5 Novels That Could Make Good GamesJune 22, 2011 by

Remember that boring book you read in high school? Yeah, it could make a great game.

My second love in life behind videogames is literature. I’ve enjoyed reading books for as long as I have been able to read, and have been writing creatively since the 3rd grade. There is something about the written word that draws me, similar to the way videogames draw me. Obviously, in the meandering journeys I have taken through my mind, the idea of bringing a novel or short story to life in a game has popped up on numerous occasions. Books that could make the best transition to interactive art and entertainment! Alice and BioShock are good examples of this already.

Please remember that when I talk about these potential games, I speak of them more as art than as entertainment. I personally believe that good art is usually entertaining, so that ground is already covered.

Now, mind you, when I say books that could become games, I don’t mean directly taking a book and making a game about it. I mean taking ideas, aspects or mechanics from a novel and fusing them together with gaming’s interactivity. The plotline of the game might not have anything to do with the book it is based on, but it might try to emulate or expand upon the narrative technique or author’s writing style… I think you’ll understand what I’m trying to say by reading about how I think the following books could come to life on your TV and in your hands.

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

While BioShock explored a utopia-turned-dystopia after it had collapsed, setting a game inside a still-functioning utopia is a good idea because of what it brings to the table in terms of interactivity, narrative and atmosphere.

Brave New World is about a futuristic communist world state, which controls the population and society in almost every single way. The population is kept around two billion for the entire planet; people are not born from the womb, but instead massed produced from certain women using advanced methods, being fertilized and “decanted” in bottles. Each fetus is programmed to join one of five castes; depending on the caste, the fetus will have limited intelligence and stunted growth or be tall and super-intelligent. People are programmed to consume products, families are considered pornographic and sex is viewed as a recreational social behavior, not a means of reproduction.

The ideas of mass birth control, brainwashing, social conditioning from birth and several others could be explored by making the player experience the game world through each of the five different castes. Starting as a member of the highest caste, with full control of the character and more abilities, would be a great way to soften the player up. Reducing ability and control of the character as the game moved down the castes would not only be a great interactive lesson in what social conditioning could be like, but could also be a great reflection on the increasing gap between rich and poor in our own society.

Of course, the game could follow the novel’s narrative linearly while still exploring the themes that run through it. The player would get the perfect sense of isolation and rejection playing as the outcast Bernard; they would see how the confused Lina sees the world and would encounter the total suppression of the World State through John the “savage”‘s eyes.

In addition, other things like the use of soma (an antidepressant and hallucinogenic drug) could be used in-game as well. Also, the suppressed, controlled world would make a great opportunity to create a unique atmosphere.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

This seems to be the best fit for a direct novel-to-game idea; the book itself already fits well into traditional game mechanics of combat, exploration and both linear and branched storytelling. Taking place along the Congo River in Africa around the turn of the 20th century, the novel follows one man’s experiences in the dark jungles of the British-colonized Congo. The setting itself would be perfect for a modern videogame; dark, exotic forests filled with the sights and sounds of the wild, punctuated by the famous river itself.

In terms of narrative, the game would do best to follow the novel closely, but deviating from the original story could definitely work. The novel’s three main themes, the darkness of colonization (“superior” societies vs. “inferior” societies), the darkness of the wild and most importantly the darkness and evil that resides within every human being, could be presented to the player through scripted events and player choices. The third theme could be especially taken advantage of: the player's ability to innocently make a choice and later realize how inherently evil the choice was could be chilling, scary and sensational.

Only videogames’ interactivity can bring such a realization to life, and could teach the player about how evil they (and all humankind) could potentially be. While the novel displays such evil to the reader, a game would thrust the player into the world, making them one of the characters. It would put gaming’s artistic power on full display.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Stream of Consciousness is a narrative form that mimics the human thought process and is mostly used in literature. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner’s masterpiece about a broken family in the early 20th century south, is the best candidate for being transformed into a piece of interactive art.

Many games allow you to experience the world through a character’s eyes, but none have made you experience it through a character’s mind. Imagine trying to survive and understand what goes on around you through the mind of a mentally-retarded 32 year old man, or the mind of a brilliant college student who is so distraught over his family’s lack of morals that he might kill himself.

Of course, the game could have nothing to do with the novel and instead try to focus on using stream of consciousness in terms of interactivity. Here’s a good example of how this would work: Benjy Compson, the aforementioned 32-year-old mentally deficient man, associates the smell of trees with his sister; whenever he smells trees, it triggers a vivid memory about his sister. Imagine the implications on gameplay: whenever the player were to trip a trigger, something would happen. These triggers could be obvious and could be hidden, and figuring out what they are could be like a puzzle sequence or fit into one. It seems shallow on the surface but has a lot of potential and depth as a gameplay mechanic.

While it can be a difficult idea to wrap your head around, stream of consciousness has a lot of potential in gaming and I hope one day we see it implemented well.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Yes, this is one of those books that you had to read in high school and hated. Don’t worry, I hated it too. But in retrospect, this tale about an epic battle between a beleaguered fisher and a powerful marlin is rich with themes about dignity, perseverance, and both nature’s beauty and brutality.

Why would a book about an old fisher trying to capture a powerful marlin make a good game? Well, actually, the prominent reason would be the art style. I think a cell-shaded look to this game, much like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, would be beautiful and fit the game perfectly.

But also, I think a game that followed the basic ideas of dignity, man vs. nature and perseverance using this novella’s story as a backdrop would do really well. Imagine travelling out at sea, searching for a fish, then doing battle with one of the largest sea creatures anyone has ever seen, and capturing it, only to have to stave off waves after waves of sharks to make it home. Some creative developer out there could definitely make a great game from this idea.

Basically, as long as the developer was to stick to a focus on an aesthetic and the physical embodiment of the abstract idea of struggle, it could work; the end result could be a game very similar to Flower.

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

A game based off Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest could turn out to be similar to a game based off Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Kesey’s novel chronicles the power struggles between a rambunctious inmate and an uber-oppressive charge nurse in an insane asylum. It’s narrated by one of the most interesting characters in fiction—a 6’7” “deaf and dumb” Native American named Chief Bromden. This character is neither actually deaf nor dumb, but instead pretends to be, because it is what everyone expects of him. In actuality, he is under heavy medications which make him hallucinate and struggle through a garbled thought process.

In fact, the events inside Chief’s head are probably the most fitting to insert into a game. Due to the medication, Bromden thinks that everything in the world is controlled by an authority called the Combine. Because of this, he sees mechanical arms and other wild things in the walls, floors and ceilings, and during the night, he has vivid nightmares where he is being churned through some horrific factory and other inmates are getting their insides replaced with machine parts.

Obviously this nightmarish setting is perfect for contemporary videogames. In fact, a set-up much like the upcoming Japanese game Catherine would work very well for this game. At night, the player would struggle/adventure/explore through Chief-Bromden’s intoxicated, nightmare-plagued mind; during the day, the player would converse with other inmates in the asylum to learn back story, make decisions and advance the game’s plot. Events that occurred during the day could be explored more deeply at night, but in horrible, other-worldly ways.

No matter how a developer would choose to adapt this novel to your TV screen, its themes of abused authority and society’s subtle suppression and censorship should run underneath the content throughout the work.

So, what are your thoughts? Think I’m crazy?  Think books are evil and should be burned? Think novels simply aren’t meant to be turned into games? Were there any books I missed? These books all are 20th century novels, and most of them are American, since that’s my literary focus. There were several that could probably be good fits as well, such as Cervantes’ classic Don Quixote and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. As I think of more books, I might make another list. But please sound off in the comments!

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