Humanity has always had a fascination with trying to unravel the mysteries of nature through narrativization, and that’s why I think it was inevitable that storytellers would one day come up with ergodic fiction. Commonly described as media where the difficulty in understanding the narrative is an intentional part of the experience, ergodic books like Rian Hughes’ XX and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (and arguably films like Skinamarink) have proven that enjoying a good story doesn’t always have to be a passive experience.
Funnily enough, despite these puzzle-like narratives already sharing quite a few similarities with gaming, few storytellers have opted to fully lean into the interactive elements of ergodic literature. One recent exception happens to be Backwards Tabletop’s viral sensation SPINE – also known as Siderius Plug’s Immortality in Ninety-Nine Endnotes.
A challenging experience that blends the solo thrills of a role-playing gamebook with the multi-layered narrative of novels like Danielewski’s aforementioned opus, SPINE has been slowly spreading across the internet like a haunted chain-letter– and with good reason.
In this unique gamebook, you play/read as a version of yourself with severe grandma issues as you find yourself inheriting a rare book from her collection. Unfortunately, this unexpected “gift” features a dangerous side effect, with the strange tome appearing to trap its readers’ lifeforce in a cursed portrait the further they dive into the story and the stories within the story. As you follow along the main text and the accompanying interactive endnotes (which will force you to manipulate the book itself and even add your own hastily scribbled notes in the margins), you’ll slowly unearth a traumatic family history that threatens your very soul.
While this insanely creative premise would already make SPINE worth reading purely because of the novelty of the setup, what really caught me off guard is “Siderius Plug’s” genuinely heartfelt exploration of intergenerational trauma, from the backstory implying minor abuse by Grandma to the idea that grooming you for a sinister destiny, the book more or less gaslights you into believing that you truly had this terrible and confusing relationship with a mysterious (yet entirely believable) old lady with a supernatural secret.
The interactive portions also boast a ritualistic element that makes them feel like more than mere gimmicks. The endnotes often require permanent alterations to the pages in ways that will have you pondering the very meaning of art, as well as the story’s proposal that immortality can be achieved through writing. Of course, this also means that handling a hard copy of the book is an essential part of the experience, which is why even the official e-book encourages you to print the file out as an ink-friendly booklet (though I’d recommend simply purchasing the print copy and saving yourself the trouble if you’re within mailing distance).
Unlike most interactive storybooks, the “activities” here are so interesting and diverse that your second time around might actually be a more fulfilling experience than the first, especially since you’re encouraged to only look up the endnotes that really speak to you during that initial read-through. I also really appreciate the suggestion to give the book away once you’re done with it, as encountering a pre-read/played edition of SPINE out in the wild sounds like the ideal way to experience such a cryptic yet thought-provoking story where marginalia is part of the appeal.
Unfortunately, the format has its limitations when it comes to proper narrative build-up. The inherent idea of letting readers pick and choose what elements to focus on means that you’ll likely miss essential information during your first read-through, with the author’s attempts to make up for this resulting in some redundant sections meant to help those who skipped previous mentions of certain important story beats.
There’s also the issue of reader immersion, as some of the endnote instructions are so “out there” and inconvenient that they can’t help but remind you that this is more of a game than a real collection of pre-owned literary mysteries. However, I’d argue that putting yourself in the right headspace for this kind of simulated reality solves most of these diegetic problems, especially if you’re already a fan of found footage films and epistolary horror.
This is also why the horror elements of SPINE will haunt some readers for a very long time, while others might find the suggestion that the book is trapping your soul to be silly and uninteresting. It all depends on how you’re willing to approach the material. In my case, I was more than willing to play along with Siderius’ proposed kayfabe, so I found myself thoroughly thrilled by the experience and wanting more.
While some of the more sensitive subject matter concerning grief and abusive family dynamics brought up in the text meant that I had to tackle it a couple of endnotes at a time, really taking my time and absorbing the meaning of each little note and ritual, I feel that SPINE would be just as engaging if I had simply sped through the whole thing throughout the course of a single inspired afternoon.
In the end, what SPINE really gamifies isn’t the detective work involved in deconstructing a multi-layered mystery, but the indescribable joy of willingly jumping into a rabbit hole when you become so engaged with a story that you can no longer separate it from yourself. So if that sounds like the kind of experience you might want to have on a dark and lonely night, I’d highly recommend picking this one up.
Just be careful not to lose yourself among the pages.
SPINE is available now on Mixam as a physical book and on Itch.io as a PDF.
