The Terror of Knowing

Welcome one, welcome all, to ‘Emma Remembers Top 5 Wednesdays Exists And Decides To Join In’… again. Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme/challenge which was created by the wonderful Lainey from gingereadslainey and is now overseen by the equally lovely Sam from Thoughts of Tomes. Every Wednesday, participants devise their Top 5 based on a given topic.

This Wednesday’s topic is Books That Would Make Good Video Games. Given Sam’s penchant for video games, I can understand that this topic comes from a place of deep love for that genre but I’m not really much of a gamer myself… principally because I suck at them. So, my top five comes with the caveat that I don’t really know how viable any of these would be when translating them into the video game genre – I just happen to think they could make pretty damn cool games to play. Let’s see what we have…

5. A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray (x)

I am specifying the first book for this simply because I haven’t read the other two in the trilogy – whoops! However, I think the whole Firebird concept would totally lead itself to a video game adaptation. I see this as more of a slower, puzzle-solving sort of game, because as you “jump” into parallel worlds/characters using the Firebird, you’d then have to explore and complete puzzles and missions to learn about your new world and who your character is in it. The wealth of different worlds and positions the character could experience would make for an incredibly varied tone with each “jump” and I think that shift in tone between levels could be really, really interesting. Say it’s not just me that can completely imagine this?

4. Saga by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples (x)

If you don’t know about the Saga series of graphic novels, where on earth have you been living for the last few years?! Saga cannot be succinctly described but its artwork is so vibrant it just lends itself to a screen adaptation and I happen to think it would probably make a very good video game. There’s enough action in it that it would be gripping in that sense but it also has a really solid story line and world building behind it that would make for a rich and engaging video game. I struggle to decide which character you’d want to ‘follow’ or play as, though – maybe you’d alternate depending on which level you were on, or else choose one individual at the beginning and see their story line through??

3. The Bone Season series by Samantha Shannon (x)

Who here is not at all surprised that I managed to work The Bone Season books into yet another blog post? Me, me, me! The Bone Season is an awesome paranormal-y, fantasy-y, dystopian-y world that completely lends itself to an action-packed video game as you’d navigate the shady criminal underworld of Scion London and its clairvoyant gangs, making sure to evade capture by the state’s forces. Or, you could design it more like the Sims at first, so you would really invest time and energy into building the character and their lifestyle within the gangs – you’d pick your order of clairvoyance and decide which cohort you wanted to be part of, and then I suppose you could end up being dropped essentially into Paige’s story line but as a Bone Season participant of your own making. The second book’s scrimmage tournament could also be an amazing final level on a video game, it would be so difficult to complete but so rewarding. Although the series is indeed action-packed I think Samantha Shannon’s focus on building distinct characters should also be translated into the video game so you’d end up focusing more on developing the individual than the actual fights and action sequences.

2. Shades of Magic trilogy by V.E. Schwab (x)

Quite a lot of this decision is down to how much I adore A Darker Shade of Magic but aside from that, I think Schwab crafts characters and worlds in such a way that you can completely imagine her narratives on the screen via a video game. The way I see it, you would start off following the story of A Darker Shade of Magic but after the prologue where you ‘are’ Kell and visit Grey London so that you can learn how to play the game and its controls, you would then get to choose whether you wanted to play as Kell, Lila, or Holland. Obviously then when the next video games were released you could also play as Alucard etc. In fact, A Gathering of Shadows begs to be made a video game because of the Essen Tasch magic tournament. Basically they need to make this series into something soon before I burst.

 1. Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson (x)

One of the first things I thought whilst reading The Final Empire was that the way the magic system was described was so perfectly suited to the video game genre – it was like I could see the combos you’d need to press to tap into an Allomantic skill. This could be a great game too because you could ‘build’ your own character and choose which Metallic Art you wanted them to use – kind of like when you choose whether to be one of the ‘good guys’ or ‘evil guys’. And then, I mean, come on, Allomancy totally lends itself to video games – imagine how awesome it would look to ingest a metal and then be able to pull on the train tracks to go leaping back to the city, like in the books. This book series was made to be a video game, so much so that I am extremely surprised it isn’t one already!

So there we have it folks – those were my top 5 books that I think would make great video games. Do you agree/disagree with my choices? What books do you think would make pretty great games? Do you have a Top 5 Wednesday list or post of your own? Be sure to link it below if so; I’d love to take a look!

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