Playing (Jungle) Books, Going Wild(e): Playful Irreverence in Video Game Adaptations of Kipling and Wilde

The Victorian age has long provided inspiration for game developers. This is evinced not only by those video games which are set in digital reconstructions and reimaginations of Victorian Britain, but also by a significant number of titles which appropriate and adapt Victorian literature, thus enriching and complicating its present-day reception. This paper focusses on ‘The Jungle Book: Groove Party’ (2000) and ‘The Secret Life of Dorian Pink’ (2023), which have a complex relationship with their respective literary sources, and argues that they epitomise two different kinds of playful irreverence in literary-inspired games: the indirect (‘The Jungle Book: Groove Party’) and the subversive (‘The Secret Life of Dorian Pink’)