We’re all about this video game based on Haruki Murakami’s writing

And now for something completely different: some ingenious creators are transforming Haruki Murakami’s mystical literature into the setting of a new video game.

(If you haven’t heard of Murakami —the author of countless short stories and novels like 1Q84 and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle — do yourself a favor a pick one out now. Every single one is beautifully enchanting.)

The video game project is called Memoranda, and it self-describes as “a point & click adventure game with a touch of magical realism.” Imagine Myst and other fantastic computer games from our childhood.

“[Murakami’s] work has inspired us profoundly and we thought that the vague, surrealistic reality of his fictional world would have a great potential for being turned into something visual and could lead to the creation of odd characters, an essential element in game design.”

The story is inspired by more than 20 stories by Murakami, with more than 40 scenes, 30  characters, and numerous puzzles and clues. The characters range from a WWII veteran to an elephant taking shelter in a man’s house that hopes to become human.

But despite their diversity, there’s one thing all the characters have in common: they’re all losing something. Most notably, the protagonist slowly realizes she’s forgetting her own name. The main objective is to help her find her name back.

The name of the video game is as poetic as its literary origins. Memoranda is the plural form of memorandum, defined “a short note designating something to be remembered, especially something to be done or acted upon in the future.” Now that’s truly beautiful — and the animation is as well.

I absolutely love when literature overlaps with technology. From The Lizzie Bennet Diaries to comedians live-tweeting books they’re reading, I’m there. But this new literary-tech-overlap takes awesome to a whole new level.

Unfortunately, it’s got a little way to go before we can play it, but you can check out their Kickstarter page and trailer FMI. They’re aiming to raise $14,000 in the next month, and they’re currently a third of the way there. Let’s do this!

Images via Memoranda trailer