“Ender’s Game,” the science fiction novel about a boy military genius who is trained through war games to fight aliens, will become a game itself.

In a deal announced this week, Chair Entertainment, the game studio behind the recent hit “Undertow,” will develop titles based on Orson Scott Card’s book.

The novel, which probes the line between reality and games, was long considered a great subject for video game. Chair plans to make several titles based on the book, with the first one proposed as a downloadable game available in 2009.

Card moved forward with the game, he told Reuters, because efforts to make “Ender’s Game” a feature film collapsed.

“There is going to be a universe of ‘Ender’s Game’ games, hopefully. But that’s like someone starting a restaurant and thinking about opening 100 franchises all over the country,” Card said. “Let’s make this one work first.”

The first game will focus on the Battle Room, the elite military academy where Ender hones his strategic and tactical skills and that provided some of the most memorable scenes in the book.

Provo, Utah-based Chair, a privately held company, enjoyed success with “Undertow,” a downloadable game for Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360 console that pits teams of players against each other in a fast-paced underwater battle. Microsoft has offered the game for free to compensate users of its Xbox Live network for performance issues during the holidays.

Editor’s note: Reuters and IDG news services were the principal sources for this report