Adaptation of narrative source material into interactive form: how should a narrative be adapted into a video game?

Abstract

Adapting media such as literature and arts has been a practice for centuries, but it has become an especially hot topic in the past few decades due to the existence of video games that adapt non-interactive forms of literature such as movies and books. Adequate adaptation of the source material’s narrative to the interactive form has been a critical factor in determining such adaptations’ success. Developers dealing with this task should have access to material that is useful in forming methods for such narrative adaptation work. The research aimed to explore relevant video game narrative theories and how they interact with the unique qualities of an adaptation, analyze how/if a successful video game adaptation exhibits those theories, and form conclusions and discussion on how a narrative should be adapted into a video game.

Data collection was performed in the form of a theory base, created from various pieces of literature and research on relevant subjects, such as video games, narratology, video game narrative, and adaptations. The qualitative method was used to identify the best fitting pieces of literature to the subject of narrative adaptation in the context of video games, resulting in the formation of the theory base, and the choice of video game adaptation for the analysis section. The quality of the literature selected was determined via background search on the authors, websites, and institutions involved in the literature. The video game adaptation analyzed was chosen based on metrics referred to in the relevant adaptation literature. The literature was used to identify the relevant theories for the formation of the methods of analysis, and the justifications and foundations for choosing the particular video game adaptation. The analysis was performed by reading and watching the source material, and playing the video game adaptation, Then, the analysis methods were applied to the findings of the reading/watching/playing.

Conclusions were reached and they showed there are two types of video game adaptations, one of them being more relevant to the study. The hypothesis of objective truths in video game narrative was discovered, and the theories explained in the theory base were exhibited by the video game adaptation that was analyzed. The suggested optimal process of one of the two types of video game narrative adaptation was compiled into a terminological hierarchy and visualized, which compiled and summarized the conclusions for the study. The conclusions formed a theoretical framework that could be used in narrative adaptation in video games, and the study of ludology/narratology. The conclusions, their reliability, and their implications were discussed, and further research into the subject of narrative adaptation in video games was proposed.