Like all good hyper-literate, self-analyzing, hopeless romantic teenagers I went through a Shakespeare phase. You know exactly what I’m talking about: read as many plays as I could get my hands on along with all the sonnets (these were pre-Google days, so I had to hit the library for most of this stuff), frequented Shakespeare In The Park, started formulating my internal monologue in iambic pentameter (man, am I glad I stopped doing that). My favorite play was and still is Hamlet. I read the script countless times over the following decade, analyzing the emotional arcs of each and every character. I became somewhat of a Nazi regarding the screening of film adaptations*.
Now there’s a videogame. Hey, it (kinda) (almost) (sorta) worked for Dante’s Inferno (not really)…
mif2000′s Hamlet or Last Game Without MMORPG Elements, Shaders and Product Placement is an adventure game in the style of Monkey Island or Machinarium… sort of. According to the developer this game involves absolutely none of the item-gathering that is classic to the adventure genre and focuses entirely on logic problems… which I suppose makes it more like Professor Layton.
The art direction seems to be ripped right from the Gary Baseman playbook (might as well be “Cranium presents Hamlet“) with a heavy emphasis on comedy, a route many of the best adventure games have taken with tremendous success (conceptually and critically. Adventure games are still a huge risk commercially). I don’t remember any giant squids in Hamlet, but this could be an adaptation of of the pirate attack seen in the widely-acclaimed side-play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The fact that the player controls “Hero?” and not a known character from the play opens up all sorts of possibilities for activities that may have happened outside of Shakespeare’s text. That and, you know, the fact that it’s “inspired by” the play, much like 10 Things I Hate About You was inspired by Taming of the Shrew or the outrageous staging of Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet seen in Hot Fuzz. Still, logic puzzles and boss fights are two of my favorite activities in life, so I’m cautiously optimistic about the fun to be had in this version of Hamlet.
All will be revealed when the game is released for PC in two weeks. Check out the official blog for more information.
* — Movies from worst to best: Gibson < Hawke** < Olivier < Branagh
** — Bill Murray as Polonius alone is worth the price of admission.
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