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Jasper Fforde and Telltale?

guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
edited July 2009 in General Chat
I was thinking today about other games Telltale could make and it occurred to me that Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next' series would translate really well to the genre.

In short, the books are set in England during an alternate 1985 where literature is incredibly popular, so much so that many people have changed their names to popular authors and it even has its own police force, Jurisfiction, of which Thursday is an operative. Genetic engineering is very advanced and dodos and mammoths amongst other things have been 're-engineered'. That's all I can really say without spoiling the books for anyone intrigued enough to read them. Needless to say there are many entertaining and memorable characters, inventive plots and some excellent 'villains'. I suppose they lie somewhere between crime, humour and fantasy.

Is anyone else a fan?

Comments

  • Craymen EdgeCraymen Edge
    edited July 2009
    I loved the ones I've read so far, and the "Nursery Crime Division" series too. They've so inventive and imaginative. The fake ads in the back of the books are one of my favourite parts.

    If you like those, you should maybe give the 'Louie Knight' novels by Malcolm Pryce a go. They're comic, Chandler-esque detective fiction, set in an alternate universe version of Aberystwyth. Wonderful dark humour, great dialogue, and almost worth picking up for the titles alone. (http://www.louieknight.com/)
  • guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
    edited July 2009
    Craymen Edge wrote: »
    I loved the ones I've read so far, and the "Nursery Crime Division" series too. They've so inventive and imaginative. The fake ads in the back of the books are one of my favourite parts.

    If you like those, you should maybe give the 'Louie Knight' novels by Malcolm Pryce a go. They're comic, Chandler-esque detective fiction, set in an alternate universe version of Aberystwyth. Wonderful dark humour, great dialogue, and almost worth picking up for the titles alone. (http://www.louieknight.com/)

    I'm actually in the middle of reading From Aberystwyth With Love right now! I love the whole series.

    I was going to suggest that as another Telltale possibility but it might be difficult because they'd need Welsh actors (or some people capable of doing believable Welsh accents) and some of the references could end up being quite obscure to those outside the UK.
  • MolokovMolokov
    edited July 2009
    I think the problem with Fforde's books is that they're books about books... so they probably won't work (and aren't made to work) in any other medium.

    However, using the concept and having a PI enter video games would be good... the problem being that most video games are still within copyright (unlike the books that Thursday Next enters in Fforde's novels) so referencing them (especially visually) is a copyright nightmare.

    Compare this with Inkheart [1] - all the books that Mo reads from are also "out of copyright" books (if they really exist in our world) or they are fictional inside the book itself. It is a good concept but it doesn't translate to film all that well... because a book about books works, but a movie about books doesn't really.

    So why would a game about books work?


    [1] Disclaimer: I haven't actually read the books, only seen the movie
  • guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
    edited July 2009
    I haven't read Inkheart either but I thought the film was rubbish. I'm told by several people who have read the books that they changed a LOT of the content and that was the reason why it turned out so badly. I think another problem was casting Brendan Fraser - that man has the acting skills of a brick.

    They managed something similar in The Simpsons game (albeit pretty badly) without any copyright issues, although I'm not sure... were those games released by the same publisher?

    It'd have to be done very carefully but I still think Fforde's ideas would translate because the emphasis is on the characters from the books rather than just the books themselves, so it could also work for people who aren't familiar with the novels it references - but I definitely see what you're saying.
  • BrainiacBrainiac
    edited July 2009
    A well-known name in the Sierra fan scene, Akril, put out a game that owed a lot of its inspiration to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series called "Adventure: The Inside Job." You can find the game here.
  • guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
    edited July 2009
    Brainiac wrote: »
    A well-known name in the Sierra fan scene, Akril, put out a game that owed a lot of its inspiration to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series called "Adventure: The Inside Job." You can find the game here.

    That was very entertaining... thanks for pointing it out!
  • MolokovMolokov
    edited July 2009
    Brainiac, thanks for the recommendation - Akril's game is exactly how Jasper Fforde's novels should be "translated" for the Adventure game genre. Sure, it's not a very difficult game to play (took me about an hour or so) but the idea of moving through various games is very clever. It was obviously a labour of love for him, so good to see that someone's had the good idea to take Fforde's jurisfiction idea and adapt if for the Adventure game genre.
  • BrainiacBrainiac
    edited July 2009
    Molokov wrote: »
    Brainiac, thanks for the recommendation - Akril's game is exactly how Jasper Fforde's novels should be "translated" for the Adventure game genre. Sure, it's not a very difficult game to play (took me about an hour or so) but the idea of moving through various games is very clever. It was obviously a labour of love for him, so good to see that someone's had the good idea to take Fforde's jurisfiction idea and adapt if for the Adventure game genre.
    Now by him, are you referring to Fforde? Because Akril posesses a pair of X chromosomes.

    As to the recommendation, no problem. Forum resident MusicallyInspired was the primary composer for the original pieces of music in the game; he's the one who told me about the game. I wound up helping Akril identify the four untitled public domain tracks she used in the game (you can find them on the Extras page mentioned on the main site I linked earlier).
  • MolokovMolokov
    edited July 2009
    Ok, her :) With an unfamiliar name (or alias) like Akril, I had no way of knowing she was female :)
  • guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
    edited July 2009
    Molokov wrote: »
    Ok, her :) With an unfamiliar name (or alias) like Akril, I had no way of knowing she was female :)

    You had no way of knowing if she was male either... ;)
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