Book to Video Game adaptation done right!

[Rooster893]

What book series or certain book would like to see adapted into a video game, only for it to be absolutely AWESOME?

I would like to see a Redwall video game adaptation.

How about you?

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

Any one of the Ciaphas Cain series of books.
I could see it playing out as a mix of third person action and oldskool point&click adventure, and not in the LA Noire way, in the 'combine macguffin 1 and macguffin 2 to make story progressing macguffin' way.

You could even start out conversations with 'I'm Ciaphas Cain! Might Commissar!'

 

[synobal]

In general I think book to video game would be about as enjoyable as Movie to Video game adaptions. That said a lot of authors have made a lot of interesting fictional settings that it would be interesting to design a video game for. I think you could get away with stealing an already developed setting for a video game, but not an already made plot.

 

[Phlakes]

Mass Effect style Dune game. I'd explain it, but I've already done that twice this month.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

The Witcher?

 

[NickCaligo42]

Mass Effect style Dune game. I'd explain it, but I've already done that twice this month.

Dune condensed to a shallow and monotonous cover-based third-person shooter. I simply cannot contain my excitement.

I'm with whoever brought up Redwall. Also there needs to be a Harry Potter game that doesn't star Harry Potter as the player character. Make your own Hogwarts student, spend a year there doing your own shenanigans; focus on putting people in the setting rather than packaging and processing the rigid storyline of Harry Potter as a game. Eh, honestly I probably wouldn't buy it, I outgrew interest in Harry Potter a long-ass time ago, but it's surprising that nobody's tried to get this concept pushed through.

There's other books I'd suggest, like Neuromancer and Snow Crash, but they did that, it was called Deus Ex, and it was excellent. Maybe something with a stronger representation of cyberspace would be cool, though, there hasn't been a game that deals with communications technology like those books do.

 

[kyogen]

The Witcher?

Definitely The Witcher.

 

[ruben6f]

Metro 2033, the difference is huge but the game is good, it explains the story well and keeps the game really good, just wished more elements from the book were added

 

[pffh]

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

That already exists and you can find it here: http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html

 

[Phlakes]

Mass Effect style Dune game. I'd explain it, but I've already done that twice this month.

Dune condensed to a shallow and monotonous cover-based third-person shooter. I simply cannot contain my excitement.

Not the shooter part, the RPG part. Although I'm really not sure what combat would be like... Aside from knife duels, of course.

 

[Mastercylinder]

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

That already exists and you can find it here: http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html

Yes, I knew about that, but I meant a real like 3 dimensional game. Interactive literature isn't necessarily a "game" in my mind. Imagine if Telltale held the license, it would be quite the awesome graphic adventure game.

 

[Operation Genesis]

I'd want the Dresden Files. I think it'd make a fairly kickass free roam RPG, especially since I have a rather pathetic amount of love for the setting.

 

[Clockwork Scarecrow.]

Mass Effect style Dune game. I'd explain it, but I've already done that twice this month.

There's been a few Dune RTS', but an RPG in Dune based around being a House member could be interesting.

 

[ELD3RGoD]

The Malazan book/s of the Fallen - Stephen Erikson.

Not been done, would be perhaps a WoW killer if it was done properly as an MMO. Or something similar to The Elder Scrolls as single player but about 20x bigger. if you ever get the chance, read them.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I'd like a new RPG based on Raymond E Feist's Midkemia word. Imagine the gameplay you could get in a game based on Magician, playing as Pug or Tomas.

 

[Vie]

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Would be an game where you have to balance building your relationship with the elegeable young man/woman of your choice and destroying the vile revenants that seek to dine on your delicious brains.

Could have different outcomes, such as the Pyrrhic victory where you get your man/woman but are eaten by the undead hoard at your wedding because you did not do enough to fight them. Or could have you wipe out the undead, only to find your beloved has married the rich other person.


Disturbingly, I'm actually starting to think this is a good idea...

 

[Pharsalus]

I'd like a new RPG based on Raymond E Feist's Midkemia word. Imagine the gameplay you could get in a game based on Magician, playing as Pug or Tomas.

Word, Betrayal at Krondor wasa great game but hasn't aged well. The only series i can think of off the top of my head are the Dune prequals covering the war against the thinking machines. I think that setting could graft really well onto a Empire at War type large scale RTS.

 

[strider2u]

Harry Turtledove's Darkness series. We already have so many generic WWII FPS games, why not dragons, behemoths and leviathans instead of airplanes, tanks and submarines. Seriously, magical spells instead of the nuke? How is that not better?

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Would be an game where you have to balance building your relationship with the elegeable young man/woman of your choice and destroying the vile revenants that seek to dine on your delicious brains.

Could have different outcomes, such as the Pyrrhic victory where you get your man/woman but are eaten by the undead hoard at your wedding because you did not do enough to fight them. Or could have you wipe out the undead, only to find your beloved has married the rich other person.


Disturbingly, I'm actually starting to think this is a good idea...

What do you mean 'disturbingly'? I'd play the hell out of that game! That's a great book though, was the only time I've read Pride and Prejudice where I didn't feel like shooting myself in the head.

OT: Stephen King's Dark Tower series maybe? Have it as a horror/scifi version of Red Red Redemption and that would be pretty cool.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Although I'm really not sure what combat would be like...

You aren't exactly winning me over with this pitch. Mass Effect isn't exactly very good at the "RPG" part of the RPG-shooter mix, either. The exploration element isn't terribly well-integrated in either game and the statistics have too low an effect on the games' progression to be satisfying or engaging. Squad mechanics are very token, with over-simplified, transparent versions of spells from other Bioware games, dressed up with cheap sci-fi techno-babble for justification.

Drop that stuff and the shooting and all you've got left is mining for resources and conversation. Relevant as mining is to the Dune scene, it being a story about natural resources and all, none of that jumps out and screams "Dune!" to me.

I'd like to point out that Dune has been a game, and in fact is very well-regarded. Dune II is credited by many as birthing the real-time strategy genre, complete with multiple factions with unique units and resource mining. If I were to put it back in the gaming scene I'd start there, re-design it from the ground up, and take a few cues from StarCraft 2's mission structure and presentation, with characters to interact with, a base to wander around, and fully produced cinematics.

The conflict is between the leadership of the different houses of the Empire and involves a lot of big-picture resource management, so it makes sense to give the story more of a birds' eye view. I'd even go as far as to suggest the addition of sim elements to it; deal with what actually happens when we've got our hands on some Melange, spend some time trying to find sources of it to support a trade empire, that sort of thing. Frankly, though, as fantastic as the Dune universe would be to explore I just can't see bopping around as Paul Atreides doing action-RPG stuff as being all that exciting. I see that having a lot of unnecessary padding as opposed to interesting challenges, dealing with more of the superficial idea of playing a game in the Dune universe as opposed to delivering the feel and themes of the book. That's the scale of Dune--whole worlds and enormous political powers, not fetch-quests and loot drops.