Based on characters from the forthcoming novel 

Homebound by Portia Elan

May, 2026: US/Scribner, Canada/S&S, UK/Chatto & Windus

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For publicity inquiries, reach out to Kassandra Engel: kassandra.engel@simonandschuster.com

This game was written using Harlowe, in Twine.

Special thank you’s to Dan Cox and his amazingly detailed YouTube tutorials, to the patient folks on r/twinegames and in the Twine Discord, and to my play-testers.

Homebound by Portia Elan

From public librarian Portia Elan, this dazzling debut novel transports readers across centuries and continents in search of stories that hold us together, even as the world is falling apart

Cincinnati, 1983. Becks is nineteen, blasting her Walkman and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle is dead. When she discovers the unfinished computer game he left behind, she pours her grief and anger into finishing it: one last collaboration to try and find her way out of loneliness.

Berkeley, 2078. Dr. Tamar Portman is a brilliant scientist wrestling with her responsibility to humanity’s precarious future—and to her mysterious creation. But when a project takes her out of academia and into the private sector, the ambitions of powerful people put everything at risk.

The Atlantic, 2586. A jaded sea captain, Yesiko, will do whatever it takes to keep Babylon afloat and her fragile crew alive. Until she encounters the one compromise even she may be unwilling to make.

And somewhere along the way, there is Chaya: a four-hundred-year-old automaton, collecting stories and mining their own memories in a determined search for another like themself.

All four are bound together by a quest for community—and by a futuristic traveler on a time-slipping solo mission through space. A story about our deep interconnectedness, Homebound is a clear-eyed adventure into humanity’s future and capacity for love. Readers will be whisked away and returned to their seats with renewed hope, and feeling less alone.