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LOOK, FATHER: 10 BOOKS THAT GOT TURNED INTO GAMES!

4/9/2018

29 Comments

 
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I know this is really bad, but sometimes before deciding to read a book I look up the author, and if they have a promotional pic which makes them look like an idiot... I don't read the book. I know there's an irony here - that I am, you know, "judging a book by its cover" - but it's true. I mainly choose books based upon whether the author looks like somebody I'd happily go for a beer with.

If they look a bit odd, or wanky, or as if they're the sort of person for whom writing books is the only thing they've got going on in their life, I'll find something else to read. I know I'm a terrible person, but much as I like reading, I'm also massively judgemental, and don't want to read books written by some weirdo.

It might stem from the fact I myself write for a living, and view it as a job, and don't consider writing to be this magical thing, where the characters live in your head and have a life of their own and that. It's just making stuff up. Well, bully for you that you've got the single-minded perseverance to spend months writing down all that imaginary bollocks in return for a two grand advance and bragging rights.

Quick - get somebody to take a moody, black-and-white photo of you while you stand in front of some ivy, and squint off into the middle distance doing your "author face"... 

...What was this meant to be about again? Oh yeah. Here are 10 books which got turned into games.
TOM SAWYER 
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This 1989 Japan-only release for the NES was an RPG developed by Square - they of the Final Fantasy series. It featured the main characters from Mark Twain's books going on an adventure along the Mississippi River, facing off in turn-based battles against the local wildlife. You remember all those times Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn punched animals in the face don't you? What do you mean you've never read any of the books? Me neither. I've listened to that song by Rush though, and think I watched the kid's show that used be on the BBC. 

Square's Tom Sawyer is perhaps best known for its racially dubious charicature of a black character called Jim. Such depictions might've been acceptable in the post-Civil War period during which Twain wrote his novels, but in 1989 it was deeply offensive.  

There was another Tom Sawyer game released by - ha ha - Winkysoft. That one was a platformer which featured a giant octopus as an end-of-level boss. And ghosts. Just like in the book! 

Mark Twain was, of course famous for his great wit and many catchphrases, including: "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today".
FARENHEIT 451
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Technically a sequel to Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451 was set five years after the source material. The multi-platform adventure was, as you can see above, somewhat wordy, but succeeded in continuing the events of the book, with protagonist Guy Montag now dealing in banned microcassettes. 

The story was written by one Len Neufield, with the full blessing of Bradbury. The author chattered: "I'm thrilled to be participating in the evolution of my Fahrenheit 451 into a computer adventure. For anybody curious about what happens to Montag after the book ends, or about what science fiction software might be, here is an exciting place to start."

For some reason, you had the option to switch off the graphics. You know: if you think they sullied the literary achievements on offer, or made the game too exciting.
RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA
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Based upon Arthur C. Clarke's novel, which dealt with the discovery of a massive, cylinder-shaped, alien vessel - basically, a big space toilet roll tube - 1984's Rendezvous With Rama game was, once again, a graphic adventure. It came bundled with a sealed manual and a map of the spaceship setting, both of which were necessary to complete the adventure. 

What did the "C" stand for in Arthur Clarke's name? "Crab".
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
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The Charlie And The Chocolate Factory game was comprised of a bunch of Game & Watch-ish mini-games, and a final Jet Set Willy-lite stage. It came bundled with a copy of Roald "Where's the 'N' Ronald?" Dahl's classic children's book, and was published by the little-known, but amusingly named, Hill MacGibbon. It wasn't very good, but whatever.

Get this: I've not read Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, but I did once listen to the audiobook of Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator. It's basically Aliens.
ERIK THE VIKING
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Based upon the book (later to become a movie) by Monty Python's Terry Jones, Erik The Viking was yet another graphic adventure - albeit with slightly more personality than the most. Jones, of course, would return to video games by providing a voice, and writing the adaptation, for Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic. Nicely, Erik The Viking was one of few games from the era to allow you to save your progress. How? Magic!
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
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Released in 1985, just a year after the release of Frederick "Bruce" Forsyth's novel, The Fourth Protocol was part puzzle game, part strategy sim, and part adventure. Playing as agent John Preston, t was divided into three distinct sections - just like an ant (head, torso, arse)! The aim of the first two sections was to discover the location of a nuclear bomb, planted by Russian agents, and had to be cleared before you could access part three... in which the bomb had to be diffused.

Excitingly, the game's blurb promised "Too many wrong moves and decisions will lower Preston's prestige in the service and vital field support will be withdrawn". Cool!
THE HOBBIT
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"Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold."

The Hobbit needs no introduction - not only due to the boring book that inspired it, but because it remains one of the most ground-breaking, iconic, and successful computer games of all time. Even though very few of us ever managed to finish it without help. What is less remembered is that publisher Beam Software released a further three games set in Tolkien's Middle Earth, the final one of which was called - ha ha - The Crack of Doom. H'ha. H'ha. Ha-ha.
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
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Created with full input from Douglas Adams himself, the game of Hitchhiker's mirror - but also expanded upon - the plot of the first Hitchhicker's Guide To The Galaxy book. Published by Infocom, it continued the company's tradition of bundling "Feelies" - physical props - with the game. In the case of Hitchhiker's this included a bag of fluff, a Don't Panic badge, a pair of cardboard sunglasses, and various in-world documents.
TIMELINE
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It's pretty remarkable how few time travel games there have been, given that the genre is ubiquitous in other entertainment mediums. Riding high on Jurassic Park, author Michael Crichton tackled it in his decent-ish 1999 novel Timeline (again, later to be turned into a film). With a plot featuring a bunch of archeologists travelling back to 14th Century France, it should've been a recipe for success - not least because Crichton was directly involved in its development. 

Unfortunately, those who'd been expecting a first-person action game with exciting sword fights and horse-riding were disappointed by its pedestrian pace and short-length (exacerbated by the presence of a character who follows you around telling you exactly what you should be doing at any given moment). 
BIBLE ADVENTURES
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For some, The Bible is the ultimate book, and Bible Adventures was just one of several games that have been based upon it.

Oddly, publisher/developer Wisdom Tree chose to interpret it via this collection of three platform games inspired by the Old Testament stories of Noah's Ark, David and Goliath, and Moses. Fortunately, anybody seeking something a little more pious than leaping over giant spiders and snakes were sated with between-level Bible verses. Ironically, everyone involved with the creation of this game is now in Hell.  
29 Comments
EggyRoo
4/9/2018 10:18:33 am

Look, this has nothing to do with the above article but for the love of Ainsley Harriot, won’t you please play a round of Firewall Zero Hour on PSVR and try telling me it’s not one of the best gaming experiences you’ve free had. I know you had motion sickness and you’ve written off the whole format as a failure already but I would ask that you try this before calling quits on VR. I’m sceptical and not usually an early adopter of tech but there’s now way that this level of greatness in video gaming will just fall by the wayside.

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Mr Biffo
4/9/2018 10:21:13 am

My PSVR is broken.

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EggyRoo
4/9/2018 10:52:14 pm

I think this will turn out like the Amiga- you’ll be pestered by people like me trying to tell you how great something is. I only care because this is quite clearly a different direction in gaming and one which, after decades of promise is now bearing fruit. And some of this sweet, succulent fruit is oh so ripe and ready for insertion. Anyone interested in games needs to be interested in this stuff- Wipeot VR, Resident Evil 7 and now FirewallZH are all games that we would have played in VR by default 20 year’s ago had the technology existed. Here’s what some other early reviewers think of Firewall incase anyone who reads this is interested (I don’t work for the developers, I’m just a fan of video games):

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-08-02-firewall-zero-hour-review-intense-team-based-gunplay-is-a-highlight-for-playstation-

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/firewall-zero-hour

http://pureplaystation.com/review-firewall-zero-hour-ps4-psvr/2018/09/

https://game-insider.com/2018/09/03/firewall-zero-hour-review-redefining-the-shooter-genre-in-vr/





MENTALIST
4/9/2018 01:20:30 pm

Is PSVR the one where you have to listen to women whispering and folding towels?

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EggyRoo
4/9/2018 10:57:05 pm

yes!

⬆️ this guy gets it!

Bob Trousers
4/9/2018 03:54:57 pm

Amen, brother. Firewall is freakin amazing.

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EggyRoo
4/9/2018 10:54:06 pm

Word.

Paul
4/9/2018 11:10:50 am

The Hobbit. That was supposed to use some kind of natural language they called something like “Inglish”.

Anyway, get this: at the last Code Club of last year, we played games on online emulators. For some reason, they lived The Hobbit. The best thing was that none of the kids could leave the starting room. Why? Because before you type “leave room” you have to actually tell it to “open door”.

How we laughed. You had to be so precise - pretty much to the point of obsessive pedantry.

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jim
4/9/2018 11:23:26 am

lol, I do exactly the same for stand up comedian cover photos, if they are clearly too 'look at how crazy and wacky I am' I will not watch it, and yes I know it's a stupid approach but I can't help it

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Mrtankthreat
4/9/2018 11:44:41 am

Can you give some examples of who you avoided.I get what you mean though, if someone is trying too hard to be zany that can be off putting but I also avoid what you might call normal looking comedians.

Netflix is awash with stand up specials from people who just look too ordinary for me to care what they have to say. Certainly if you're in any way conventionally good looking you shouldn't be a stand up comedian. I think you need a bit of a quirk.

Also I've avoided Mike Birbiglia solely because of his name. Don't know what it is about it. He's probably very good.

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Ian
4/9/2018 11:38:45 am

Vermicious knids wasn't it?

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Col. Asdasd
4/9/2018 12:29:22 pm

Nice list. I'm definitely guilty of being judgey about author photos sometimes. They'd be better off not using them at all if you ask me. It would be a shame if, for example, someone missed out on the Discworld novels because they were offended by Pratchett's stupid hat.

Ultimately I think it comes down to the fact that we're all prone to make nasty, completely unfair judgements about character based off of photographs. I think it must be wired into our brains. This is despite the fact that we all know how easy it is to be the subject of an unflattering photo.

Worse yet we catch people coming or going - if they try to prevent an unflattering photo by too obvious a strategy we criticise them as vain.

There was actually another adventure game based on Rama: this one released in 1997, and therefore an FMV-laden, multimedia extravaganza of the type we all remember with dubious fondness.

It was covered in an episode of Ross's Game Dungeon, which I think is one of the best gaming youtube series out there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4n5YXPaMQ

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Floop
4/9/2018 01:15:14 pm

I always felt the discworld universe was ripe for a massive open world game, instead we got three shitty point and clicky things.

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RichardM
4/9/2018 01:41:59 pm

Are they all shitty? I remember someone saying the first one was due to lots of very item pixel-perfect clicking, but the others are better. Please elaborate!

Alejandro
4/9/2018 01:44:30 pm

One of them was good!

HdE link
4/9/2018 01:33:58 pm

For me, this entire article was overshadowed by the Rush reference.

And now, instead of spending my afternoon off playing video games, I think I'm off to listen to Moving Pictures again.

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Omniro
4/9/2018 01:35:14 pm

There was also a Neuromancer game. It was as quite poor.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
4/9/2018 03:31:07 pm

Hitchhiker’s was traumatic with that Babel Fish puzzle. It also taught me, age six, to spell “analgesic”.

Below The Root was popular given it was fairly game-like but also bookish enough that schools would buy it for their C64s. Not really sure what was going on, you’d walk around hurting yourself trying to walk through bushes, jump off the tree and forget to inflate your shuba flying cape, or “pense” someone was “avaricious” and next thing you knew, you were locked in a house having been kidnapped by the followers of D’old Shitt or something.

Larry Niven’s Ringworld books deserve a better game than we got out of Tsunami Media: some desperately ropey Sierra-style point and clickers with laughable artwork.

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Hamptonoid
5/9/2018 10:41:54 pm

The babel fish puzzle was hard, didn't they give away t shirts or something at the time if you could get past there? I might have imagined that.

Anyway, the BBC did some sort of tribute years back, and you can play the original game here. It even allows you to save.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
10/9/2018 05:38:28 pm

I don’t recall t-shirts. I do recall the v2 which has hints built in had a “at this point, grown men have been known to break down in years” comment when describing the sequence. I think it was for the “upper-half-of-the-room” cleaning robot.

RG
4/9/2018 04:16:23 pm

There was a text adventure of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I spent dozens of hours in undergroung corridors typing "hit guard", "punch guard", "kick guard", "stab guard". I never did figure out how to get past the guard.

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JohnC
4/9/2018 05:04:28 pm

My memory of the Mark Twain books was that they ridiculed the racism that was presumably a given at the time - slaves being portrayed positively and those that abuse them depicted as villains. Guess Square missed this... As did my high school English teacher as it happens.

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THX 1139
6/9/2018 10:29:30 am

I read Tom Sawyer when I was a kid, and thought it was the greatest book ever, absolutely loved it. Then came the billion episode TV version which took the shine off somewhat.

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Lummox60N
4/9/2018 09:43:52 pm

"Timeline", man that was some grade A horse--shit. I never played the game, mind. The story revolves around a wormhole to a "fixed point in time", yet when the students go through it to find their professor, an equivalent period of time has passed at BOTH ends.
Surely if the point in time was "fixed" the students would have arrived at EXACTLY the same time as the professor and could've saved themselves, and us, a tiresome romp through some inaccurate history?

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S Hawke
4/9/2018 11:03:19 pm

I vaguely remember some kind of stop motion Mark Twain film from the eighties that was utterly terrifying.

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THX 1139
6/9/2018 10:32:05 am

That's The Adventures of Mark Twain, from Will Vinton, the Claymation "King". Sort of Wallace and Gromit, with pretensions.

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James Walker link
4/9/2018 11:36:05 pm

Books are pointless, if they’re any good they get made into movies anyway.

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bit.bat
5/9/2018 05:26:51 pm

Erm, spoiler alert for Fahrenheit 451! Too soon!

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THX 1139
6/9/2018 10:37:10 am

My favourite book to game adaptation was of James Herbert's The Rats on the Spectrum. I would play it every day for a couple of months when I got back from school (because your teenage years are the perfect time for Mr Herbert's oeuvre). Got pretty far, it was a combination strategy/adventure game where you played characters trying to escape being eaten. The rats would chomp through the screen! Not literally.

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