80 Days

80 Days is Inkle Studios' reimagining of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, set in an 1872 that has taken a sharp steampunk turn. Phileas Fogg has wagered he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days, and you play his valet Passepartout, balancing your master's health, the household finances and a constantly ticking clock as you choose your route across a fully explorable 3D globe.

The scope is genuinely vast. 170 cities are individually written, with detailed research underpinning a techno-fantasy 1872 of tensions, inventions and political crosscurrents. Travel options include airships, submarines, mechanical camels, steam trains, hot-air balloons, hydrofoils, gyrocopters, hover-cars, regular boats and horses — every transport method runs on its own schedules and arrivals, leaving and arriving minute by minute in real time. Murder mysteries, romance subplots, rebellions and intrigue play out in cities along the way, with thousands of choices feeding into a uniquely shaped route every run.

The game won TIME Magazine's number-one Game of the Year 2014, the IGF award for Excellence in Narrative, and four BAFTA nominations. Meg Jayanth's writing — built on inklewriter's branching technology and Jaume Illustration's striking art direction — does the bulk of the heavy lifting. A live multiplayer feed shows other players' real-time journeys, and the game is built to be replayed: every route uncovers different stories, different shortcuts and different ways the wager can win or fail.