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Dante’s Inferno and the Lit-Based Game

The announcements at Spike’s Videogame Awards weren’t exactly shockers. Gears of War 2 downloadable content? That’s like telling someone they’re going to get a pickle with their burger. Then again, a game based on Dante’s Inferno developed by EA Redwood (Dead Space) is a little out of leftfield. Games based on literature are not common. Better examples, like Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure, are even rarer. (It’s actually debatable whether or not Hitchhiker’s should even count as an adaptation considering it was more of cross-medium narrative Adams retold for a decade in the first place.) More often than not, when a work of literature crosses into games, it either becomes something else entirely like the Call of Cthulu games or it’s a tragic mess like Universal Interactive’s Fellowship of the Ring. The linearity of fiction – and epic poetry for that matter – does not suit even the most linear game types. Yes, Signor Alighieri’s poetry is outwardly suited for game adaptation. The man’s vision of Hell is broken into levels, each one filled with, as Cole pointed out, plenty of enemy types. But sociopolitical commentary isn’t something you can convey through bludgeoning demons with blunt crucifixes.

I’m a strong believer, as I’ve mentioned here on 61FPS before, that most everything doesn’t need to be turned into something else.

Along Came a Gamer: James Patterson and Authors in Games

James Patterson, mystery novelist/televisionist/filmist/Readers-Digestist, is rich. Crazy rich. The man’s writing makes so much money that my brain starts bleeding when I try to envision the raw numbers turned into cash. I can’t say much about his work - I’m just not much of a mystery guy. My only experience with Patterson’s output is restricted to films starring Ashley Judd and even those I can only hazily recall (much as it is with all movies watched on TNT at 2am.) Recently, Patterson set his sights on the rich narrative soil of videogames and is already enjoying a modicum of success with his PC title Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet, a game based on the popular novel/television franchise. He certainly seems to have a keen sense of the form’s potential. In an interview with Next-Gen, Patterson said, "There's all sorts of content for games. To me, games are most interesting as they break the rules. The casual games business is just starting to open up. I'm not big on imitations. I like it when it's fresh and wide. It's a blank screen, man, you can put anything on it." Laudable attitudes about gaming aside, though, I’m always hesitant to embrace a prose writer’s jump to writing games.

As I mentioned earlier, good writing is scarce in games, so you’d think that an accomplished prose writer would be a boon in a title’s development. But, as I also mentioned, the linearity of long and short form fiction isn’t particularly well-suited to a medium that requires variability; a reader will get to the end of the story no matter what but a player has to have control of how they get there.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.