Best-selling science fiction and fantasy author Alan Dean Foster is moving into gaming in a multi-license deal with Pomme studio, starting with a game based on his classic Midworld novel.
Foster told me this in an exclusive interview for GamesBeat.
A New York Times best-selling author, Foster has written several book series, more than 20 stand-alone novels, and novelizations of film scripts including Star Wars, Alien, Terminator, Transformers and Star Trek. He has written for games in the past, but now he is making a major concession for much of his work in the HumanX Commonwealth series.
Pomme is going to start with Midworld, the first novel in that series where humans meet an alien race on a jungle-like planet. Some say this world inspired James Cameron's Avatar movies, but we won't go there yet. Enough today is a world of creative imagination Foster told me in an interview that is suitable for a universe.
Pomme founder Darryl Still said in an interview with GamesBeat that Foster will work closely with the game's team in an advisory capacity. Pomme, a consulting company with many games under its belt, will meet a team to make the first game and organize plans for multiple games.
Under the deal, Pomme could make at least 14 of Foster's works into games, including previously published novels and eight unpublished works, published in series by the name “Alan Dean Foster present….”
As mentioned, the first will be an adaptation of Midworld – the book that launched Humanx Commonwealth, which will be published by the publishing arm of Pomme Sunset Sugar Studios on PC via Steam in 2026.
Foster said, “I'm really looking forward to working with the wonderful people at Pomme as they prepare to develop and release a series of games based on my stories, which are planned to 'the first of them being Midworld.'
Pomme was founded by industry veteran Darryl Still, a former executive at Atari, EA, Nvidia and Kiss. He has over 40 years of experience in games in the industry. He is joined by Canadian industry executive Jillian Mood, who has worked with Canada Game Expo, Ottawa Game Jam, Bendy & the Ink Machine and on over 30 games. She will be in charge of marketing and HR for the company.
Other Pomme executives include James Leas who has directed many games for Kiss over the 12 years while he was still CEO of that company; and Mateo Młodowski, developer of the Pixel Puzzles franchise and director of development at Sunset Sugar Studios, Pomme's publishing arm.
“I've been working with Alan and the Pomme team for about a year now rolling out this project and it's a great pleasure to be able to push the green button as we going into 2025 on one of my most exciting developments ever. working on it,” still said.
And Mood said, “Alan Dean Foster is a true genius and the fact that he wants to be personally involved in the development of these games makes me proud.”
Pomme is collaborating with key members of the Cuphead art team, including acclaimed animator Tina Nawrocki, to direct the art on Midworld. The head of the Pomme studio, Mateo Młodowski, said, “As soon as we started talking to them, it became obvious that they were perfect to create Börn and the other characters in the universe. The creativity they bring to the arts and animation is amazing.”
Meanwhile, Pomme has set up an advisory board of entertainment giants to help guide Alan Dean Foster's projects. It includes Alan Wilson, co-founder of Tripwire Interactive, publisher of Killing Floor and Red Orchestra, and Jon Radoff, CEO of Beamable, who has worked on Game of Thrones, Star Trek and Walking Dead games.
Origins of the contract
Foster, 78, has published 80 of the novels published by Seed, with seven collections of short stories and more than 40 novels of film scripts. (I read Foster's Star Wars novels, including Splinter of the Mind's Eye, back when I was young).
Pomme still established in the United Kingdom in April 2020 as a consultancy to serve the global game industries. Key contributors include James Leas, Jillian Mood, and Matteo Mlodowski. Pomme (the French word for Apple) is named after Still's love for Pomeranian dogs.
Still said he was talking to a friend who was making a documentary about Foster's life. The friend contacted them to explore the idea of publishing games based on Foster's unpublished works. Foster suggested the HumanX Commonwealth universe, and the team decided to make a triple-A game focusing on Midworld, the first in the series, Still said.
“Midworld is a perfect fit for our art team, which comes from Cuphead and 2D action adventure properties. We also have an Unreal Engine 3D shooting team that can do great things with the trilogy,” Still said. “We've conceded 14 different titles since Alan and we're looking at the right teams to make each game. Some of these are occasionally reported by Alan.”
Still said, “We want to make the right games on the right buildings and make him proud. He has a retro fan base and we can bring him into a new fan base of players, and we have a really good set of people to do that. “
Sunset Sugar Studios is the publishing arm with a publisher account on Steam. Via Mood, Still is looking for funding from the Canadian Media Fund. Another team available is based in Turkiye. It's a small team, but with big ambitions, said Still.
“This is because of the dedication of people who are crazy about doing this,” Foster said. “And there are some books like Midworld, which they are going to start, that are easier to adapt to games. And luckily, there's plenty of stuff. I'm happy to be a part of that.”
Writing for games?
Foster said he wrote a commentary for The Moaning Words, a Lovecraft-like collectible card game with puzzles that came out in 2014. when the player faces them in the game.
“It got really complicated, but it was a lot of fun. I liked it. My history with games goes way back. I updated an original computer game called Shadowkeep for Trillium,” he said. “That was a thousand years ago. I also made a version of LucasArts' The Dig game. So I've been around the games industry without being directly involved in it for a long time.”
Foster said that he believes that games capture actions such as movement so well, and he has to write such action scenes again and again in his various works. Early on, however, game technology could not keep up with the imagination. Now that problem is gone because gaming technology has moved forward quickly.
HumanX Commonwealth Games
“Some projects did not meet the promise, but they were interesting experiments. With games, you have more options and I like the possibilities,” he said. “With Midworld, we actually have a story with different levels.
The Commonwealth series has several characters such as Philip Lynx, who appears in 15 of the books in the series. There are dozens of books and they are all part of the same sci-fi universe, with some fantasy elements. The HumanX Commonwealth is somewhat similar to the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek, where humans on Earth in the future have joined forces with other alien races such as the insectoid Thranx from Hivehom.
“Thank goodness for computers and fans, or I would never be able to keep this straight,” Foster said.
He said he is happy to see so many transmedia successes, where games have been turned into movies like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and TV shows like The Last of Us.
“Technology is evolving along with storytelling,” he said. “You started scrawling pictures on cave walls. They didn't move, and they weren't very interesting. And now we're just moving forward, and every time the technology advances, someone will find a way to change it for entertainment. And that's what happened with games. And once it becomes advanced enough, you can take the game and expand it to film or TV. It would be interesting to consider, for example, if Tolkien were alive today, 22 years old, would he have started by writing books or would he have started as a game?”
Foster said, “Everything changes so quickly. I like it. I love things. And the latest thing that comes along, I'm there. I want to be a part of it.”
As for some recent movies, Foster said he loved it Flowwhich has no communication. As for the tech entrepreneurs who are always trying to turn science fiction into reality, Foster has some ideas.
“They get so wrapped up in stuff, I think, and they're so far removed from the people they're supposed to serve that they forget what that's like,” Foster said. . “I haven't met many of them and I'd be happy to sit down and have a chat. Don't know. I wonder if you can influence people. In my books, I try to do it gently. I don't believe in socializing or shouting.”
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