Adapting Crime and Punishment: A Preamble

Adapting Dostoevsky’s classic novel is something I have wanted to do for a considerably long time, it is easily my favourite novel and one of the most incredible literary works ever. However the literary suspense and extensive interior nature of Crime and Punishment hardly lends itself to adaptation whilst retaining much of its original form. There have been a significant number of adaptations of the novel largely on film and TV, however, I intend to try and adapt this amazing novel into a video game. My intention is largely to bring forth Dostoevsky’s St Petersberg, to try and capture the elements of psychological trauma experienced by Raskolnikov without falling into the classic trap of relying too heavily on voice-overs and interior monologuing.

Before I stray to further though I believe it is necessary to state here that I am not a programmer and my games design experience is next to none. Besides my life’s worth of gaming and my studies in film and media, literature and creative writing I am approaching this completely dry. It goes without saying that I am aiming to produce a compelling gaming experience, but because of my aforementioned lack of production experience it is not my only goal. This is an experiment of sorts, because I am planning to use Jason Rohrer’s new game “Sleep is Death” as a means to producing the assets and hosting my adaptation. Sleep is Death is, in essence, a two player interactive story telling game where one player acts as a “controller” and the other simply as the “player”. It plays itself out in a similar way to Dungeons and Dragons in this sense, except it is missing the number crunching, dice rolls and most importantly the awkward moments of having to role play face to face with your friends.

The beauty of SiD is that the controller is given an immense amount of freedom which, without a clear mental image of what you’re aiming for, can feel too open and too inaccessible. What I will let me do, however, is produce all the elements myself, from the characters, locales and even the music. Because of the way SiD games usually play out it is clear that I won’t be able to script a game in any conventional sense. Rather my approach will be to create my own version of St Petersberg based on Dostoevsky’s and then start just after the murder. The player will be forced to react to in a similar fashion to those in the opening scenes of Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) and then It will be up to the controller to direct accordingly. The hope is that this will create a structured, yet potentially limitless, playing experience where the player genuinely feels that they are having direct influence over the narrative direction. This will create several distinct challenges to the controller, the first of which is that he/she will need at least a basic knowledge of the characters and narrative of the novel. This isn’t to keep narrative fidelity per se, but rather to learn the relationships within the novel, to learn the characters and the major plot points which will be included. This way, whilst being open, the game will contain a consistent and believable world which the player will act in. The second major issue is the volume of assets which will have to be made and be at the ready so the controller can react within the turn time.

In addition to these potential problems the aesthetic nature of the game is especially important, yet without any canonical filmic or TV adaptation dictating any particular visual style, I will be creating basically all the resources from scratch. This means that I’ll have to produce a believable setting through the visuals, but also something visually distinctive which will become distinctively recognisable to the player after a short amount of play time. The first thing I plan to do in this respect is to watch the 2002 BBC adaptation as reference and then return to Dostoevsky’s own descriptions in the novel to try and negotiate an appropriate style. Research into 19th century Russia (more particularly St Petersberg), will be essential to add an element of visual fidelity and authenticity. Whilst I do realise that using words like “fidelity” and “authenticity” is touching on a particularly sensitive issue within adaptation studies, the dark St Petersberg shown to us by Dostoevsky is so integral to the novel’s externalisation of Raskolnikov’s thoughts, its almost a pre-requisite for any adaptation wishing to retain elements of the original. Admittedly, this darkness could be conveyed with a modern setting, yet without meaning to sound flippant, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Obviously, this is all a lot of work and won’t be an easy task. I have also got to consider the idea that this may not be possible at all. For starters I will work within a very small portion of the novel adding small amounts at a time, this will hopefully keep the project manageable and aid in its documentation, which, is potentially as important as the end result itself.

Any comments, or observations about the adaptation, SiD or anything relating to it would be greatly received. Peace out.

Chr15 6r33n (Follow me on Twitter at chrisgreen87 and for Chronoludic updates click here)

This is a first post in a while on RRoD, I’ve been a bit busy recently putting together a piece on emotion (crying in particular) in gaming/ of gamers, but rather more importantly I’ve just got married – was a totally exhausting experience, but well worth it!

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