Publication details
Playing (with) the Bard : Great Shakespearean Stories on Computer Screens
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| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | While Shakespeare’s stories have served as basis for their major adaptations and re-imaginations in the spheres of music, visual arts, literature, film and televisual culture, their impact on computer games has been relatively modest so far. Apart from a number of allusions to Shakespearean themes and topics in games such as Suikoden 3, Final Fantasy IX and Dishonored, and apart from hobby projects introducing Shakespearean stories in less serious ways, such as Dinosaur Shakespeare and Paper Shakespeare, there have been a small number of “serious” games openly admitting their relationship with a Shakespearean “ur-text”. Most of these are aimed at younger audiences who have just got acquainted with Shakespeare’s works in schools. The presentation will examine a selection of such games (for instance, Elsinore by Golden Glitch and The Chronicles of Shakespeare series by Daedalic Entertainment), focusing on three aspects of the gaming experience which they offer: 1) their relationship with their respective Shakespearean models; 2) their settings and narrative structures in which Shakespeare’s stories are being presented; 3) their educative potential in terms of introducing Shakespeare to contemporary younger audiences, especially compared to similar re-tellings for in literature and film. The presentation will try to establish what roles these Shakespearean adaptations play in the large phenomenon of Shakespearean influences on modern culture and what their specificities are in this context with regard to the medium of computer games. |
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