The interactive version of The Mist is pared down considerably from King's 150 page novella. A work of text-based interactive fiction seems like a fairly safe way to adapt a popular work of prose, and indeed the game was relatively well-received. King's brief and (the evidence suggests) unhappy relationship with video games adapted from his books began in 1985, with a text adventure game closely based on The Mist.
So you'd think the market would be flooded with everything from sprawling open-world Dark Tower RPGs to Christine skins in racing games. Furthermore, he's an outspoken advocate for new entertainment technologies who will famously sell the adaptation rights to his stories for a single dollar. In fact, he's among the bestselling living novelists. Stephen King is more than just moderately successful. This is perhaps particularly true for genre fiction, though some more "literary" novels have been adapted into video games as well, such as last year's interactive fiction take on Orwell's Animal Farm. You just need to look at the success of The Witcher series to see that there are serious possibilities for games based on books. Though movies might still be the default, we're increasingly seeing popular books being retold as prestige TV shows big-budget audio dramas and, of course, video games. I find this so surprising because sooner or later, any even moderately successful author tends to see their work adapted into other media. I particularly wanted to revisit this story because, well, in case you can't tell, I really like video games and The Mist is one of surprisingly few King stories to have received a video game adaptation. My choice of Skeleton Crew for this Halloween's reading material wasn't random, as it opens with King's 1980 novella The Mist.
I am, after all, a self-confessed horror nerd. Fair to say some of his stuff hasn't aged brilliantly, but despite many rough edges he undeniably remains one of my all-time favourite authors. Back in my wild teenage years I binged King's entire back-catalogue of published fiction, and now that it's been long enough for me to have forgotten most of the details, I'm treating myself to some selective re-reads. Halloweekend is almost upon us and sitting on my coffee table is my battered old paperback copy of Skeleton Crew, a 1985 collection of short horror stories by Stephen King.
0 kommentar(er)
