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[Radiant]

I would love to see a game based on Roger Zelazny's Amber... although it would be hard to get right.

(yes, I know an IF exists on the subject, but it doesn't really do it justice).

[GregWS]

Great idea Pacian!  I'd thought of that, but I'm not totally sure how all that works (do things just become public domain after a certain number of years of being around?).

If you know of a public domain literature list, then please let me know so that I can see if any of them peak my game designing interest.

I think we should really do this compo, but we could intentionally have one more compo before having this one to give people time to read a classic public domain novel if they haven't recently.  Thus, everyone would be coming into the compo equally, instead of those lit buffs having a complete upper hand (not that they wouldn't anyway).

[Pacian]

Great idea Pacian!  I'd thought of that, but I'm not totally sure how all that works (do things just become public domain after a certain number of years of being around?).

Kind of.  In most countries around the world, the terms are that the work was either published before 1923, or the author died more than 70 years ago.  I think that in some countries its whichever is longer, while in others its whichever is shorter.  You're perfectly safe (supposedly) with anybody who died more than 100 years ago.

If you know of a public domain literature list, then please let me know so that I can see if any of them peak my game designing interest.

Try Wikisource.  In particular their page of worldwide PD authors.

[muku]

Also, this: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

[GregWS]

Great!  I'd been under the impression of that "100 year rule," so seeing you mention it basically confirms that one.

That being said, I think we've got enough material to make quite the compo out of this, so if enough people are up for it, then I guess it should be proposed in a more official way.

[deadeye]

I think we've got enough material to make quite the compo out of this, so if enough people are up for it, then I guess it should be proposed in a more official way.

You mean like in the Idea Pool for new TIGS competitions thread?

[Dragonmaw]

I would love to see a game come out of The Colour of Magic.  Besides the old adventure game, I mean.  Maybe a rogue-like.

[Bree]

Does anyone remember William Sleator's The Boxes? I keep imagining some sort of game using those bizarre little creatures...

[GregWS]

I thought there was a thread for that, I just haven't got around to posting it yet.

[William Broom]

I figured I'd scroll through the Gutenberg Project's top 100 and get heaps of great ideas, but it didn't quite work out. "Manual of Surgery Volume First: The Game"? But some of them would work quite well - for example, Beowulf, an action/adventure with prominent bosses, or Metamorphosis, a bizarre and claustrophobic point-and-click adventure.

A while ago I also considered The Divine Comedy as a source for a game. Apparently there is already a Japanese adventure game based on it but that's never been translated unfortunately. Some of the stuff in it, especially the Hell section, is pretty badass. From Wikipedia: "These souls are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron, their punishment to eternally pursue a banner while pursued by wasps and hornets that continually sting them while maggots and other such insects drink their blood and tears." Ouch! And they weren't even in Hell!

On a different note, what about 'Le Petit Prince'? The spherical world thing has been kind of done to death in games recently, but I think it would work well if you were confined to his little planet for the whole game, performing farming tasks and stuff. Actually, I can't really remember what happened in that book anymore, only the illustrations.

[muku]

Has anyone here read American Gods by Neil Gaiman? That book has to be amongst the most atmospheric I've ever read. I wonder if any of that could be translated into a game. The concept of "old" gods against "new" gods could work for a game.

[Bennett]

I think you don't always want to adapt the story, as most of you seem to be suggesting. For many books, the best thing is to use it as inspiration for a new mechanic, not to try to recreate the exact events of the book.

For example, you could do one based on Anne McCaffrey's book 'The Crystal Singer'. It would be a falling crystals game like 'Bejeweled' except that when you sang a note into the microphone, a the crystals would resonate and vibrate. If you sang the right note, you could resonate a particular colour and cut the crystals. It's 'singstar' meets 'bejeweled'!

Most Philip K. Dick books have interesting ideas but boring stories, so you should adapt the ideas rather than the story (which is, after all, what they did in writing the script for 'BladeRunner'.) If I were to adapt 'A Scanner Darkly', I would go with the fact that there have been hardly any surveillance games. A game where you didn't realise you were surveilling yourself. But otherwise, the story would be quite different.

An adaptation of 'Day of the Triffids' could be a game about trying to help people to survive when they've all gone blind. (If you think about it, 'The Sims' is like trying to help a group of people to survive when they all have severe brain damage and no nursing care. Oh no, you've wet yourself again!)

As for Camus' book 'The Stranger' or 'The Outsider', I don't think we need an adaptation of that because nearly very computer game is an adaptation of it. In the sense that you are a player in a world whose characters and events you don't really care about. We players are true outsiders in the world of videogame characters.

[muku]

Most Philip K. Dick books have interesting ideas but boring stories

WHAT! HERETIC!

On a quite unrelated note, the film version of A Scanner Darkly by Richard Linklater is awesome.

[neon]

As for Camus' book 'The Stranger' or 'The Outsider', I don't think we need an adaptation of that because nearly very computer game is an adaptation of it. In the sense that you are a player in a world whose characters and events you don't really care about. We players are true outsiders in the world of videogame characters.

well, there's more to the book than simply the concept of a protagonist devoid of feelings.  although that concept may be central to the book, it may or may not be central to a videogame adaptation of it.  also, i liked the imagery and feeling of the book quite a lot, so that's another reason why i might like to see it become a videogame.

[William Broom]

Benzido, I think your ideas are quite good, but they don't really appeal in the same way as a true adaptation does. For people who liked 'Day of the Triffids' and wanted to play a game of it, I think they would be better served by a conservative shooter where you kill Triffids with water-based attacks. The idea of helping blind people to survive is also quite compelling, but I think it would probably work better independently of the Triffids story. The same goes for the Crystal Singer idea, but not so much for the 'A Scanner Darkly' one. That just seems to tie in closer to the original storyline to me.

I can understand where you're coming from, and can offer up an example of my own: I absolutely loved the fight scene near the end of 'The Ringworld Engineers' by Larry Niven. The heroes go flying around in jetpacks in an underground biosphere, shooting at each other, while connecting their suits to water via a superconductive wire so as to disperse the electrical energy of their enemies' bullets. I think that could become a great basis for a game's combat system, but I wouldn't set such a game to the Ringworld storyline, because there wouldn't be many more opportunities for battles like that one.

Being inspired to create a gameplay mechanic is quite a different thing to wanting to adapt the story in full. I think they could both produce some excellent games though.

[Radiant]

Great!  I'd been under the impression of that "100 year rule," so seeing you mention it basically confirms that one.

Yes, but the time period is lengthened every couple years, because the Walt Disney Co. doesn't want Mickey Mouse to fall into public domain. YA RLY.

[Dragonmaw]

Another book that should be made into a game: The Android's Dream.  Would be a fun adventure game.

[Seth]

The Crying of Lot 49

[GP Lackey]

I think a straight adaptation of Day of the Triffids would work rather well as a survival game.  Man against nature where nature is this entropic force constantly encroaching on you.  You could never beat the triffids, only stave them off for a little while.

Plus the AI for the triffids would be extremely simple!  I can't imagine how you'd approach the social aspects of that story though.

I have thought of this idea a lot actually, hah.

For people who liked 'Day of the Triffids' and wanted to play a game of it, I think they would be better served by a conservative shooter where you kill Triffids with water-based attacks.

I think you are thinking of the movie.  It's...not good.

[Alex May]

I think a straight adaptation of Day of the Triffids would work rather well as a survival game.  Man against nature where nature is this entropic force constantly encroaching on you.  You could never beat the triffids, only stave them off for a little while.

Plus the AI for the triffids would be extremely simple!  I can't imagine how you'd approach the social aspects of that story though.

I have thought of this idea a lot actually, hah.

There is a similarity between triffids and zombies I guess. I kind of want Deadrock to be like this. Wasn't "28 Days Later" a complete rip of Triffids? I heard that, but haven't read the book or seen the film recently enough to tell.