Romeo & Juliet: The Adventure Game

Keane Ng

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Romeo & Juliet: The Adventure Game



First Dante's Inferno, now this. Most Romantic Tales: Romeo & Juliet, an adventure game-style adaptation of Shakespeare's tale of tragically doomed lovers who, it turns out, don't have to be so doomed after all.

Available for $12.99 and developed by Baby Eish Games, Most Romantic Tales: Romeo and Juliet [http://www.babyeishgames.com/Romeo-Juliet.html] brings The Bard's classic (and everyone's favorite required high school reading) out of the dusty old footnote-heavy world of literature and into the modern realm of rudimentary point-and-click adventuring. The graphics look like a PS1-era cutscene, while the gameplay is basically going through dialogue trees and solving a basic puzzle or two.

And while Most Romantic Tales is far from Dante's Inferno [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89338-First-Dantes-Inferno-Game-Details-Emerge] when it comes to the liberties it takes with the original, it does make some drastic changes that'll get Shakespeareans up in a tizzy. For one, it modernizes all of the language into "contemporary colloquial American English."

Even more controversial than that is the fact that you can change the ending of the play. It's a tragedy, remember? Everybody dies. Well, not in this version. "You can follow the original storyline, or choose a happy ending," Baby Eish Games writes.

Baby Eish Games, however, believe they're not doing any disservice to the original by making it more palatable to modern tastes. In fact, they think they're doing the opposite. "Shakespeare was an entertainer, not an academic," a spokesperson told Virgin.net [http://gamesnews.virgin.net/Virgin/Lifestyle/Games/virginGamesNewsDetail/0,13470,5122355_playbetandwin,00.html]. "Frankly, we think he'd be pretty appalled at how we teach his plays at school. They're meant to be enjoyed, and translating his works into computer games is a great way to reach the modern audience on their own ground."

Try out the demo here [http://www.babyeishgames.com/Romeo-Juliet.html].

[Via Fidgit [http://www.gameculture.com/node/1202]]

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Nov 5, 2007
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Keane Ng said:
Baby Eish Games, however, believe they're not doing any disservice to the original by making it more palatable to modern tastes. In fact, they think they're doing the opposite. "Shakespeare was an entertainer, not an academic," a spokesperson told Virgin.net [http://gamesnews.virgin.net/Virgin/Lifestyle/Games/virginGamesNewsDetail/0,13470,5122355_playbetandwin,00.html]. "Frankly, we think he'd be pretty appalled at how we teach his plays at school. They're meant to be enjoyed, and translating his works into computer games is a great way to reach the modern audience on their own ground."
Ok, I can agree with that but a good ending ? Kinda weird. I hope it's well pulled off and not heavily sugar-coated.
 

Baby Tea

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Sep 18, 2008
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oliveira8 said:
Juliet looks like she just returned from the grave in that pic...
Must not have been the 'happy ending'.

And while I agree that Shakespeare would want his plays to be enjoyed, I don't think changing the entire story would make him very happy.

Well, at least it wasn't the Leisure Suit Larry edition I was afraid of.
 

Simon Hadow

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As long as Mercutio is still a freak, and dies spouting words of hatred towards the Montagues and Capulets, I shall stay my hand in any violent action against this... butchery...
 

L.B. Jeffries

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Baby Tea said:
oliveira8 said:
Juliet looks like she just returned from the grave in that pic...
Must not have been the 'happy ending'.

And while I agree that Shakespeare would want his plays to be enjoyed, I don't think changing the entire story would make him very happy.

Well, at least it wasn't the Leisure Suit Larry edition I was afraid of.
Oh I don't know, I doubt he'd care so long as it sold. I took a course on 18th Century Theater that focused on the economics and competing plays for Shakespeare. The thing it made me realize was that these plays were just as seasonal and popularity driven as everything else. Revenge plays were really popular, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. Epic tragedies were really popular, he wrote Romeo & Juliet. History plays were popular for ages, so he wrote Henry the Fifth.

Methinks I'll try the demo out.
 

9of9

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Say what you will, but that doesn't look like PS1-era graphics to me. If anything, my first thought looking at the screenshot was, 'Hmm, that's quite pretty for an adventure game'. Will have to see how it plays though :)

Trouble with adapting plays though is that they're rather concise and to the point - as far as games go, there's just point-blank not a lot of scope for interactivity without derailing the whole thing.

One way to do it though would be to put the player in charge of extraneous characters - say, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Actually, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead would make for a fantastic adventure.
 

9of9

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Okay, nevermind... that was considerably worse than expected. What the site doesn't mention is that all the graphics are pre-rendered, static images in poor quality XD It's not even animated. It's slightly better quality than your average Flash adventure game rendered in a four-year-old version of poser. Nice dresses though.
 

RebelRising

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Baby Tea said:
oliveira8 said:
Juliet looks like she just returned from the grave in that pic...
Must not have been the 'happy ending'.

And while I agree that Shakespeare would want his plays to be enjoyed, I don't think changing the entire story would make him very happy.

Well, at least it wasn't the Leisure Suit Larry edition I was afraid of.
Haha, I remember your prediction from the Dante news piece. Just out of curiosity, how do you think a R&J game should play, if you were ever given the chance to make one?
 

stompy

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Keane Ng said:
(and everyone's favorite required high school reading)
Oh yes, definitely my favourite school text. Just as high in my books as Leonardo DeCaprio... and yes, we watched that travesty of a movie...
 

Spacelord

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sirdanrhodes said:
I can't wait to play this game(!)
Ok, not really on topic, but I really think that the bracketed punctuation should be the new standard in being sarcastic on fora. It'll probably eliminate a lot of miscommunication.
 

jimduckie

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more crap to use for target practice wohoo and sry to disappoint ya kids they die in the end
 

TsunamiWombat

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On the ONE hand, I feel they're right that Shakespeare would hate his plays are now the definition of child abuse.

On the other, I feel he would also hate this terrible terrible diea.
 

Avatar Roku

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Simon Hadow said:
As long as Mercutio is still a freak, and dies spouting words of hatred towards the Montagues and Capulets, I shall stay my hand in any violent action against this... butchery...
Agreed.

A plague a' both your houses!
stompy said:
Keane Ng said:
(and everyone's favorite required high school reading)
Oh yes, definitely my favourite school text. Just as high in my books as Leonardo DeCaprio... and yes, we watched that travesty of a movie...
You mean that modern version? I thought it was actually alright, considering that it reimagined most of the characters in an interesting way, i.e Mercutio being basically a Rasta.
 

Nazulu

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Jun 5, 2008
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Great! Speaking American and choosing endings, well this is just another game to make a quick buck isn't it? Make them speak with the proper English accent and I'll think about it.
 

Erana

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Feb 28, 2008
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It looks visually appealing, but the chick is so thin... x.x
And wasn't she younger?

Keane Ng said:
"Shakespeare was an entertainer, not an academic," a spokesperson told Virgin.net [http://gamesnews.virgin.net/Virgin/Lifestyle/Games/virginGamesNewsDetail/0,13470,5122355_playbetandwin,00.html]. "Frankly, we think he'd be pretty appalled at how we teach his plays at school. They're meant to be enjoyed, and translating his works into computer games is a great way to reach the modern audience on their own ground."
After having to deal with learning about postmodernism for hours, its luxurious to hear someone say something as rational as this...

And that's saying something about art criticism, considering that they just claimed to know what William Shakespeare thought.
 

reaper_2k9

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Oct 22, 2008
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What is it with the tapping into classical literature..are game developers running out of ideas to the point that sequels don't work....

Somethings are better left alone.
 

stompy

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orannis62 said:
You mean that modern version? I thought it was actually alright, considering that it reimagined most of the characters in an interesting way, i.e Mercutio being basically a Rasta.
I didn't like it. Then again, it was probably more to do with me not liking Romeo and Juliet at all, rather than the movie itself. That, and I don't think DiCaprio could act to save his life.