The Electronic Wireless Show Podcast episode 162: the best literary adaptations in games special
There will be no deal sweetening here
Hey podcast fans. Mum’s away this week, which means the inmates have taken over the asylum once again. The temptation was to play another round of Sweeten The Deal, but instead Nate and I were good little podcast boys and delivered a surprisingly on point discussion of our favourite videogame adaptations of literary works. Well, I say ‘on point’; there’s a fair amount of discussion of new Dune, too, which is what got us thinking about successful book to screen journeys. Sadly, the House Atreides bagpipe band were not available for a rousing rendition of the podcast theme.
There’s also a micro Cavern of Lies in which things get biblical.
You can listen on Spotify, or above, or go straight to Soundcloud where you can download it for later. I like to download it and listen to it during walks down by the canal, occasionally startling aging canal men with honks of self-indulgent laughter at our own jokes. And once you’ve startled your very own crusty angler you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat.
You can also get the RSS feed here or find it on iTunes, Stitcher or Pocket Casts.
Music is by Jack de Quidt, who obviously doesn’t need a load of space bagpipes to blow your socks off.
Links
The film of Dune got Nate thinking about Westwood’s Dune 2, and about the mad debt the modern RTS owes to Frank Herbert.
Matthew (aka: me) got thinking about how the Discworld point and clickers captured the spirit of the books, and whether Eric Idle was the right Python for Rincewind.
We ponder if games like Baldur's Gate or the hundreds of Warhammer riffs could be considered literary adaptations, such is their cribbing from fictionalised lore.
Likewise, is Inkle’s Sorcery! a literary adaptation, given that it’s actually Steve Jackson’s Sorcery. Or are gamebooks cheating?
Is Bioshock an adaptation of the collected works of Ayn Rand? I’m not sure we scratched the surface of this one, so you might want to try this interview with Ken Levine instead.
Recommendations this week are Dune (which isn’t a surprise) and Rennie, because I pulled a Nate this week, forgot to prepare a recommendation and then picked something in my eyeline. I bet Dune’s sandworms would absolutely beast rennies. Fear is the mind killer, but it’s acid reflux that does for your oesophagus.
Alice will be back next week, so don’t panic.