Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. IF I STARTED WORKING AT THE LOCAL ARBY'S WOULD THAT CREEP YOU OUT? Don't say we didn't warn you.

I got a dizzying number of letters today, so I shan't waste too much of our valuable time with one of my so-called "introductions," but I just wanted to acknowledge what so many of you were kind enough to point out to me: literature, film, and video games are incomparable media and only a simpleton would attempt to weave them together into an ill-educated topic such as this.

Well with God as my witness, I am that simpleton, and a staggering number of readers have shown up to defend me with their own picks for author/director crossovers.

So, then. Let's go.

Blood & Gorey

E is for Erin who choked on a peach- I would love to see games based on the work of Edward Gorey. His pointless and nonsenseical stories would be perfect for short little video games. make some of best stories into games and put 5 or 6 onto one disc. they could be called videogamettes. bite sized, ya know? anyways, his art is so strikingly unique and downright creepy that it would be a great addition to the ps2's software library (cause you KNOW ps2 is the best). Unfortunately, Gorey is dead, so i guess there wont be any games coming our way featuring wugglyumps or fatal lozenges. oh well. -J is for Jackson who took lye by mistake.

Edward Gorey is not someone I've ever mentally connected with video games in any way, but as soon as I read this I was overwhelmed with memories of Mystery! coming on public television after my mother's Britcoms when I was but a wee lass. Even then, the dark genteel that characterizes his work intrigued me - even if I was mildly unsettled by that wailing lady on the slab.

Visual Communications students take note - the art world has yet to find its next Edward Gorey.

Or has it...?

Jhonen Vasquez, The Game

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac; The Game Writer: Jhonen Vasquez Director: Jhonen Vasquez Scenario Designer: Jhonen Vasquez Character Designer: Jhonen Vasquez Lead artist: Jhonen Vasquez DCB- you get the idea Ps. I'd play it even if it were 10 times worse than Evil Dead: Hail to the king

I'd most definitely play it ... but, sorry. Not given that condition.

Regardless of genre, a JtHM game would certainly put the likes of Okage to shame in terms of dark, bizarre humour and dark, bizarre visual style. But of course the more mainstream nomination in a similar vein was none other than Tim Burton.

Chills

Tim Burton. Holy moses, is there any answer more obvious than this? It's often been accepted that Tim Burton is primarily a visual director - his sets, his costumes, his camera work, they're all utterly, gooily wonderful. As a matter of fact, the storyline will often take a backseat to his features on account of this (I'm looking in your direction, Planet of the Apes), but let's face it - putting the same mind who helped conceive the world of the movie adaptation of Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and technically, The Nightmare Before Christmas into a playground as vast as game design just gives me chills thinking about it. -Hojo, who wants to see how many Infinite Grids are in Halloweentown

You know what...? This fabulously genius topic leaves me with little to nothing to contribute again.

That said, I'd certainly check out a Burton game, too - if it didn't suck.

My fear with this whole concept is ... who else is involved? Who's designing field graphics and battle engines for these games? The relative brilliance of whatever writer/designer whiz whose name ends up prominantly underscoring whatever horrendous box art they give this thing would be wholly lost if the rest of the development team is made up of Big Rain alumni.

Putting the dribble back in dribbly candles

Anyone who knows me knows what my choice'd be. Terry Pratchett. Ah, yes, he's already done two games (where his credits are, respectively, "Shouting At People" and "Throwing Rocks From Afar"). Largely, though, the content of the game wasn't lacking, but its gameplay, which consisted of trying to guess what the game designers had drunk the night before to make you figure out how to get dribbly candles dribbly. O_o But those games were specifically for PC, where this kind of thing is okay, because people playing it on a PC have more patience, generally. If they could do a cel-shaded game something along the lines of Shenmue (with more anthropomorphic personification), and keep the awesome humor, it would... well, probably tank at the box office, but us crazed insane nutsoid devoted Pratchett fans would be in second heaven. Make of that what you will. --Cidolfas RPGClassics.com / FFCompendium.com

Terry Pratchett was something of an obvious choice in all of this - and while I've tried to cull out many of tonight's goes-without-sayings due to the massive influx of mail, I figured he deserved representation due to his overwhelming popularity. Pratchett is fantasy's Douglas Adams, and his ravings have already inspired several PC titles and, due to his generously not charging for use of his twisted intellectual properties, the free Discworld MUD.

I could also mention Psygnosis' PSX Discworld, but it really wasn't all that eminently mentionable.

Alas, a lot of the gods mentioned tonight are Americans and Brits, and Americans and Brits - let's face it - aren't really renowned for their console software. So as I was getting at before, my somewhat cynical outlook on this whole dream of ours is that, unless these would-be titles are brought into being for the PC, I fear any such brainchildren will have to settle for the midwifery, of, say ... Eidetic.

Turn of events

Erin, With the increasing prestiege of video game directors, I think that having a game headed by a hollywood director would be a pretty neat idea, as far as cinematics go. But telling a story through games and telling a story through film are still two different ballparks, if they aren't located in the same recreation center. Plus, beign able to have computer artists render whatever you wanted your characters to do would almost kinda negate a Director's originality in finding relistic means to convey unrealistic scenes. But I'm just old hat, I guess =B But, to the topic, Directors/writers I'd like to see work on a video game project: George Romero: The Grandaddy of Survival Horror. If Romero can't write the RE movie script, let him work on a survival horror game. It would beat the pants off of anything that Capcom could muster. And this coming from a huge RE fan... You best recognise, Romero =P Sam Raimi: Probably one of the first directors I can remember praising for his use of unique camera angles and 'trick' shots, Raimi has a vision when in his element. I'd like to see him in a Survival Horror game just because of Evil Dead, but he's done so much more... Probably a good adventure game, or maybe even a RPG, would benefit from his style. M. Night Shamalayan (sp?): ...should definately write a game. I don't think his directing style or movie pacing would go over too terribly well in game form; but his screenplays are tense and suspenseful, and most always with that trick ending. Peter Jackson: Four words: Bad Taste, The Game. Or Braindead, for that matter. And that's all I can think of right now, 'cuz I'm late for work. -I'm a pisces. Pisces' don't run.

Don't sweat it - you did me the service of covering a lot of noteworthy choices in one letter.

I would definitely love to play a game through to one of Shyamalan's trick endings, but I gotta say ... after Sam Raimi's allowing Evil Dead: Hail to the King to exist, I fear his involvement with any game I might one day happen to play. But I suppose ED:HttK can and should be conveniently blamed on THQ, instead, since a lot of bad things are their fault. Too bad this serves as an example of what I was describing above....

Keeping the faith (or not)

Agent E - If the woman could be possessed to do so, I want to see a game out of Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow and Children of God). One book out of that woman has ten times the faith-shattering capacity of all of Square's best God-killing games combined. - An'Desha - Agnostic when agnostic wasn't cool.

Funny how someone twice-over religious like Russell should churn out faith-shattering work, huh? Tragically, I can't see a lot of Western developers braving controversy and trying to sell a "faith-shattering" game to the largely Christian public.

Does anyone else feel the need to wash their hands...?

I can think of two artists I would drop mad bank to see take a crack at devloping video games. 1) Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. With the musical, the silent episode, and Buffy's Mom's death, Whedon has proven he can pull off risky innovative ideas in the realm of television. I think he could do some very interesting and fresh things with a console RPG. The game would have story and chracter in spades, and hopefully he discard or put a spin on some of the tired RPG cliches. With or without the Buffy franchise, it would rock. Better than the Joss Whedon brand snack cakes at least. 2) Dr Dre...the possibilites are endless. Rap Tycoon; A weed farming simulation; An RPG where recruit Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and Eminem to join your party. All of these, of course, would have with more pimps and hos that GTA III. Cashlock P.S. If "Experience Britney" delivers everything its title naughtily promises, it will the greatest video game of all time.

I shudder to think about the vicious "resurrect Tupac" rumours your second suggestion would spawn.

We want grits with our breakfast and Amano with our Gaiman

Erin- David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club). His films tend to have decent mature story lines in which the presentation of the story is just as important an element as the content. Give the man a temp job at Square and I suspect we'd have a wonderfully mature RPG on our hands (in which the hero is Not Necessarily Nice). Or let him handle the PS2 remakes of FF VII-IX and we could have Squall walking through Balamb Garden while little notes pop up reminding us of just how shallow an existence the students there lead. If nothing else, his games would have very cool opening/title sequences. Provided he uses the company he tends to use (I have completely forgotten the name). Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, The Sandman), I suspect, would also be able to provide a compelling take on the fantasy genre. His grasp of mythology/fairy tale and the ability to weave it into non fantasy settings (well, non traditional at any rate) would breathe some fresh air into that arena as well. Other notables would include Christopher Nolan (Memento), Alan Moore (Watchmen), J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter), the Coen Brothers (O Brother, Where Art Thou), Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven - what can I say, I enjoy his stuff, and he would make a truly awesome Western game) and probably several other whom I have forgotten. -drew Still not to be confused with The Drew

David Fincher got a lot of votes, which I think is a pretty good indicator that we're craving more grit with our games.

Good of you to mention the Coen Brothers. Retelling the Odyssey in the depression-era South while still imbuing it with an otherworldly mysticism is no small feat. Think of the revolutionary RPG these boys could make.

Also, I thought JK Rowlings was an obvious choice for her fairy-tale sense of wonder, but you're the only one to mention the old girl.

Neil Gaiman, on the other hand, was advocated to death - and curiously more people cited his collaboration with Amano on the anniversary edition of Sandman than they did his diverse writing experience and knowledge of obscure mythology. Shows where your priorities lie.

Assigned reading

Yo. First off, NOT Robert Jordan. He'd take a perfectly excellent story and then fsck it up by trying to run it way longer than he feasibly should. Now that I've fulfilled my inflammatory-slamming-of-popular-authors for today, I'd like to nominate Guy Gavriel Kay, simply because, short of Tolkien himself, this man is the greatest epic fantasy writer ever to live, in my own humble opinion. If you haven't yet read "The Fionavar Tapestry", you should immediately turn off your computer, run to the nearest library, and set aside the better part of tomorrow, 'cause you've got some serious reading to do. Not only that, but his stories would fit quite nicely into the video game format. I mean, who doesn't love epic high-fantasy RPG's? What with Final Fantasy turning to the more science-fictiony route (although FFXI looks poised to change that), and the rest of the heavy-hitting Japanese RPG culture predictably following suit, as far as I can see (witness Xenosaga and Star Ocean 3), I think it's high time the traditional console RPG got a serious dose of some epic fantasy. Kay would be the ideal man for the job, I think. -Northwind, who thinks the idea of N*Sync wielding lightsabers, only to be cut down by battle droids, is too hilarious to pass up.

I haven't yet read Fionavar Tapestry, thank you.... And here I was planning on making a concerted effort not to miss any classes this semester.

Identity Crises

God bless you Ms Mehlos, Kurt Vonnegut, hands down. Read The Sirens of Titan or Cat's Cradle and tell me that you don't think they could be amazing rpg's if tweaked a bit. The only problem is what I should write for the rest of the letter. The above is too trite and unconvincing to sell the idea to any non-Vonnegut fans, but honestly I can't (or am just too tired too) explain what exactly about his books would make such an interesting, unique, and powerful game world. Well, at least I've hit a word quota that makes me kind of happy, so hopefully you're a Vonnegut fan and you'll print this. If not, go suck a lemon. Breakfast of Champions is the greatest book ever, -Ted Copulate

I don't want Kurt Vonnegut to make video games. I spent my entire young life confused by that whole maze of misconceptions as to who was Kilgore Trout and who was Phillip Jose Farmer and who was real and who was not and who did in fact write and who did in fact not even exist. Kurt Vonnegut and his entourage of fellow authors who may or may not be real put Fei's mere dissociative identity disorder to bitter shame.

Obligatory

Erin - Aside from myself, I'd kill to see an RPG written by Terry Goodkind. It wouldn't have to be a Sword of Truth thing, actually, it would be better if it were independant, at leats from the main characters of said series, but I would love to see his amazing world-building put to the ultimate test - actually building a world where you immerse yourself, not just watch. The fact that his storytelling and characters are top-notch doesn't hurt either... Peace, Ray Stryker...annoyed that the man who brought you Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street also created the masterpiece that was Dracula 2000...

C'mon. Someone had to say Goodkind.

Paling in comparison

I immediately thought of two authors I would love to see doing video games; both, naturally, are quite dead and have a bit of trouble doing much of anything anymore. Then I thought, 'Well, our esteemed DA used a dead author, so...' HP Lovecraft was a natural, of course. Silent Hill 3, script by HPL? I would be all over that. Especially if the art design were by Giger. Mmmmm... Anyway, my number one thought was Philip K. Dick. This man could put Square to shame (I'm thinking FFVII here). Think about it, a RPG where you find out halfway through the game that two of your characters are actually one man with split personalities? Pink beams sending you information about aliens who actually stopped history circa 70 C.E, only to start it again 1900 years later? Retarded Gods returning to Earth not knowing who they are? Reality that's completely artificial, used as a controlling mechanism? A game you play only to find out none of it was real, something else entirely was happening? All in all, not too far from some of the things we play/view now. Just better written. You have no idea where you've been, but it was one hell of a ride. Morpheus (Who's drooling at the thought of a Persona game co-authored by Dick and Lovecraft...)

Oh come on. You're doing the man who inspired Blade Runner a greater disservice than whoever cruelly branded his family with the surname "Dick" by saying he could put Square to shame. Blind and illiterate first-graders wearing mittens made of steel wool could weave a better plot from the fronds of the Prepubescent Plot Palm than Square. And Square, mind you, is pretty good about plots as RPG developers go.

Let's face it, guys. Video games have a ways to go before this kind of literary talent says ... "Hey - that's my new medium. Let's make something cool."

Closing Comments:

In case you haven't already figured it out, I am tired.

Therefore, time will probably reveal the topic I am about to assign you to be moronic in some way. But, nonetheless, here's hoping you talented people can roll with it....

If you could assemble a dream team of the game industry's various talents... what would the roster read like? Who'd write your scenarios? Who's conceptualize your characters? Would you go with a Uematso score, or a classic Sugiyama soundtrack? And, for North Americans and our pals in the PAL territories - assuming your dream team is largely Japanese, who would you prefer handled its localization?

You get my drift, guys. Seeya tomorrow, provided I survive the night terrors....

-Erin Mehlos