In Spring 2006, I taught a section of Special Topics in Game Design and Analysis devoted to the question of adaptation and translation for games. This was a graduate course open to students in Georgia Tech’s Digital Media graduate program in the School of Literature Communication and Culture, as well as students in the College of Computing.
While most commercial interest in game adaptation focuses on films alone, in this course we looked at all kinds of source texts, from 7th century BC Greek lyric poetry through contemporary television. You can see some of the work produced in the class on the course wiki.
The syllabus is reproduced below.
LCC 8823 / LCC8803B Special Topics in Game Design and Analysis
Prof. Ian Bogost
Skiles 024
ibogost at gatech dot edu
(404) 894-1160
This seminar deals broadly with games as a unique kind of representational medium, and specifically on representations of cultural, social, and human experience in games. We will focus on the procedural production and representation of such phenomena, borrowing form a wide variety of literature, film and games, and paying special attention to the way specific aspects of human experience are represented in rules and code.
We will focus especially on comparative approaches to game design and criticism, and to that end we will work extensively using an approach that I am calling “procedural translation,” taking themes and figures from poetry, literature, film, and television (from 7th c. BC Greek poets to Seinfeld) and asking how such themes are could be represented in games. We will interrogate this problem through the lens of the last hundred years or so of translation theory as well as through writings on film and television adaptation. Works covered cover three millennia of human production, including works by Archilochus, Sappho, Marie de France, Baudelaire, Laclos, Eliot, Bukowski, Coppola, Scorcese, Stillman, Seinfeld, and Groening. We will seek to understand not only how translation studies can influence existing approaches to game adaptation, but also what new opportunities for adapted games remain unexplored in the current marketplace of Hollwood-bound blockbuster IP.
Students will produce fifteen game designs and implement at least a third of those designs in prototypes for simple, completed games. Students will be expected to execute at least one complete, professional quality game based on these designs and prototypes. Active participation in weekly design workshops, including regular in-class presentations and critique is mandatory. This course assumes intermediate to advanced programming, graphic design, sound design, and critical skills. Game sessions and film screenings outside of class are likewise required. Reading knowledge in one or more foreign languages is beneficial but not required.
Course Requirements
Fifteen (15) one-page design document posters (2 points each = 30%)
Five (5) design prototypes. (6 points each = 30%)
One (1) completed game, including near-professional quality programming, art, and sound (30%)
Class participation, design workshop presentations and peer critique (10%)
Strive to do one design a week if possible, and implement as many as you can. The five prototypes and one completed game will be turned in at the end of the course; this should give you the freedom to try different approaches and potentially abandon a few. The course’s many Design Workshops are meant to provide iterative design feedback.
Work will be graded based on two factors:
(1) Clear articulation of interpretation of source text and approach to translation/adaptation (along with the plausibility of that interpretation)
(2) Execution of the above (in the case of the final game, completeness and professionalism)
Prototypes and games can be developed in any appropriate technology, including C/C++, Java, Proce55ing, Flash, Shockwave, BlitzBasic, Unreal, Aurora, etc.
Because this is my course, I’m subjecting you to literature and film that I like. You may not be so fond of all of these works. While I’d like you to take on some of the subject matter that may be new or unfamiliar, you are welcome to suggest material of your own selection. It would be nice if these sources fit thematically with the ones we’ll cover in class, and at any rate they should be presented and discussed in class and in office hours to confirm appropriateness.
Required Texts
The following books are available at the Engineers Bookstore.
Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies. New York & London: Routledge, 1988. ISBN 0100%187478.
Carver, Raymond. Short Cuts: Selected Stories. New York: Vintage, 1993. ISBN 0679748644.
de Laclos, Choderlos. Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Trans. Douglas Parmee. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. ISBN0192838679.
Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land and Other Poems. New York: Harcourt, 1934. ISBN 015694877X.
Henrie, Mark C., ed. Doomed Bourgeois in Love. Wilmington, DE: ISI, 2002. ISBN 1882926706.
Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby. New York: Penguin, 1999. ISBN 0140447598.
Seinfeld, Jerry. Seinlanguage. New York: Bantam, 1995. ISBN 0553569155.
Venuti, Lawrence, ed. The Translation Studies Reader. New York & London: Routledge, 2000.
Course Reader
Supplementary readings will be handed out in class or referenced online from time to time.
A Note on Translations
This course looks at the problem of videogame adaptation from the perspective of translation studies. Many of the texts we will read were not originally written in English. Since issues of translation are central, students with expertise in one or more foreign languages are encouraged to read works in the originals. Wherever possible, originals will be provided with the translations. Students are encouraged to bring their own works in a language they read.
A Note on Films and Games
We will watch a great many films and play several games in the course of the semester. Screening times for films and play times for games will take place outside our normal course meeting times. Films will be made available for ad-hoc viewing and, tentatively, group screening times will be arranged on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays at 4:30pm in Skiles 368.
Tentative Schedule
Games/reading assignments may be altered each week as we progress.
Week 1
Introduction
Intro to translation studies
Bassnet, Translation Studies
Week 2
Approaches
Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”
Derrida, “Towers of Babel”
Early Lyric Poetry
Archilochus, Sappho, Alcaeus, Catullus
WarioWare, WarioWare Touched, Wario Ware Twisted, Feel the Magic
Week 3
Design Workshop
Rabassa, “No Two Snowflakes are Alike”
The Medieval Lay
Marie de France
Week 4
Design Workshop
Pound, Borges (TSR)
Modern & High Modern Poetry
Baudelaire
Week 5
Modern & High Modern Poetry
Eliot (Prufrock, Preludes, The Waste Land)
Studio (no class)
Week 6
Design Workshop
Pound continued
Ortega y Gasset (TSR)
Romantic Poetry
Dickinson (selections)
The Game Designer’s Challenge (GDC 2005)
Week 7
Design Workshop
Vinay and Darbelnet, Jakobson, Nida (TSR)
Early 20th C. Avant Garde Poetry
Hulme, Pound, Lindsay, Stein, Williams
Selections on imagism
Orisinal Morning Sunshine http://www.orisinal.com
Week 8
Design Workshop
Levy, Reiss, Steiner, Spivak (TSR)
20th Century American Poetry
Bukowski, Alexie, Fairchild
Week 9
Oct. 18, 20
No Class (Fall Recess)
Contemporary Film-based Videogames
Atari VCS adaptations (Porky’s, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, E.T.)
Jackson, The Return of the King (2003)
Electronic Arts, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Electronic Arts, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Electronic Arts, The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age
Electronic Arts, The Godfather
Majesco, Taxi Driver (if available)
Week 10
Design Workshop
Whelehan, “Adaptations: The contemporary dilemmas”
Film Adaptation
Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Frears, Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Forman, Valmont (1989)
Kumble, Cruel Intentions (1999)
Kamuf, “Detour Signs”
Week 11
Studio
Theater and Film
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Zeffireili, Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Luhrman, Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Cartmell, “The Shakespeare on screen industry”
Week 12
Design Workshop
Frawley, Vermeer (TSR)
Characters
Stillman, Metropolitan (1990)
Stillman, Barcelona (1994)
Stillman, The Last Days of Disco (1998)
Henrie (ed.), Doomed Bourgeois in Love
Week 13
Design Workshop
Lefevere, Gutt, Reiss (TSR)
Vignettes and Intersections
Carver, Short Cuts
Aldiss, “Supertoys last all summer”
Altman, Short Cuts (1993)
Spielberg, A.I. (2001)
Week 14
Design Workshop
Hark, “The wrath of the original cast”
No Class (Thanksgiving)
Week 15
Primetime Television
Selections from Seinfeld (1989 – 1998)
Selections from The Simpsons (1989-)
Seinfeld, Seinlanguage
The Simpsons Hit & Run
Design Studio
Week 16
Final Design Workshop