hell. yes.

This sounds like a terrible idea. Can't wait till they tarnish the name of this great book with a mediocre game treatment.

Nice! Was surprised though when I realized you meant an arcade game. Looking back on the book I supposed it would be rather difficult to make a conventional game.

"...all viable platforms..."

Come on Chair, show the Wii some lovin'.

Awful, awful idea. How are they supposed to recreate zero-gravity movement and melee combat with mere controllers? We're simply not ready for this game yet.

I don't think Enders Game would make a particularly good videogame, and I don't particularly like the work of Chair. Not excited.

This could be a crappy first person shooter, or an awesome strategy game as it should be. It won't be like the book AT ALL though. Ender's Game is first and foremost a psychological examination of the effect upon a person of the forced flowering of genius. The interface will be extremely important. My ideal version would include the teaching elements of the novel, but that is a pipe dream. Although I imagine that the sort of training Ender undergoes will be taught by "games" in the near future.

Dragon Army's zero G battle training could be fun I guess.

Good book but hope Orson Scott Cards latest homophobic wankerly is kept well away from it.

Chair didn't quite win me over with Undertow...

Does anyone else have an erection?

Mild Spoilers:

Given how it ends, and how it works out. This could be a serious mindfuck game.

It also has the makings of a major RTS game. Exactly what I thought of for Ender's game, a RTS game. Even the 'final level' screams RTS!

A simulation room style game? A Starcraft-like with a amazing story? DO WANT

I cannot fathom any way that they can make this not suck. D:

Commence Mormon conversion attack pattern delta!

Will I be able to shoot my own legs for defense? If not, I won't be playing the game.

why would card work with them again, they're mediocre at best.

wow, has chair ever made anything good?, Undertow is really REALLY mediocre. Its a simple idea that is only marginally fun to some people that is pulled off without any major mistakes, but still really REALLY meh.

Advance Wars + Undertow = Battle Room game

Sounds like pure awesome to me.

That book cover has brought some many laughs when it was discovered in my friend's room.

I think we've found him a birthday present.

There's no way I'm going to make a purchase that would benefit Orson Scott Card.

"Worst cover ever."

as long as I can shoot my own legs and freeze them, thereby creating my own shield out of my lower body, then I'm sold.

Shooting my teammates and using them as shields kicks ass too.

Now, I'm also curious as to if they could somehow integrate the second "game" into the ending levels, with Ender and his friends fighting with real people.

The author is also excited about the movie which is in pre-production. It is actually a mash up of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow (book 5)

Ender's Game [www.imdb.com]

@kidnicky: Care to elaborate?

Isn't Ender's Game's main gimmicks (though I hesitate to use such a word, follow me, either you know or you don't) the essence of all video games, already? Either it's another FPS that focuses on the middle of the book (where it becomes Unreal Tournament), or it's a strategy game that focuses on the end of the book, though without the impact that the book had because all strategy games feel like that.

Hmm...

What about the "stars" that block the view, and the ability to tie ropes and whip round the stars at high speed?

Aside from the Battle Room, it doesn't sound like they're planning on doing anything else. A shame, as I think the ship combat sequences could be cool, ending with the player using the Doctor on a planet!

Maybe they'll put it in as a mini-game or something.

Holy crap

I need to change my pants now xD

Lol I cant wait to shoot my own legs to turn them into meat shields

This has potential to be excellent but I'd go bananas over an MMO set in the Hamilton's Night's Dawn universe.

This would be cool if they had the wherewithal to make this multiple games in one: let's see RPG elements, let's see Battle Room, let's see Free Play (Giant's Drink), lets see some RTS. But I can't imagine the investment of essentially writing several games in one package (Valve notwithstanding).

I think a Battle Room game could be amazing, so long as they keep Card far away from it. The man has lost it.

Also, that cover is hilarious. Definitely not the version of the book I bought in 8th grade.

I've read this book about 100 times! Its must read. Hopfully they don't destroy it with the game and the movie!

You know, I love Ender's Game
That said, that cover picture is absolutely horrible and would make me want to throw the book into the trash.

For this game, I don't expect much after playing Undertow, but I still have for a future Ender's series game that to be good.

Giant's Drink, RTS about all the space battles Ender led, Strategy game for the battles during the Shadow set of books, any of the early Bugger battles for any type of game, etc.

Hell, I would even take a Hotel Dusk type of game. One with Bean or Peter could do a lot.

its cool that an ender game will be created, but I just wish it was being worked on my a studio with a better track record.

These comments are getting dangerously close to becoming spoilers now.

Fun idea, but i'm hesitant of what it would become. It could be a game that starts similarly to Bully, then going over to some "strategy FPS" (if that exists) and finally ending like a RTS.

If they're following the main story, then the game is already spoiled to those who've read the book. On the other hand, it could become a nice "mindf***" to those haven't read the book.

Or the game could be about some completely different character. My imagination is poor, so I still only imagine an FPS or spaceship fighting.

With this this much information, i'm not really That excited though... s'ry

@stonefry:

I suspect in ref. to OSC's confirmed anti-homosexual and anti-atheist bigotry, or his unyielding support for Herr Bush and the Iraq war. He's an extraordinary author, but also an absolute *tool*.

Plus he's a Mormon, and... well, I tend to think that anyone who subscribes to a religion younger than their *country* in this age of reason is either too stupid to imagine a different paradigm than the one they were raised to believe or just going through the motions.

The quality of OSC's work seems to rule out the former, so I consider his disingenuousness another indication that he's a tool.

There's so much potential for this game. The door(s) opening to start the match and the 'stars' could be used for some great strategies. Then there's the game options where one team could come into the room a full minute before the other team. 2 teams on 1. Upgrades like Enders little invisible rope. Freezing members in place and using them as shields. I can't wait.

Would be great if they had both levels, Battle School and Command School. Players could either have multiple characters or 'graduate' after X amount of points, wins, etc. I think multiple characters would be better, one for Battle School, another for Command School, rather than forcing players to move on to Command School. They definitely need to include support for 'clans'.

I was never that impressed with this book, finally read it a few years back after hearing it endlessly praised, it was OK, but nothing special.

He lives local to me (Greensboro, NC) and writes a column for the local free newspaper, and he is nutty as a freakin fruitcake, you ask me. Not to mention his Ultimate Iron Man comic was not just lame, but rehashed the same "Children being abused and manipulated by their elders" theme that is at the heart of Ender's game. I won't go so far as to call Mr Card's obsession with abused children an indicator that he is also an abuser, but its unsettling, much like Mel Gibson's apparent fixation with torture.

Ultimate Iron Man was pure garbage. It was like he wrote it without reading Millar's work first.

Not reading his book or buying his game. I'll avoid supporting someone that spews things such as this:
[www.nauvoo.com]

@Swordmonkey: People are not perfect, but Ender's Game (as well as Ender's Shadow) was a great read.

@Lono: Cmon dude, you have to get a hot 100 Bullets Icon to go with that name ;)

may I suggest this one?

this idea = fail

If it's the guys who made Advent Rising, I have full confidence in this. That game basically WAS Ender's Game anyways, and it was incredible. Only problem is that the few people who owned Xbox were retarded and didn't care about anything other than Halo.

@stonefry:

The Ender's Game movie has been in development hell since at least 1998 and probably long before that. I can remember Card expressing his interest in having Jake Lloyd (yeah, the one from The Phantom Menace) play Ender.

I can't imagine a game based on the book being decent, but who knows. The book is all about story and character, there is very little action. It would've made a great point and click adventure game back in the day.

Add me to the choir of low expectations.

@beeporama: Agree with you. This could be a great game if they get the money to do it right. RPG, FPS and RTS elements tied together with a familiar storyline and characters.

If they bring in story elements from the Shadow series and let you play as Peter, Petra or Bean it would be a winner.

As long as they make a good shooting/fighting scheme I'll look for this.

@Swordmonkey: On one hand, I fully agree with not supporting an institution--be it a single person or an entire organization--that holds such repellant views. On the other hand, I really do think that an artist and his product are separate elements, and that one should not be judged in light of the other.

In Card' case, I really dug Ender's Game when I was a kid, and I still believe it's a great and complex young adult novel. I re-read it after finding out that OSC is a douchenozzle, but I can't really find any of his more reprehensible personal views represented in the text. Regardless, unless the work is a vile piece of hate-mongering filth (like Mein Kampf), I really do believe that an artist and his work should remain separate entities to be judged on their own respective merits.

Also:

@redbeardage: this comment made me giggle like I had fairies in my shorts. So many ludicrous images running through my head. I do believe that would make the best video game EVAR>.

I just finished this book 3 days ago. I kid you not, perhaps one of the best sci-fi reads of my life. And I read a lot of sci-fi. Thank god for this.

A video game could do it justice, but Ender's game is not an ACTION story. It is much, much more.

@JustThisGuy: No problem judging each as separate works. I just choose not to pay money to someone that holds such opposite views of my own.

@JustThisGuy: Despite the fact that all meaningful discussion ends once you bring up Hitler, I'll pose you this situation. Since you said the book itself wasn't hateful, it was okay to support the book and ignore its author. With your example of Mein Kampf, does that mean you would have no problem with have a painting by Hitler hanging prominently in your living room for all to see? Before Hitler turned to politics, he was an artist by trade.

Card's obsession with psychotic kids is creepy. Besides from his Ender books, he's also penned the story for Ultimate Iron Man, of all things--and yes, he managed to turn THAT into a story about psychotic child prodigies as well. For example, Obadiah Stane, sort of a cookie-cutter comic book villain in ALL his other portrayals, murders his father with a strange contraption designed to rip the guy's torso in half--diagonally. I don't eve know how he comes up with this stuff.

@WalletMan: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I'm sorry, WHAT?! We didn't care about Advent Rising because of Halo? Maybe because the game was a Halo knockoff through and through? YOU TELL ME THOSE ALIENS DIDN'T LOOK LIKE ELITES!

Maybe some of you like to play games for the plot or the characters (and it is you who allow the bloated genre that is JRPGs to continue its existence) but for the rest of us, the game part comes first.

If this gets us closer to Advent Rising II, then I'm all for it.

@Gunhaver:
Read issue number 2 of Ultimate Iron Man II. Stane didn't kill his father.

Sorry for the digression, folks.

ugh I had to read the book in English ... I HATED IT! but it might actually make an OK game... still hate the book....

Loved the book, probably going to hate the game.

@huginn (XBL - WendingoPSU): space RTS have been done. Check out the Homeworld series. AMAZING games and worth picking up. The first is pretty old now, but still an great game. I actually found it when I was thinking about Ender's Game and what it would take to simulate certain parts of the book.

Silly people hating books they "had to read". Was it the book or the gun to the head that did it?

@DaiMacculate: But it's not a 100 Bullets reference...heheh. It's a Hunter S. Thompson reference. I do <3 100 Bullets though.

A lot of people think it's a Suicide Kings reference, which makes me sad, because I hate Dennis Leary.

there is no need to make Ender's Game into an actual game. this is one of the greatest sci-fi novels of all time, like Neuromancer or Hyperion. we're talking classic literature here. i just don't see this transferring well into the world of video games.

i'm even more worried about this than the new bionic commando. if that's even possible.

what.a.terrible.idea.

Cool. My favorite sci-fi novel. This is one of those make-or-break deals… yes, it could be done, but can it be done well?

@DaiMacculate: Please, if you're going to post, know of what you are writing about. I don't see any evidence of Card having an obsession with abused children, how does writing one novel equal obsession? In fact, people complained when the sequels were nothing like the original, dealing with a full-grown Ender Wiggin. Now in the case of Ultimate Iron Man, I expect someone at Marvel read Ender's Game and said "Write something just like that."

Also, whatever the hell happened to religious tolerance?