Ghost World: An Imaginary Adventure Game
This month’s Round Table topic asks us the following question: “What would your favorite piece of literature look like if it had been created as a game first?” Before I begin to answer this question, I just want to recommend that you go and read some of the other entries, which are undoubtedly way better than mine, particularly my favourite: Chris Bateman’s ludic re-imagining of Pride and Prejudice, which I’d love to actually play someday. I also want to recommend, for those of you interested in this topic, checking out Enter The Story, which is an actual project that aims to adapt classic literature into game form. The first episode, based on Les Miserables, is already available… which reminds me, I’m supposed to be writing a review for it. That’ll come soon, I promise.
Now, as for my own thought experiment, I’m going to select a piece of literature that’s not necessarily my all-time favourite [1] but I find it fascinating to think about nevertheless because its central conflict is one that I’ve never seen portrayed in a game before, even though it rings truer to me than your typical “save the world from evil” plot. Essentially, it is a simple story about two friends who drift apart as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Ghost World is a graphic adventure game designed by Daniel Clowes and published by LucasArts in 1993. You start out by playing as Enid Coleslaw, an 18-year-old girl fresh out of high school, and you explore the surroundings of the Anytown, USA in which you live, all the while accompanied by your best friend, Rebecca Doppelmeyer, who follows you around in a manner similar to Max in Sam & Max Hit The Road, another LucasArts game released around the same time. The two of you solve the usual sorts of wacky adventure game puzzles together, which include stalking a Satanic couple without being seen, publicly humiliating your friend Josh at the convenience store in which he works, and avoiding various overly perky former classmates.
Somewhere halfway through the game, however, the gameplay becomes less like Sam & Max and more like Day of the Tentacle; you start to play as Enid without Rebecca around, and Rebecca herself becomes a player character you can switch to, with her own set of problems to solve. Though the two girls still interact with each other, their goals have changed; Enid wants to leave town and become a new person, and Rebecca wants to settle down and have a somewhat normal life. The tension between them escalates until an argument blows up near the end of the game, which we play once from Enid’s perspective and then again from Rebecca’s, each portraying the other as unreasonable. In the end, they part ways for good.
Since the game sold poorly when it was released and as such, wasn’t widely distributed, [2] I didn’t come across a copy of this game until 2003, the year I myself graduated from high school. Still, I suspect that if I had played Ghost World earlier than I did, it wouldn’t have resonated with me nearly as much. It’s funny how these things work, isn’t it? [3]
- I’m not even sure what my favourite is, to be honest. It varies depending on my state of mind. ↩
- Most fans blame a lack of proper marketing, though many game developers used the failure of Ghost World to justify not having strong female protagonists in their games. ↩
- Here’s a final thought: if Ghost World were a game rather than a graphic novel, would the movie still have been made? My guess is probably not. ↩
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Les Mis is finished? Cool. (I’ve been out of touch with the adventuring community for a while now.)
Nice to see you again, Rikard.
Gosh darn it, I wanted to make a game out of Pride & Prejudice!
Though I must admit, one of my favorites books became so because there was a game based on it: Neuromancer. Never would’ve discovered the book if not for the game.
Sounds like a great approach, Deirdra.
John, be sure to use the drop down box at the bottom of this post and check out ihobo’s pre-imagining of Pride & Prejudice.
[...] Jan. 26 – The eponymous Deirdra joins us with a game I’d really like to see her create in Ghost World: An Imaginary Adventure Game. [...]
The main problem I always had with adventure games was that the puzzles often had very little to do with the story. I mean – you were putting hamsters in microwave oven but that didn’t really had anything to do with stopping world domination. In a crazy game like Day of the Tentacle or Sam & Max, you won’t notice but as soon as the game’s story becomes serious, the split often becomes apparent.
Do you thought about how exactly the challenges of the game would play out? How would you “avoiding various overly perky former classmates”
(disclaimer: I haven’t read the book, only saw the movie – is this bad?)
I’d argue that something like microwaving a hamster doesn’t necessarily “have very little to do with the story”; it has little to do with the plot, sure, but it does say a lot about the character you’re playing.
I’m thinking that for a GW game, there’d probably be a lot more dialogue puzzles than inventory puzzles. Don’t have anything specific for a classmate-avoiding example in mind at this very moment, but if I think of anything, I’ll get back to you!
And, I think it’s fine if you’ve only seen the movie. Its plot is a little different from the graphic novel, but the main themes — which are the main concern of this exercise — remain intact.
When I was in college, one of the last classes I took was one on comics and graphic novels. We compared Ghost World to the movie, and if we were to then compare it to the suggested game, I still think most of the class wouldn’t really ‘get it.’
Maybe that’s why it’s at abondonia, now. Still a wonderful choice though – I can really picture the stalking scene as being absolutely hilarious to play.
Good luck with the Pride and Prejudice mechanic. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.