In New Media 10, we have converted one of three short stories we have read in class into another form of writing. I have chosen to adapt the Ray Bradbury short story “A Sound of Thunder” into a Game Design Document (GDD) for a virtual reality (VR) video game.
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Open in new tab Adapting traditional media such as a short story into a video game requires thought on how to fit a traditional narrative writing into an interactive form. First, in order for programmers, artists, and other game development staff to understand the intentions of the game, the design document has to be made; it is an expository technical document that explains the design of the game. Next, game mechanics must be made to accommodate the story. In this case, featuring shooting mechanics would be an obvious choice, as the plot of “A Sound of Thunder” has the characters hunting dinosaurs with rifles. From the information I could glean from dialogue in the story, I also decided exploration mechanics would be appropriate. In the story, there is particular emphasis on following rules to avoid damaging time, so I tried to emulate this feeling of caution and pressure using a score system to encourage players to be careful to minimize any changes to the environment. As the original plot of the story is rather short, I decided to extend it with more gameplay-focused levels, and while I didn’t do much of my own characterization, I added room for lore by keeping the political situation within the narrative relevant. In writing this document, I learned how I can adapt a traditional narrative into an interactive video game by analyzing activities within the narrative, and writing these as game mechanics used to tell the story in a different way.