Can you turn a book into the story for a game?

[Alfador_VII]

Also, yes, a Dune game would be sick.

It's been done at least 3 times.

The original was a rather odd adventure-type game with clips from the movie and was interesting.

Dune 2 was the first real RTS game, made by Westwood, who went on to Command and Conquer, other than the sand, spice and worms, there was little connection to the books though.

Dune 2000 was a rather uninspired remake of Dune 2 that came out much later.

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[Anah'ya]

Im a pretty sure A Song of Ice and Fire would do well as a game if someone bothered to put effort into it.

That is already in the works. Look this way [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102137-Game-of-Thrones-to-Become-an-Actual-Game].

Now since Metro was already mentioned multiple times I really can't come up with something better that the general crowd would recognize.

 

[Trivun]

I think a great MMO could be made from the Discworld series, being able to travel throughout the Discworld, and operate under one of Ankh-Morpork's Guilds or possibly freelance (and thus be targeted by said Guilds for operating freelance). Somewhere normally useless or only appearing infrequently, like the island of Leshp, could be the beginner's tutorial area, and players could affiliate themselves with different countries or city states in the Sto Plains (so plenty more factions to join than WoW, and loads more groups to be able to join than just Alliance or Horde).

That would be pretty awesome, right?

 

[-KC-]

DA:O

 

[TPiddy]

Stephen King's the running man would make a perfect game....

in the book an unemployed father goes to the games network to compete for money and gets on the game show the running man. You get $100 for every hour you remain free and are given $4800 and a 48 hour head start. You can go anywhere in the continental US, but any law enforcement can apprehend you, as well as the show's 'hunters', who try to track you down.

There are two catches:

1. Any viewer who watches the show and spots you can report it to the network and win cash, so almost everyone is against you.
2. You must send in two tape recordings of yourself to the studio daily for the evening broadcast. The game studio 'claims' that they don't trace your postmark, but we all know that's a lie .

It could play out Assassin's Creed style, though the emphasis would be on hiding, changing your identity, moving from location to location, not drawing attention to yourself. Though many gamers could try the guns blazing route and see how far that gets them. If it were an online game you could have gamers take on the role of the hunters.

 

[Harlemura]

I think Shadow Complex was a tie in to a book or a book series or something. Not a book made into a game, but a fun little fact I thought I'd share.

If I had to pick a book to be adapted, I'd pick Skulduggery Pleasant. I think the elemental spells, from the fireball throwing to the mega air jumping, would give game developers a lot to work with.

EDIT:
Thinking about it, the story would be really hard to work into a game without lots of cutscenes or big walls of text every five minutes. Probably wouldn't work as well as I first thought...
My point stands solid about the spells sounding fun, however.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I'd like to see games of Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, "The girl with the dragon tattoo", "The girl who played with fire" and "The girl who kicked the hornet's nest."

They could be some sort of action/adventure sort of game with puzzles and combat and most probably hacking mini-games. Sort of like Dreamfall: The longest journey.

That would be cool.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

Ever heard of a game called Assassin's Creed? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamut_%281938_novel%29]

 

[AcacianLeaves]

The Witcher, Conan the Barbarian, Dune, The Lord of the Rings, Discworld Adventure Games...

You know what, just go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_based_on_books

As far as books I'd like to see turned in to games, I'd like to see the Gormenghast series made into a game. I know its dry reading, but the Gormenghast itself would be phenomenal to explore.

Also Elric needs to be in a modern game. It's time.

 

[Rakun Man]

As people have said before, there are plenty of books turned into games. I think a cool idea for a game would be "The Three Musketeers", plenty of action, good story, plus 4 player co-op.

I also think "Don Quixote" would make an awesome game, but I still need to finish that book.

 

[Jaranja]

Bioshock?

 

[Cain_Zeros]

I think Michael Crichton's "Prey" could have been a good game. Kind of similar to alan wake, except way more fucked up and loosely based on actual facts.

Now that you say it, that would be awesome. Trying to escape/destroy a hoard of nanobots that can mimic humans, awesome. Assuming they didn't screw it up and find some way to include a super-soldier/space marine. It'd be the feeling of helplessness that'd be the best part.

Mimic? Only at the start with the rogue swarm running on the "Predprey" protocol.
From my memory, they assimilated some of the researchers.
Easily my favourite book evahh.
I still need to read Pirate Lattitudes. R.I.P Michael.
-edit-
Also, I was thinking it could have a similar mechanic to "The Thing" in that you suspect everyone of being infected and you can't trust anyone.

I'm mostly thinking of the fact that the protagonist's wife (been too long, can't remember names) and the head of the development team were the swarm when I say mimic humans.