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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: IF games that are versions/adaptations of literary works
Message-ID: <G9Gv3u.KvE@world.std.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 12:09:30 GMT
References: <97h7sr$rf2$1@wiscnews.wiscnet.net> <3a9c705f_2@dilbert.ic.sunysb.edu>
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David Samuel Myers  <dmyers@ic.sunysb.edu> wrote:
>Seems that not too many authors want (1) to be seen as unoriginal, (2) to
>even come near touching on copyright infringement of a modern novel, even
>if that is unrealistic, or even if framed as a clear parody, or (3) to
>deal with the fact that a well know book that has been read by a lot of
>people is going to give you problems in hiding the ending from the IF
>player.

or (4) want to face the essentially impossible challenge of adapting
from a non-interactive medium to an interactive one.

Novels, plays, and movies all are much more closely related media
insofar as how the audience relates to the works than any of them
are to IF.  Not all novels will make for a good movie; no surprise,
then, that this is even moreso true of IF.  One can of course create
a new work which is interactive, but the degree to which such a work
is an "adaptation" in the same sense it is usually meant is quite
questionable; "drawing material from" seems far more appropriate to
something like "Nevermore".

It would make far more sense for IF authors to attempt to adapt
from media that are closer to IF, e.g. media which are interactive.
The stunning success[*] of the IF Arcade suggests to me that this
is a much more appropriate avenue for exploration.

SeanB
[*] while this comment is a joke--I don't see any XYZZY nominations--
it is interesting to note to what degree some of those works DO truely
seem to be adaptations in the sense of "giving you the same experience
in a different medium"; of course, the most interesting of the works
are the ones whose experience is the most removed while simultaneously
consistent with the original, but this simply reflects how lacking the
originals are as fiction.
