Playing Kafka: Gaming meets absurdist literature

Written by AG Staff — May 22, 2024 at 13:54

The world of literature and gaming collide in the latest release from Prague-based indie studio, Charles Games. Their new offering, Playing Kafka, is an absurdist adventure that serves as a tribute to the famous existential writer, Franz Kafka. Developed in collaboration with Kafka experts to commemorate the centenary of the writer's death, the game is an imaginative adaptation of Kafka's The Castle, The Trial, and Letter to His Father. The game successfully transposes Kafka's absurdist worlds into the 21st century, presenting players with impenetrable schemes, insidious plot twists, and conversations that slip out of hand.

Playing Kafka is a fully voiced drag-and-drop adventure game that's available for free, with no ads or microtransactions. Charles Games and Goethe-Institut worked together to create the first Kafka video game made with literary experts. The game is an hour and a half long narrative adventure that's fully voiced in three languages and is available on the iOS App Store, Google Play, and Steam. Developer Lucie Tvarohová explains, "We didn’t just want to illustrate Kafka but reimagine his work through the language of videogames which lends itself well to the themes of Kafka's books."

The game is divided into three chapters, each adapting one of Kafka’s works: The Trial, Letter to His Father, and The Castle. While following the tradition of point-and-click adventures, it puts a twist on it with drag-and-drop gameplay. "This makes characters akin to puppets, just like the heroes of Kafka’s novels feel like under the overbearing bureaucratic structures and impenetrable schemes,” explains Charles Games director Lukáš Kolek. "Playing Kafka is both for gamers and non-gamers, a way to bring Kafka’s works closer to the new generation, to actualize it for the 21st century,” Kolek adds.

Charles Games is known for their acclaimed socially engaged games (Beecarbonize, Attentat 1942, Svoboda 1945). With Playing Kafka, they continue to push the boundaries of what games can achieve, bringing classic literature to life in a fresh and exciting way.