The Merchant of Video Games: Adapting the Merchant of Venice into an Adventure Game

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Certain Shakespeare plays lend themselves more to adaptations into different forms of media than others. However, both Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies have been adapted into multiple media forms, with no genre being more popular than the other. Where the adaptations of Shakespeare’s comedies strive to entertain, adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedies tend to serve an educational purpose, in a similar way as was written about by Ariès. Tim Blake Nelson’s adaptation of Othello: O is an example of this. Nelson educates the audience into what the American high school life was like in 2002, Semenza argues that Nelson:

“Deliberately constructs the film as a surrogate for the high school literature classroom where, ideally, the skill of critical reading is first inculcated in our youth. The Shakespeare “text” looms large in this imaginary space, transforming film audiences into endangered students – inseparable from those depicted in “O” – whose ability to read deeply, analyse, and apply to their own lives the lessons of Shakespearean tragedy can do nothing less than help them to stay alive” (p. 101)

It is not unsurprising that Shakespeare’s tragedies have more clear moral message given that theses plays contain tragic heroes, characters who fall victim to a flaw in their persona. Interpreting this fatal flaw as something that should be avoided by the audience gives a clear and concise message that the audience can accept and use in their own life.

Video games are a form or media which can both entertain and educate it’s audience. Transforming one of Shakespeare’s tragedies into a form of entertainment is not impossible, but in doing so one loses some of the message that the play is meant to carry. Educating an audience with one of Shakespeare’s plays, while still entertaining them, is not as impossible. Many of Shakespeare’s comedies tend to have some underlying message within the play originally: Merry Wives of Windsor, for example, can be played with the moral message that one should trust their significant other. When looking at Shakespeare’s comedies, it is common that there are multiple storylines that intertwine to create confusion amongst the characters within the play, thus creating the entertainment. These plays would be unsuitable for video game adaptations because it requires the player to have the information that more than one character receive, making for difficult choices; not only who the player will control, but how the scenes would play out whether the player controls two of the characters. A single storyline makes it much easier to for the player to feel like they have control over what happens within the game; that their choices have an impact. These choices give the player the option to chance the storyline into something different from the original. One of Shakespeare’s plays which has a single storyline is The Merchant of Venice. Some adaptations will have to made in order for the player to feel in control of the main character, Antonio. These adaptation will come in the form of choices that the player can make. The player decides what Antonio will do in certain situation. The exact choices that the player could make will be pinpointed and explained later on in the paper.

As mentioned before, it would be advisable for the video game adaptation of The Merchant of Venice to use the same interface as the one used in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis; the verbs would be used in a similar fashion, although with much less puzzles to solve it will be possible to remove the verbs “Open”, “Close”, “Push” and “Pull”. The dialogue options will be similar as well, with multiple options being available for different ways of progressing throughout the storyline. For instance, in Act 1 Scene 3, Antonio is attempting to loan money from Shylock; Shylock explains why he is reluctant to lend money to Antonio. In response the player can choose to apologize for the actions Antonio took or to continue on in the same say (as in done in the play). Either option will lead to Shylock reluctantly agreeing to the deal, but saying that a heavy price must be paid if Antonio cannot pay back the loan with the required interest. This again gives the player different options for what to do; agreeing to surrender his land to Shylock, agreeing that Antonio will pay a fine along with the initial sum and interest, or a pound of flesh. These options do lead to the same outcome; Shylock will only agree to the pound of flesh, but giving the player false options serves a purpose, it pushes the storyline in the same direction as the original one. This choice also shows how “evil” Shylock is by only agreeing to such a macabre fee.

It is not strange that important topics in society are made into themes within video games, according to Rockwell:

“Games are extensions of our social body similarly to the way mechanical technologies are extensions of our physical body. These extensions represent aspects of our culture back to us in a way that relieves and relives the stress of social interaction or conflict” (p. 345)

Since the player is in control of Antonio they can be forced to deal with the anti-Semitic tones that are brought up in the conversations that Antonio has with Shylock, will not be seen by players as extremely problematic, unlike if the play was performed. This is simply because players can distance themselves from Antonio, they do not believe that they are Antonio; they are trying to help him to become a better person. Antonio is an example of what not to be, in the same way that Indiana Jones is not an ideal person when looking at the character as portrayed in the video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. In this game Indiana not only puts Sophia’s live in danger by pushing her in front of a knife thrower, he also attempts to get Sophia to crawl through a hole by calling her fat and saying that she should lose weight in order to be of proper use (Barwood, 1992). These are clearly not examples that people should follow, the audience, teenagers, will be able to pick up on this and be able to apply it to their own lives.

In regards to the setting, there will be no changes between the video game and the original play; the characters will still be in Venice and Belmont. The players must be able to walk in between the different scenes; Venice town square, Shylock’s estate, as well as Belmont town square and the court house. The language that will be used will be modern English, with occasional direct quotes from the play. If the video game would be put in early modern English then some of the players will have difficulty properly understanding what is going on and what to do.

The most important part of any