jokes: self-indulgent in a paradoxical way, but lots of fun all the same. I feel really privileged to work alongside such a talented and thoughtful writer, not to mention a great friend, and I dont think is this is the last book youll read from us as a team. At least, I hope not!

But for now, youll have to make do with this book. Escape with us to Na Pali. Journey with us into the world of Unreal. Enjoy the ride.

Epic MegaGames released Unreal for the PC in 1998, and the rest is history: a franchise that is still in development today, an engine that has powered some of the most memorable moments in videogames, and a game that is worth exploring sixteen years after its original release. You are Prisoner 849, a captive on-board the prison ship Vortex Rikers when it crash lands onto the unfamiliar planet of Na Pali.

You quickly discover that this is a dangerous place when you meet the hostile Skaarj (pronounced scar, but the game never actually tells you that), but theres hope to be found in the benevolent Nali. You will explore strange spaces and encounter terrifying creatures. Unreal is a first-person shooter, but its also an adventure: a game that moved beyond the boring brown boxes of the genre in favour of spectacular vistas and truly memorable places. For once, the caption on the back of the box alter your reality forever was right.

Escape to Na Pali is a journey through the world of