This presentation will focus on video games and/as intersemiotic translation. Recent indie games that variously mobilise Oscar Wilde, his literary works or both will be used as primary examples to survey the manifold ways in which video games interact with literary texts. Drawing on the latest developments in the study of video game adaptions, I will discuss the interrelated ludic, narrative and audiovisual layers of selected ‘Wild(e) games’, such as ‘Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome’ (MagicIndie 2012), ‘Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries’ (Outsider Games 2022), ‘The Secret Life of Dorian Pink’ (AmberLimShin 2023) and ‘OscarWildeCard’ (Up Multimedia 2023). While ultimately aiming to underscore the importance of attending both to the specificities of the video game medium and to its complex relationship with non-interactive media in the analysis of games that appropriate and/or adapt literary texts, I will not only highlight the remarkable variety of video game genres wherein the presence and influence of Wilde and his literary texts can be detected, but also pay attention to the creative strategies employed by different designers to appropriate, emphasise and repurpose the aesthetic, Gothic and queer elements of Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (1891) in their games
Playing Wild(e) Games: The Intersemiotic Translation of Literary Texts in Indie Video Games / D'Indinosante, Paolo. - (2024). (Intervento presentato al convegno Games in Translation / Games as Translation tenutosi a Rome; Italy).
Playing Wild(e) Games: The Intersemiotic Translation of Literary Texts in Indie Video Games
Paolo D'Indinosante
Primo
2024
Abstract
This presentation will focus on video games and/as intersemiotic translation. Recent indie games that variously mobilise Oscar Wilde, his literary works or both will be used as primary examples to survey the manifold ways in which video games interact with literary texts. Drawing on the latest developments in the study of video game adaptions, I will discuss the interrelated ludic, narrative and audiovisual layers of selected ‘Wild(e) games’, such as ‘Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome’ (MagicIndie 2012), ‘Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries’ (Outsider Games 2022), ‘The Secret Life of Dorian Pink’ (AmberLimShin 2023) and ‘OscarWildeCard’ (Up Multimedia 2023). While ultimately aiming to underscore the importance of attending both to the specificities of the video game medium and to its complex relationship with non-interactive media in the analysis of games that appropriate and/or adapt literary texts, I will not only highlight the remarkable variety of video game genres wherein the presence and influence of Wilde and his literary texts can be detected, but also pay attention to the creative strategies employed by different designers to appropriate, emphasise and repurpose the aesthetic, Gothic and queer elements of Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (1891) in their gamesI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.