"It was one day early in a recent September that the Professor happened to be the only witness to the very beginning of the Egypt Game. He had been looking for something in a seldom used storeroom at the back of his shop, when a slight noise drew him to a window. He lifted a gunnysack curtain, rubbed a peephole in the thick coating of dirt, and peered through...as the old man peered through his dirty window, two girls were pulling a much smaller boy through a hole in the fence."
This quote early in the book situates the premise of the plot. The Professor—nobody is exactly sure why or how he came to be known by that nickname—is actually an old man who is the proprietor of a store selling used merchandise. It is in the proximity of this store, A to Z Antiques, that the Egypt Game originates. The two girls that the Professor sees making their way through the hole in the fence will turn out to be the creators and initial players of the D&D-like manner of entertaining themselves. The dirty window through which the Professor peers is like a metaphorical television screen. The Professor will somewhat voyeuristically be entertained by watching the children entertain themselves by playing a game that is somewhat like a TV show.
"Only the Egypt gang maintained that the Professor was innocent. April said she was sure of it because of a feeling she had. As just about the only kid in the neighborhood who’d actually talked to the Professor, she felt she was entitled to have feelings about what he might do. Only the Egypt gang maintained that the Professor was innocent. April said she was sure of it because of a feeling she had. As just about the only kid in the neighborhood who’d actually talked to the Professor, she felt she was entitled to have feelings about what he might do."
Although a book quite obviously directed toward a young readership, a twist takes the plot in an unexpectedly dark direction. One of the young players of the Egypt Game is murdered. Because the Professor is old and creepy—and not just because he voyeuristically watches children playing games—suspicion immediately falls upon him as the likely culprit. The protagonist of the story is actually a young girl named April Hall and she has her own abandonment issues with an absent movie-star mom. She is dealing with this issue by escaping into the alternative reality of the Egypt Game. If not for the players of the game who keep the Professor entertained, this book might have become the story of an innocent man being hounded by the police because he fits their expectations. Instead, the tragedy of the murdered girl has the effect of turning the story in another direction: cautious parents force circumstances that temporarily cause the Egypt Game to be shut down.
“But they’re not really paper dolls and I don’t really play with them. Not like moving them around and dressing them up and everything. They’re just sort of a record for a game I play. I make up a family and then I find people who look like them in magazines and catalogues. Just so I’ll remember them better. I have fourteen families now. See, they all have their names and ages written on the back. I make up stuff about their personalities and what they do. Sometimes I write it down like a story, but usually I just make it up.”
This novel was published in 1967. Dungeons and Dragons forever revolutionized organized gameplay in the 1970s. This description by one of the Egypt Game players about what she does with her paper dolls is remarkably similar to how role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons are played. Melanie's manner of playing with her paper dolls becomes the template for how the Egypt Game will be played. Not with a board and game pieces and rigid rules, but with imagination. The Egypt Game is the stuff of pure imagination and though there are admittedly huge differences, it is almost impossible to read the book without imagining it must have had some influence, however minor, on the subsequent explosive growth of similar role-playing games actually played in the real world.
