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[Bree]

(Apologies for the poor image, but Google was not willing to co-operate.)

The book above is a short picture book of sorts called "The Arrival", by Shaun Tan. The story, about a man and his family fleeing their home country to begin life anew, is a fascinating one, and told in a fascinating way. The book is told only in pictures, gorgeous charcoal and pencil illustrations that read out like a cross between a comic and a silent film. If you haven't read the book, I'd highly recommend it.

In any case, I was rereading "The Arrival" the other day and I thought to myself, "Wow, this could be a fantastic game." Please bear in mind that this is coming from someone who doesn't actually have the time nor the skills to make something like this; this is just my own speculation.



In the book, the unnamed father of the family is the first to flee the country, and thus the book spends much of its time focusing on his efforts to adapt to this new and foreign land. Taxis and cars zip by in the air, bizarre creatures walk the streets below, newspapers and signs are written in cryptic symbols neither he nor the reader can understand. In a sense, this is meant to illustrate an immigrant's experiences coming to a place like America, so different from his home.

If this is the case, then what if the player was asked to take on that role? Just like the nameless man, he too would be able to explore this new country and try to adjust to living there. Perhaps he could have a few meters for Hunger or Sickness as in games such as The Sims- scratch that, something like that would be far too tacky, but the player should have some need to find food and shelter, as well as raising enough money for his family back home.

I imagine the game taking place entirely in a first-person view, a la Half-Life and Portal, never breaking away from the action and allowing the narrative to unfold gently. Perhaps you could begin escaping from your home country, saying goodbye to your wife and child, or perhaps you could start already on the boat headed to the new country and recalling the events in a flashback.

As for visual style, I would love to emulate the style of the original illustrations, with a golden sepia-tone in place- maybe it wouldn't even have sound, like a playable silent movie! On the other hand, the player would likely want some aural cues to comprehend the world around him. In that case, what if you had a piano 'player' perform alongside the game and shift with the action, much like how silent films used to work? You could take a certain piano theme for one location, add in a couple embellishments for key events, and bam! Goodness knows how much work that would be, though it would seem to be worth it if done right.

But this is all just so much rambling on my part. Have any of you also read "The Arrival", and if so, do you think it could be adapted into a game? If so, then how? If not, why?

[Xion]

I read a small excerpt of that online once, and it looked totally amazing. Wish I could remember where I found it. Anyway, that's an awesome idea. Whenever someone mentions an unknown language needing to be deciphered in a game I immediately think of Tork. Not sure about the first person aspect though. I'd imagine it as more of a point & click type game...?
Never read the whole book btw.

[ChevyRay]

I love The Arrival! What a great book.

I think it could be adapted into a game, using the word "adapted" quite seriously. I doubt it would be much about the book when you were finished, but I think the imagery and concepts in the book would be good.

[genericlogin]

I just went through the book. Awesome stuff.

The book is in French (La Ou Vont Nos Peres) and I don't understand a word of it. But it's all pictures so I don't need to.  :D

[Lynx]

Does it really need to be first person?  I could see this being done well in a 'painted RPG' style like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, with those pictures you linked.

[Fuzz]

I haven't read The Arrival, but I really like Tales from Outer Suburbia- http://www.shauntan.net/books/suburbia.html
A lot of those could be neat game ideas.

[Traveller]

I like it!  Would also be possible to borrow occasional elements from the "survive in a randomly generated landscape" genres.  Like...being in a place that's somewhat randomized each time.  Or...having to not die starving and forgotten in a gutter.

Instead of sickness type bars, easy enough to just display those effects on your avatar with very minimal interface, if it's third person 3d or something.

My only question is, what's the win condition?  (Haven't read the book, no idea of the way it ends.)  If you win by integrating with the culture, it seems like the game would shift genres very rapidly...and I'm not sure that's entirely great.  It would feel like those 'survive on a desert island' game where you manage to establish a totally sustainable food and water supply and shelter within the first three days, then think "now what, do I build a bigger house?".  I suspect this game would want to be short and to the point, not a sim game.

[B. van Stokkum]

I hadn't ever heard of this guy.  The links in this thread really piqued my interest, and I had to run out and grab a copy of both "The Arrival" and "Tales from Outer Suburbia".  Very cool stuff!

I could see The Arrival making a neat setting for a game, if not a game in-and-of-itself.  I do think music of some sort would be required.  I'm to used to sound in games.

I can almost picture the textured effect I've seen in some works around the Art thread:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3993.msg132595#msg132595
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3993.msg135070#msg135070


...same thread, not quite the same effect... has a similar vibe:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3993.msg138470#msg138470


...and the Robot thread:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=2184.msg54509#msg54509


...and I think I've seen stuff by Sereneworx with the same feel.  Don't have to agree, the idea just reminded me of those sorts of pictures. 

[genericlogin]

A few pictures from the book. So, the rest of you guys who don't have the book know what we're talking about.

And yea, sereneworx's Cafe really do share a sense of the fairy tale world that the book depicts.

[ChevyRay]

MAN I loved that book. <3 It was so amazing.

[GregWS]

I'm thinking that I may have to check this book out; those illustrations are incredible.

[TomMonster]

I'm a big fan of the arrival too. I got it quite some time ago and i too was absolutely blown away by how well the story was communicated with no words, as well as the story itself of course... It almost puts games to shame really. We have so many more tools at our disposal and yet very few games have conveyed a story, emotion, experience or atmosphere as well as that book.

Another great one by Shaun Tan is "The Rabbits" about the colonization of Australia with some really awesome illustrations.



also a book called "varmints" Not by Shaun Tan, that expresses an atmosphere and emotion really awesomely with few words (i think most is through the pictures, but the words actually enhance it). Its getting made into a short animation too.

Site of the people making the film, Click the bit that says play, if that isn't already obvious.

[/tangent]

ah, so back on topic. I agree with ChevyRay, "adapting" would be the key, if you set out to portray the same story, same atmosphere or anything else the book did, the game would instantly be redundant because the book did it so well. I think you could go so far as to say this is why so many Movie-Games suck complete ass, the game medium is actually very different from film, literature and other mediums. Most AAA titles are doing their best to emulate others, rather than properly explore their own... but anyway, i don't need to get into that here now do i, haha.

umm, sorry i think i'm full of tangents tonight, better stop before i kill the thread.

Very interesting topic to raise though, i might give it some more thought.

[Fuzz]

I read The Rabbits in a bookstore a while ago. It was great.

[Bree]

Wow, The Rabbits looks positively gorgeous. I'll definitely need to check that out.

On the subject of adaptation, I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I think this could be expanded to include all adaptations- the best stories are written to play to the strengths of its own medium. One reason a lot of people were concerned about the Watchmen adaptation was that it was written specifically for comics, and brilliantly so. I personally find "straight" adaptations to be incredibly boring. Why would I pay to see the exact same story twice? So long as we take the same core themes, everything else can be changed.

One story that I think was adapted successfully to other media was Coraline. The original book was remarkably well-written (it is by Neil Gaiman, after all), but was turned into both a graphic novel and animated film. The graphic novel was rendered in a more realistic style, to make the more otherworldly aspects of the story look more out of place, but followed the plot of the book to the letter. The film, meanwhile, was directed by Henry Selick and bore a far more fantastical style, and tweaked a few elements of the story to make it work within a 90-minute film. All three tell more or less the same story, but they all do it in different ways that fit the medium it's told in. Another example of this is Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. The first series was told in largely improvised radio segments, then assembled into books, then a TV show and finally a movie. The beautiful thing is that every single adaptation had a completely different storyline- for this same reason, a lot of people were disappointed by the film because it wasn't anything like the book. If I ever did a multimedia series, that would be how I'd do it.

[Fuzz]

Wow, The Rabbits looks positively gorgeous. I'll definitely need to check that out.

On the subject of adaptation, I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I think this could be expanded to include all adaptations- the best stories are written to play to the strengths of its own medium. One reason a lot of people were concerned about the Watchmen adaptation was that it was written specifically for comics, and brilliantly so. I personally find "straight" adaptations to be incredibly boring. Why would I pay to see the exact same story twice? So long as we take the same core themes, everything else can be changed.

One story that I think was adapted successfully to other media was Coraline. The original book was remarkably well-written (it is by Neil Gaiman, after all), but was turned into both a graphic novel and animated film. The graphic novel was rendered in a more realistic style, to make the more otherworldly aspects of the story look more out of place, but followed the plot of the book to the letter. The film, meanwhile, was directed by Henry Selick and bore a far more fantastical style, and tweaked a few elements of the story to make it work within a 90-minute film. All three tell more or less the same story, but they all do it in different ways that fit the medium it's told in. Another example of this is Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. The first series was told in largely improvised radio segments, then assembled into books, then a TV show and finally a movie. The beautiful thing is that every single adaptation had a completely different storyline- for this same reason, a lot of people were disappointed by the film because it wasn't anything like the book. If I ever did a multimedia series, that would be how I'd do it.

I only saw the movie of Coraline, which was brilliant, so I don't quite know how it deviated from the book and graphic novel. The graphic novel/book difference for that would be easier to accomplish Gaiman's goals, as he wrote both. I used to be really angry about adaptions that deviated from the source material, but now I'm warming to the idea of that being the only real way to do the source material justice. Of course, I doubt you could please Alan Moore however good your Watchmen movie was. He seems to be pretty strictly anti-adaptations, eg. "You make the movie, give all the royalties to the artist, don't pay me anything, I won't watch it, I don't want to be associated with it."

[Bree]

The book wasn't terribly different, save for the character Wybie- he was created specifically for the movie, to help tie some of the plot elements together. The book was compared to Alice in Wonderland, which is fairly accurate given the way the plot sort of dreamily meanders. The movie had tighter storytelling by being able to collect all of the pre-existing elements and adding extra depth to them. For instance, the "three wonders" were in the original story, but they didn't really make as big of a  reappearance as the movie depicted. The doll was also something that was created specifically for the movie, but helps explain how the Other Mother was able to study Coraline and re-emphasizes the button motif.

[Fuzz]

I really liked all the different layers to the movie, like how almost every scene in the Other Mother's world was a different painting. It was also interesting how the movie was structured similarly to a video game; you have to find our eyes, you have to defeat the Other Mother, then you can free yourself and us. I've heard the video game is horrible, but that is somewhat irrelevant.

[Bree]

Well, it is a "finding things game", so that does make sense.