Book to Game Ideas

 It’s been a little bit of a rough week these past few days; I came home at least three out of the five workdays fuming from having to do something annoying at the office and so I am very happy to be on the weekend.

I saw Encanto! And my review of The King’s Man is up. And I did actually work on this one before Friday night! Not much, but I took some basic notes Wednesday and Thursday before I started when I had some free time.

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Sometimes I’ve thought about doing a Saturday Note of “What books would I adapt to screen if I was a bigwig in Hollywood?” And I was worried that it would just be me gushing about books I like, which I already do in the Book Diary. 

But what about adapting books into video games?

It’s been done before. Most notably, The Witcher was adapted into games, or rather CD Projekt Red made sequels to the novels with their games. And I thought about how some books have settings or stories that would make good games.

And this is what I came up with.

HERE ARE BOOKS I THINK COULD BE ADAPTED TO GREAT GAMES

-Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola - Bloodborne-esque RPG

Should probably admit that I have played like, five minutes of Bloodborne.

The basic premise of Baltimore and its continuing comic series is that it’s an alternate history in which World War I is put on hold because there’s an evil plague caused by vampires going to war with humanity. This means that aside from elder vampires walking around, more and more people are turning undead. And because the vampires have fully awakened, other evil things see this as their chance to rise up again, leading to all sorts of monsters roaming the world again.

And so Lord Baltimore, with all of his trusty weapons, is there to clean it all up.

I don’t necessarily think that Lord Baltimore should be the player character–although I don’t see why he shouldn’t be either–but I’d see this sort of game taking place during an unspecified point in his adventures. Baltimore is, for whatever reason, stuck in an old European city (which provides the game’s map) and has to help rid it of monsters. It doesn’t need that linear of a story, just a wide-sprawling urban landscape where you can find monsters all over. Maybe you find boss monsters in the graveyards or ruins outside of town? Maybe you explore the catacombs and sewers? And along the way you have to upgrade your weapons (guns, sword, harpoon, axes) to ensure you’re always in tip-top shape to take down the worst that the underworld has to throw at you.

-The Onyx Court by Marie Brenan - story-driven RPG

I’ve often stated that these books have kind of boring main characters and Plots, but really good settings. The idea is that there’s a secret court of faeries living under the city of London, and the books take place from the Elizabethan Age up to the Victorian Era. I’m not picky at which point of history the hypothetical game would take place, other than ‘not modern.’

The idea for the books came from the author’s roleplaying sessions so I think it’d be a really good fit for a game? The stories don’t have that much action; there’s a lot of plotting, character interactions, and trying to figure things out, all with emphasis on character development. So I imagine if these were ever made into games, they’d be something like the Telltale story games, in which other characters remember your choices. You’d be a newcomer to the court (a human or faerie? Or a choice between the two?) and so you’d have reason to ask who everyone is and what their role is.

Solve a mystery! Or undo an evil Plot! Or something. All the while learning more about the world and the characters of the Onyx Court. You’d get to explore the Court dwellings and some portions of the City of London, and find cool historical and mythological Easter eggs. There wouldn’t be that many fight sequences because that’s not the main focus of the story. There would be lots of conversations and major decisions though, and a large and memorable cast of characters.

-Fablehaven by Brandon Mull - open-world RPG

I love Fablehaven, but there are a ton of lengthy sequences where authority figures just explain how everything works and that slows things up quite a bit. And it’s good to know how things work, but it reminded me of myself picking every possible dialogue option in a videogame to try to get the most information.

The idea behind Fablehaven is that there are magical preserves around the world dedicated to providing a safe living space for magical creatures and beings. It keeps them safe from humans, but also keeps humans safe from them, because not all of them are nice. And this would be a great game idea? You don’t have to set it in one of the books’ plots, you can easily set it at a previously unshown sanctuary and introduce the player character as a new caretaker, and the plot is establishing yourself in this new world, by building alliances or throwing your weight around as the guy in charge. And you get to use magic objects/weapons of course!

And obviously, there will be dragons.

These sanctuaries are huge, so I think they’d be perfect maps for an open world game. The titular Fablehaven has mountains, abandoned houses and shacks, a fairy shrine on an island in a lake, swamps, and forests. Maybe have more than one sanctuary featured in a game? That way you can explore vastly different kinds of terrains, like forest, desert, and island.

-Obsidian & Blood by Aliette de Bodard - mystery/action adventure

The Obsidian & Blood books are historical fantasy novels set during the Aztec Triple Alliance in which the Mexica religion is totally real, as is the magic practiced by their priests. The main character Acatl is the high priest of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the dead, and most of the stories involve him being called in to investigate a mysterious death and solve a mystery. Sort of like Dresden Files but in pre-Columbian Mexico?

[Dresden Files would also make a great game, but I have too many ideas for that so let’s leave it alone for now.]

So my idea for an Obsidian & Blood game is a mystery game–you play as Acatl and investigate mysterious deaths and go around interrogating people so you can get the truth! There would be action scenes, too–we see Acatl fight people sometimes, using some of his magic and obsidian knives. But that’s not the main focus. We shouldn’t see something like massive boss fights, I think, or if we do they should be very sparing and rely more on with rather than straightforward combat prowess.

Very dialogue-heavy, interrogations, accusing people of crimes. And you get to explore Tenochtitlan. Great fun!

-Hatchet by Gary Paulsen - survival

Alright this is kind of a ‘duh’ because I don’t know how else you’d adapt this book into a game other than as a survival game. The whole point of the book is Brian trying to survive! I’ve noticed that survival games seem to be popular in certain crowds these days, so I thought one based off of the book that plenty of people read as a kid would be kind of cool.

Of course, you could sort of combine it with the story of Brian’s Winter to make it last longer, and have you try to work out how to survive in the Canadian wilderness during the coldest months. You have to hunt! And fish! And build tools and shelter and such in order to do those things! And also, avoid angry animals! And homicidal mooses! The book doesn’t have too many animal attacks, but Brian also doesn’t really provoke the animals. The player can make that choice and suffer the consequences.

-Obsidian Trilogy by James Mallory and Mercedes Lackey - RPG OR military strategy game

My first thought for this was that, because it’s kind of a standard fantasy, it be a straightforward fantasy RPG. And that would be fun, I think, because there are plenty of ways to customize a character in the setting–wild mage or high mage? Fighter? Elf or human? Plenty of cool locales to explore and monsters to fight.

But then I remembered how much of the original series is dedicated to the war with the demons/Endarkened, troop movements, strategic maneuvers, and divvying out resources in ways that they don’t get wasted. And I thought: this might actually be a really cool military strategy game? You don’t play as an individual fighter as much as a commander directing your units during battles. Infantry! Archers! Mages! Cavalry! Unicorn knights! Centaurs! All at your command on the field!

Because this is a fantasy setting, you would play with different kinds of units. I would advise not setting this in the same period as the original trilogy, because there’s only one dragon in those and I assume that having dragon rider units on the field would be one of the highlights of the game.

-Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan - MMO

And for the last one.

I have been talking about this for years and I think it’d be fantastic. Yes, we’re long after the time when everyone and their mother was making a massive multiplayer online game, but think about it! You create your own demigod hero, and then go to Camp Half-Blood to train/level-up with some basic monsters and camp activities. And then you’re sent on quests, out into parts of the world in which you go into dungeons in modern-day America to fight monsters and collect divine artifacts.

Obviously, as you level up, you can upgrade your powers and by the time the story progresses to the climax (probably involving some nasty giant monster from way back when coming to threaten the world), you have some truly awesome powers to command. You get to collect legendary gear from ancient Greek heroes and historical demigods (since nearly everyone important was a demigod in the backstory). And though some demigods would be more powerful than others, it would balance in other ways–children of Hermes would have more range in what powers they can get than children of Ares, for instance, and children of Athena would have intelligence-based abilities that others wouldn’t get.

There are so many cool things to do with this idea that I will happily pay money to someone to make this happen.

I’m on the fence whether the other mythological series, Kane Chronicles (Egyptian mythology) and Magnus Chase (Norse mythology), should be included in this game at all, as I’d like to focus on one thing at a time? Maybe have allusions to them, and perhaps they’ll be expansions somewhere down the line.

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And those are my ideas! I had a couple of others, and I think one of these days I’ll talk about adapting books to other mediums, like animation, miniseries, and film. We will see if I actually get to those Notes!