Adapting Books to Video Games
- Henry Atkins
- Nov 5, 2017
- 3 min read
I've been looking forward to this particular post for a while now.
All mediums of media are combinations of having or not having either visuals, audio or even moving images. The same goes for pacing of how you go through a medium such as a book or its more visual counterpart, comic books.
However Video games have something unique only to them.
Interactivity.
I suppose you could stretch the definition to include turning pages but that's cheating to me.
The 'Dialogue:Action' ratio still applies to Video game adaptions too but in this case they need stepping up.
Pacing is no longer a controlled element when applied to Video games since the player themselves will control the character of the story. In fact they could even partly control the story. Like if the player were to suddenly die at a crucial moment or kill a civilian NPC throwing the character severely off script story wise. This kind of control is what imbalances the 'Dialogue:Action' ratio quite alot.
Dialogue is still very important in this ratio if you're adapting a book to a Video game such as 'The Witcher' or 'Metro 2033' (which I'll talk about later) but because of the huge amount of control that Video games put into the players hands, more and more content to play through needs to be added to make sure the player has plenty to do so it doesn't just seem like you're watching an animated movie because of all the cutscenes there are.
This is why the 'Dialogue:Action' ratio is thrown right off. Not that this is a bad thing. It's just a more difficult job to accomplish since you'll either have to add more and more to make a level last longer or you have to make a particular enemy that appears about this moment in a book more difficult to beat.
As I mentioned there are 2 Book to Video game adaptions I can think of from the top of my head, unfortunately I have not played either so I can only rely on reviews.
The Witcher
Based on the book series of the same name, I assume it's about witch hunting.
According to the review (linked here) the first game was only better in the writing department although gameplay and graphics improved much more over 'the Witcher' 2 & 3.
Granted, graphics aren't everything but still very important, however gameplay can really hold back the story. It's hard to progress through a story if you're finding it difficult to even walk.
From what I'm reading though, it sticks to everything in the book.
Metro 2033
From what I've read from this rather interview, the author of the Russian best-seller 'Metro 2033' he was included with developing the Video game adaptation. This is a fantastic sign of a faithful adaptation since the creator themselves will be overseeing that everything goes exactly as it does in the book, the moral isn't lost and neither is the feeling.
LEGO Harry Potter games
I realise that I said that only 2 Book to Video game adaptations come to mind but I don't strictly count this game as that.
Any LEGO game is a reinterpretation of something else in LEGO form. On top of that this version of Harry Potter is based solely on the movie version of the characters.
Although when I played the first LEGO Harry Potter game once all those years ago I noticed a character who I didn't recognise from the movies.
Peeves the Poltergeist
Interestingly this is a character who exists in the original books but was left out of the movies but now exists in the games as well like a testament to his forgotten name. An extention to the adaptation of an adaptation!
![An expansive library of Pokemon Movies [22]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/413371_172152a67f4840eb96a87971437ed24a~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_811,h_448,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/413371_172152a67f4840eb96a87971437ed24a~mv2.png)
![An expansive library of Pokemon Movies [22]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/413371_172152a67f4840eb96a87971437ed24a~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_152,h_84,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/413371_172152a67f4840eb96a87971437ed24a~mv2.png)
Comentarios