Läsa spel. En analys av Alice-böckernas adaptation till spelformatet

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to examine the consequences following an adaptation from literature to video game format by comparing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with American McGee's Alice and, primarily, Alice: Madness Returns. In order to answer this, aspects of both game theory and literary critique are taken into consideration, regarding for example the narrative potential of the game medium and the gameplay's possible resemblance with Wolfgang Iser's theory of the reading process. The analysis shows in what ways the original narrative has been altered in order to fit its new medium. Some of the books' main ingredients are simply retold in the games' so called information spaces, i.e. text and video sequences where the otherwise playable character is not controlled. Others, instead, have undergone a ludolization or ergodization where the story events are experienced as playable elements in the games' action spaces. Both games are structured with a notable imperative narrative that each player has to follow, while Alice: Madness Returns allows for more exploration and, consequently, greater possibility to expand the story told. This is mainly done by finding details and memory fragments in the game's different environments and is, to some extent, comparable with the reader's filling in on the structured blanks in a written text. In this regard the game scenario, however, is understood as a visual and ergodic manifestation of the reader's mental process. This shows that, in the case of these particular game adaptations, the increased degree of interactivity has brought with it a greater focus on the narrative as such. Both games also focus more on the character development of Alice, as opposed to Carroll's original stories, while the complexity of the latter's possible meanings instead is simplified into a single interpretation where Wonderland comes across as nothing more than Alice's own delusion. Thus the two game adaptations in question are best considered as complements rather than possible substitutes to the original literary works. From a didactical point of view the aspect of comparing narratives in classic literature to that in different media, such as video games, is discussed in Raine Koskimaa's terms of electracy as a new form of literacy. Also considered is James Paul Gee's notion of video games as something more relevant than literature for today's students, which is why studies of the medium come across as more important by the day. The significance of relating the literary canon to the many different forms in which it is expressed anew is therefore emphasized as a didactic goal to strive for.