Adventure Gamers - Forums

What’s wrong with Ray Bradbury and the many Jules Verne games? IMO they should be in the same category as Agatha Christie. And why no Nancy Drew?

PS: Harlan Ellison is not the author of Discworld. He even did the voice of one of the characters in his IHNMAIMS.

PPS: Speaking of voices… the horror adventure game Dark Eye features six stories by Edgar Allen Poe, which also puts it in the Agatha Christie category. But the (in)famous writer William Burroughs reads a couple of Poe’s creepy poems in the game. How’s that for involvement? 

Oscar - 24 March 2016 02:26 AM

Well, obviously it depends on what you mean by involvement. I haven’t seen any evidence that Pohl or Clarke were involved in Gateway or RAMA,

I take it you don’t own Rama. Clarke’s novel was included; Clarke is to be seen and heard on a separate CD that comes with the game and he’s even in the game itself. Quoting wiki: Clarke himself appears in some scenes of the game, such as when the player dies, and in the epilogue, gives advice to the player. He is implemented into the scenery and humorously interacts with it - provoking a Biot into a fight in one example.

Can someone remember the author who was (in one way or another) AGAINST the computer game based on his work, or something like that?! It’s on the top of my head, but can’t remember it.

Oscar - 24 March 2016 06:53 AM

I knew that. But I didn’t think that constituted the game being “by” Clarke.

Huh? That’s not how I read the OP: I am after a list of games that have had substantial input from well-known authors. Either they wrote the script, or the game was based on an existing novel/IP.

Like I said, this is about what Projectitis wants. But I don’t really see the point in making a list of games where an author plays just any inconsequential part in its production. I might love Paulo Coelho’s writing but why should I care if he once brought one of the programmers at work a cup of coffee?

Oscar, please! Don’t do this. Coelho was directly involved in the writing of the three games.

Chronomaster adventure game was written and designed by Roger Zelazny and finished by Jane Lindskold after his death.

Karlok - 24 March 2016 07:16 AM

Huh? That’s not how I read the OP: I am after a list of games that have had substantial input from well-known authors. Either they wrote the script, or the game was based on an existing novel/IP.

That is still contradictory - if an author writes a novel, and someone later makes a game about it without consulting the author in any way, it’s a substantial (or a complete) inspiration, not an input.

Robot City and Isaac Asimov.

diego - 24 March 2016 07:39 AM

Karlok - 24 March 2016 07:16 AM

Huh? That’s not how I read the OP: I am after a list of games that have had substantial input from well-known authors. Either they wrote the script, or the game was based on an existing novel/IP.

That is still contradictory - if an author writes a novel, and someone later makes a game about it without consulting the author in any way, it’s a substantial (or a complete) inspiration, not an input.

Okay, so I see (at least ) three categories:

A. Games inspired by certain characters (Frogware’s games and Sherlock Holmes),  novels (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jules Verne) or an author’s work in general (Shadow of the Comet and Lovecraft).
B. Games based on a specific short story or novel. Like the Agatha Christie games, the Abbey, Robot City, etcetera.
C. Games where the author was involved in the development in some way. Like RAMA, Starship Titanic, Pilgrim.

A few days back I wrote out a complete post on Japanese writers & games, but for some reason the forum didn’t accept my post… (too long maybe?)

But there are quite some Japanese adventures based on the work of, or supervised by authors. Of the ones released in the West, the first who comes into my mind is Takemaru ABIKO, who wrote the original Kamaitachi no Yoru (released in the west as Banshee’s Last Cry), one of the first sound novels, and Starship Damrey (3DS).

As for not released here, Kyotaro NISHIMURA and Misa YAMAMURA have supervised too many games to mention. Yasuo UCHIDA and Jiro AKAGAWA have a couple of games based on their work. The PSP game Trick X Logic was completely written by mystery authors (including the above mentioned Abiko), etc, etc.

And waaaaaaay too many games to mention that are based on a comic.