Has there ever been a game directly based off of a book?

[Beltom]

snip

That seems like an extremely good book to me, i'll have to see if they have any copies in Waterstones. So what you're saying is that the game is taking elements from both the book and the movie but not completely copying either. So you get the themes you mentioned above from the book and more obvious things, such as the title "Stalker", from the movie. I apologise if what I just said isn't very coherent.

 

[stonerocker]

People keep on bringing up LOTR. But no one has mentioned the original LOTR game for the snes, which came before the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkien%27s_The_Lord_of_the_Rings,_Vol._I

This must count.

EDIT: This game was released in 1990. But there was a cartoon movie based on lord of the rings released in 1978.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(1978_film)

which was followed by it's sequel title The Return of the King in 1980.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_King_(1980_film)

The Hobbit also had an animated film in 1997

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(1977_film)

So do the games The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Vol. 1 count or not?

 

[heniv181]

Technically, they were all a single group's D&D sessions. One of the group was a writer who got their adventures (and several based on the world - Forgotten Realms) published. Technically, that means that the books came first in the franchise, because the Forgotten Realms books inspired the Forgotten Realms P&P RPG which in turn inspired the games.

Man now we'r in a pickle. =) A game (D&D) inspired a novel (FR) that inspired a another similar game(FR-P&P), and yet another level of novels (Dark Elf for example, but alot other) (or am i getting this backwards) that inspired the games BG, IWD & NWN.

Were does that leave us? Is it a "game of a game" or a "game of a novel"? ^_^

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Timeline was based on the book of the same name, but that was such a shitty game.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" was based on a short story of the same name, written by Harlan Ellison.

Yes, that was the one I was thinking of.

Terry Pratchets - Discworld http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_(video_game)

Good god. I had that on the Playstation. What an epic game.

But I nearly forgot the 2 Discworld games.

Ah wait-Dinotopia. It also had a PC game before the mini-series came out. I love the concept but every single one of the games for it I've played sucked. The first had bad controls and the last one I picked up had a Scottsman voice giving instructions. I couldn't take five minutes of it. (I usually like the Scottish brogue but this guy was supposed to be a long-term resident...I couldn't buy that he had such a strong Scottish accent in a blended society when everyone didn't have them.)

 

[BolognaBaloney]

Chronicles of Narnia was based of the movie based of the book.

 

[Ranthus]

There's the old LOTR games from 1986 and 1987, and the The Hobbit games. I don't see how The Hobbit was a spinoff, as the Lord of the Rings was was published 17 years after The Hobbit. And if I somehow misunderstood what you meant, what do you mean?

Games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(1982_video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(2003_video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Rings:_Game_One
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_Mordor

Book Publication Dates References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring

EDIT:

People keep on bringing up LOTR. But no one has mentioned the original LOTR game for the snes, which came before the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkien%27s_The_Lord_of_the_Rings,_Vol._I

This must count.

EDIT: This game was released in 1990. But there was a cartoon movie based on lord of the rings released in 1978.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(1978_film)

which was followed by it's sequel title The Return of the King in 1980.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_King_(1980_film)

The Hobbit also had an animated film in 1977

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(1977_film)

So do the games The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Vol. 1 count or not?

Well, I knew about the The Hobbit movie (yes, I know it came before the games), and I believe the games were based off the book. Who would want to base a game off of THAT movie?

 

[Chipperz]

Technically, they were all a single group's D&D sessions. One of the group was a writer who got their adventures (and several based on the world - Forgotten Realms) published. Technically, that means that the books came first in the franchise, because the Forgotten Realms books inspired the Forgotten Realms P&P RPG which in turn inspired the games.

Man now we'r in a pickle. =) A game (D&D) inspired a novel (FR) that inspired a another similar game(FR-P&P), and yet another level of novels (Dark Elf for example, but alot other) (or am i getting this backwards) that inspired the games BG, IWD & NWN.

Were does that leave us? Is it a "game of a game" or a "game of a novel"? ^_^

Excuse me for a second, my brain is shutting down...

I THINK it would count as a game of a novel, because they were the first things that were made available to the public under the Forgotten Realms title, but that's just my opinion.

 

[Beltom]

snip

That seems like an extremely good book to me, i'll have to see if they have any copies in Waterstones. So what you're saying is that the game is taking elements from both the book and the movie but not completely copying either. So you get the themes you mentioned above from the book and more obvious things, such as the title "Stalker", from the movie. I apologise if what I just said isn't very coherent.

Films crap, game has more resemblance to the book than the film. The book is far superior to both but would be unplayable as a game.

Well most book-based films are crap, mostly due to the fact they have to trim out half the story out to fit it into a 2 hour time frame. The book being unplayable as a game is what I was trying to say when I said that it took elements from the book but did not copy it completely.

 

[The3rdEye]

Dragonriders of Pern, based on the SciFantasy series of the same name by Anne McCaffrey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern

Wheel of Time, based on the fantasy series of the same name by Robert Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time_(computer_game)

 

[Nerdfury]

There was a "The Hobbit" game...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(2003_video_game)

Read the full OP, you idiot.

That was unnecessary, considering you edited your original post to cover yourself.

And technically there has not yet been a movie based on The Hobbit yet, and so D_987's post is accurate. Additionally, there was actually a game based on The Hobbit long before Peter Jackson did his grisly work and gave us the The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

And let's not forget the game based off of The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, as well as various games based off of their Dragonlance series.

 

[dorm41baggins]

My fellow "old timers" will likely remember The Telarium Corporation [http://adventure.if-legends.org/Telarium_Corporation.html] a.k.a. Windham Classics whose entire catalog consisted of games based on books. Most were text adventures, but a couple, like "Below the Root" were 2D adventures.

Edit: Fixed broken link.

 

[haruvister]

Boom Blox was based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy.

 

[llewgriff]

Call of cuthul DCOTE, well it's kinda based off a book, freaking awsome game though.

 

[stonerocker]

Well, I knew about the The Hobbit movie (yes, I know it came before the games), and I believe the games were based off the book. Who would want to base a game off of THAT movie?

Some sadistic person might think it was a good idea... no honestly I have no idea what they were thinking with those animated movies. And musical? God.

 

[dorm41baggins]

And technically there has not yet been a movie based on The Hobbit yet

I'm not defending the OPs attitude here, but yeah, there was [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077687/], much as many fans would like to forget it.

There are, however, plenty of games [http://www.lysator.liu.se/tolkien-games/] based on Tolkien's work [http://www.thangorodrim.net/] that have nothing to do with the movies.