It invites players to attend sophisticated dinner parties and fancy balls, share gossip, keep secrets, fall in love, get married and climb the ribbon-lined social ladder of Regency-era England. It is definitely not a sex game, though sometimes players get wrapped up in this universe of exquisite gowns and forbidden desire, and they simply can't help themselves. To be fair, it's difficult to produce an online role-playing game that and conversations. As Tyrer explains it, Austen's Regency era was a period of heady debauchery: The Prince Regent was notorious for hosting orgies, and women, once they produced an heir, were largely free to do as they wished. However, discretion was key. That's where private chat rooms come in to Ever, Jane. That's not our purpose. Historical accuracy is paramount for Tyrer. She became a history buff while researching Austen's life and writing, and she's attempting to fill Ever, Jane with as many realistic rules and situations as possible. This means that players can have a private chat room, but they can't flaunt any promiscuity. If they do, they're sent to Botany Bay, a penal colony that's populated with other troublemakers and anyone hoping to play without any rules at all. Botany Bay isn't live yet, which means current players can be as naughty as they wish, but Tyrer and her team are working on it. The game secured in December 2013 and it just entered open beta at the end of August. Ever, Jane is still fairly early in development, but it already has a few hundred players, with roughly 30 people online at any given time. The game opens at a funeral, just like in Sense and Sensibility, and it immediately offers a different kind of quest than most other MMORPGs. Players see someone at the funeral that they're interested in and they have to smile at this person, but it has to be discreet -- this is a funeral in Regency England, after all. The game's quests are meant to play with relationships in this way, intertwining players' stories with longing looks and whispered promises. Another quest that Tyrer is still writing throws drama into an otherwise-prim dinner party: One player has to whisper a secret to a specific guest. However, the targeted person's goal is to not be alone with the player trying to share the secret. It's a game of cat and mouse -- any player who can see the pair will be able to hear their conversation, so the person with the secret attempts to seclude the other player as he or she tries to gracefully duck out of the conversation. There are no monsters to slay or worlds to save, but there are familiar mechanics for anyone who's played an online RPG. One quest asks players to find and return a lost handkerchief, and one coming soon will send people on a mission to collect rare flowers. This is Tyrer's passion project. She's in love with Austen's blend of romance and wit, and she adores the time period itself. During her research for Ever, Jane, she uncovered a host of miniature histories, many that receive little attention in high school social-studies classes. For example, there were black members of the Merchant Gentry across Regency England, and Austen was an abolitionist, even though she didn't include this perspective in her novels. This gives us an opportunity to present some un-whitewashed history, which is also really exciting. Let's get the truth out there and let's really look at what happened. Two women living together were spinsters, of course. That means no one in Ever, Jane will bother the spinsters living next door, either. As long as they're -- say it with me now -- discreet. Ever, Jane is packed with these subtle interactions governed by a strict Regency rule set; it's romantic, elegant and quietly complex. In a real-life society that paints women as more emotionally aware, it makes sense that most of Ever, Jane's players are female. Tyrer says there are definitely men playing, but the average Ever, Jane player is a woman who loves literature. And some of these literature lovers have never touched a video game before. A lot of people don't want to play 'I'm killing things' games; it's very offensive to many, many people. She's worked for decades in the computer-science and video-game industries, helping create experiences including Second Life, Magic the Gathering: Tactics and Ghost Recon. She's currently enraptured by Elder Scrolls Online, another MMO that questions the genre's typical mechanics -- though not with the same gusto as Ever, Jane. But, of course, not everyone understands Ever, Jane. I think it's hysterically fine. The North Korea part is really amusing. That's how women survive in these fields. Tyrer's successful career helped make this independent endeavor possible. She's funding Ever, Jane herself at the moment, but she hopes that the open beta will help lighten the load soon enough. Even though the game is still in early, rough stages, the open beta should help prove that there's a market for a game like Ever, Jane. That's important if Three Turn Productions wants to find investors. We have to get investors. So the open beta is giving us the numbers we need to prove the market to the investors. Tyrer understands these risks, but she believes whole-heartedly in Ever, Jane. One reason MMOs have trouble finding funding, she says, is because they're all alike. Ever, Jane breaks the mold. The game is not only romantic and socially aware, but it also has a marketplace in which players can buy household items and clothing, and Tyrer plans to implement a free-to-play option. Free players would become servants -- though she notes that every player can climb one social rank per lifetime. Eventually, Tyrer envisions 250,000 people playing the game. This number is distilled from the audience sizes for Jane Austen novels, films based on her books, spin-offs like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and fanfiction readers and writers. Tyrer knows there's a market for romantic, social MMORPGs. She knows there's a market for Ever, Jane. Now she has to prove it. There's a fairly romantic male component out there -- they're just not going to admit it to their more dudely guy friends. She specializes in covering independent video games and esports, and she strives to tell human stories within the broader tech industry. Jessica is also a sci-fi novelist with a completed manuscript floating through the mysterious ether of potential publishers.
