Book to movie adaptations are cool and everything, but what about book to video game adaptations?
Even cooler. Imagine running, jumping, and interacting with the characters you read about on a paperback. Sure, you aren’t physically doing all those things—it’s your thumbs on the game controller doing the bulk of the action. But, being able to see and hear a world you could only conjure in your head, even if it’s only from a device, is an enterprise worth marveling. Here are five books I think would make good (if not great) video games:
*Top 5 Wednesday (#T5W) is a bookish meme created by Lainey (Gingerreadslainey) in 2013. You can learn more about it by visiting the group’s goodreads page. The current host, Sam, is taking a break from T5W, so we’re free to do whatever topics we want for the next few months. This particular topic was one I missed from a couple years ago. Here’s to second chances!
Goodreads Description: For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. Needing to make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.
𝚆𝙷𝚈 𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝚅𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙾 𝙶𝙰𝙼𝙴:
This book incorporates a ton of augmented and virtual reality into its world building that would look awesome on a screen.
The story has a bunch of action scenes where the characters are playing a fully-immersive video game. It would be a video game within a video game!
It’s just a good story. (Some say it’s cliche, but the plot twist at the end of the story got me GOOD.)
Goodreads Description: In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with color once more?
In Brandon Sanderson’s intriguing tale of love, loss, despair and hope, a new kind of magic enters the stage — Allomancy, a magic of the metals.
𝚆𝙷𝚈 𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝚅𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙾 𝙶𝙰𝙼𝙴:
Metal-bending and epic fight scenes!
Parkouring over rooftops at night!
A lovable gang of heroes!
A detesable villain!
A+ Plot!
^Look at those straight A’s.
Also, I vaguely remember reading that Sanderson was working with a company to turn the Mistborn series into a video game, but they never got past the beginning stages of its development 💩.
Goodreads Description: Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.”
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.
Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.
𝚆𝙷𝚈 𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝚅𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙾 𝙶𝙰𝙼𝙴:
Because I HAD to include a book about zombies.
Zombie video games are equally as exciting as they are terrifying.
The player could play as Melanie, a zombie, which is a unique perspective for this game genre.
Good combination of stealth missions and combat.
It’s just a good story. (You gotta love zombie apocalypses.)
Goodreads Description: Set in the days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.
𝚆𝙷𝚈 𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝚅𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙾 𝙶𝙰𝙼𝙴:
Diverse character selection
A variety of game settings: (pre/post)-apocalypse, different seasons, and landscapes
The rugged, post-apocalyptic terrain would make fun survival gameplay
The book alternates between multiple time periods, so it’d be the perfect “butterfly effect” type game.
*In a butterfly effect game, the player has certain choices, and as the game progresses, they see how every decision changes the story and effects the outcome of the game.
Goodreads Description: Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language. With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures.
𝚆𝙷𝚈 𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝚅𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙾 𝙶𝙰𝙼𝙴:
This book would would make such a beautiful video game.
While it probably wouldn’t be action-packed like the other titles I included in this post, it could be like one of those scenic, peaceful games such as Abzu or Ni No Kuni.
The overarching tale would have an added emotional depth too if the video game used songs from the soundtrack of The Little Prince’s movie adaptation.
The book and movie’s magical atmosphere would translate well into a video game.
Thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun writing this post. What did you think of my selections? What are some books you think would make good video games? Let me know 🙂.
4 thoughts on “5 Books That Would Make Good Video Games”
Whoa, I LOVE this idea! Never even though about it, but why not?! I LOVE Ni No Kuni, and I could totally see The Little Prince working in that sort of story setting. It’d be a really fun game. My husband would absolutely go bonkers for a Mistborn game, too. There’s so much you’d be able to do with it.
You should give it a try! There were some more books that I considered including, but I kept the list to five for the sake of the meme. Also, Ni No Kuni was an amazing game! I hadn’t thought about it for years until I wrote this post. And it’s too bad that Sanderson never made the Mistborn game—the gameplay would have been next-level.
Not quite a video game, but there’s a Reckoners board game based on Sanderson’s series. Have you seen it? It looks a bit complicated, but super cool. Maybe if things like that become more popular, people will be more likely to expand to apps and then video games? xD One can hope.
I had to look up the Reckoners board game. You’re right, it seems complicated, but definitely cool! It actually kind of reminds me of that board game Pandemic (although Pandemic is half the price 😅). Also, that’s so true—an app would be a good starting point. Hopefully, ~some~ sort of Mistborn game will be made one day 🙂.
Belle Can Read 
Whoa, I LOVE this idea! Never even though about it, but why not?! I LOVE Ni No Kuni, and I could totally see The Little Prince working in that sort of story setting. It’d be a really fun game. My husband would absolutely go bonkers for a Mistborn game, too. There’s so much you’d be able to do with it.
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You should give it a try! There were some more books that I considered including, but I kept the list to five for the sake of the meme. Also, Ni No Kuni was an amazing game! I hadn’t thought about it for years until I wrote this post. And it’s too bad that Sanderson never made the Mistborn game—the gameplay would have been next-level.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not quite a video game, but there’s a Reckoners board game based on Sanderson’s series. Have you seen it? It looks a bit complicated, but super cool. Maybe if things like that become more popular, people will be more likely to expand to apps and then video games? xD One can hope.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had to look up the Reckoners board game. You’re right, it seems complicated, but definitely cool! It actually kind of reminds me of that board game Pandemic (although Pandemic is half the price 😅). Also, that’s so true—an app would be a good starting point. Hopefully, ~some~ sort of Mistborn game will be made one day 🙂.
LikeLiked by 1 person