Johnnemann Nordhagen: How to adapt Jaws as an Indie Game (Twitter Transcript)
One of the things I like about Twitter is how you can get introduced to stuff via retweets. Someone you follow might retweet somebody you never heard of and all of a sudden you discover some great advice, art, insight, or whatever. This morning former storyboard artist Emma Coats, retweeted game developer Johnnemann Nordhagen. (Who I had never heard of before, I like to play games but I'm not very into the people behind them.)
He did a thread about how you might approach an Indie Game adaptation of Jaws. The great thing about his tweets is that he shows how you might easily be mistaken about what Jaws is about. He divides three elements: plot, tone and theme. What I like about his analysis is that he shows how you could basically adapt some of your favorite existing material without the need for it to be a full reboot or sequel.
It reminded me of how Star Wars is in many ways an adaptation of the original Flash Gordon films from the 10930's. In fact George Lucas initially tried to get the rights to Flash Gordon, when this didn't work out he came up with Star Wars.
We live in a time where many of the big movie productions are sequels, reboots or adaptations of existing material like books and tv shows. Originality seems to be a little harder to find. The funny thing is that some of the most loved 'original' films were very much inspired by existing material. I wish more people making films would do these kind of hidden adaptations, because it would probably give us films that would feel fresher than all these sequels and reboots.
It seems that few people bother to do this kind of analysis of what actually makes up the existing property they are working with. Below is a transcript of Johnnemann's tweets:
If there's one thing we've seen recently in indie games, it's that you can make a game that has all the important elements of your favorite IP without the set dressing that licensing requires. Translating Jaws to a game format would require a lot of work, most of which is independent of/orthogonal to the actual concepts of Amity Island, Richard Dreyfuss, Spanish Ladies, or even a shark. We all know by now that I'm not a great game designer, and I've never adapted an IP, but, well, this website is free, so I'm going to live-brainstorm how one might approach a Jaws game without licensing Jaws.
What is Jaws about? Well, a lot of things! Its most important element is probably different to different people. Plot-wise, it's about a shark eating tourists. Tone-wise, it's about the horror of unseen lurking dangers and unknowable, unconquerable Nature. Theme-wise, it's about being a Man, and the different ways Manhood manifests (man-ifests, haha, get it) - we have three archetypal Men, the strong, competent, dangerous loner captain, the brave, smart, and curious scientist, and the protective, nurturing but bumbling Father. (Women are basically absent in this movie, except for victims and wives/mothers, and of course it was made in 1975 so NB and queer folk are shown less than the shark)
So, what do you want to emphasize? It would be pretty easy to take the plot and recast the shark as a different monster, move it from a tourism-dependent island to a different location. You could keep the tone and the themes the same pretty easily. You could decide that the tone is the most important thing, and that what you want is not necessarily the same plot but really to make a game about unseen, lurking dangers, you want to capture the *feel* of being in a dark and lonely boat while monsters circle beneath.
Or you could decide you want to capture the theme, and either explore Manhood in a different setting or interrogate what the movie seems to say about What Is A Man. I think that would be the most interesting but also would probably look the least like a Jaws game. (Unless you included a literal shark! I think that would be the most effective thing, make it about a Man-eating shark but approach the question of Manhood differently or include women/NB/queer characters. Sharks, BTW, are still public domain)
More obviously, though, the hard part is not coming up with the idea "a shark is eating people and we need to kill it", it's adapting the plot, tone, or theme to gameplay. Because the minute you start to try to tackle that you end up with a LOT of unanswered questions.
Like, what are the player verbs that most effectively communicate what you want? In Jaws the protagonists are fairly powerless, and there's the cool classic hunter/hunted reversal (assuming you're trying to capture the hunt itself and not, like, being on the island under siege!). What perspective is this? Do you control one person in a first- or third-person game? Do you switch between characters with different strengths and weaknesses to show the different Man-Types? Or are you They Are Billions-style managing an island besieged?
