The Great Gatsby - For NES | Hacker News Reader

The Great Gatsby - For NES

greatgatsbygame.com

103 pointsvanrenen32 comments

The Japanese title on the about page translates to something like "Heart-Pounding Library: The Legend of Gatsby", which is how I think the book should have been titled.

The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite pieces of American literature. I don't even know how this can exist. It just makes no sense. It would be like making Jabberwocky Kart Racing or something.

The worst thing is it doesn't seem to be that bad a platformer either!

I would totally play Jabberwocky Kart Racing.

    `Twas brillig, and the slithy tovekarts
      Did gyre and gimble at the start wabe:
    All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe the bloody turtle shell.

My favorite example of weird adaptions is STALKER/Roadside Picnic. It started out as a sci-fi novel about an alien invasion. Then Tarkovsky made an excellent movie adaption that never explained what the cause of the anomalies was, and mostly served to explore philosophy and the human condition. Years later, it was turned into a first person shooter/horror (sort of) game.

They're making a TV show based off of the game now.

They've put the source code for the project up on bitbucket for anyone interested: https://bitbucket.org/charliehoey/gatsby/src

I’ve never played an NES game. Is this a spoof of NES games based off of movies and books – do those games have about as much connection to their original work as this one does to The Great Gatsby? (Which is to say, do those old NES games have cutscenes that make no sense without already having read the book, a style of gameplay that is inappropriate for the setting, and setting-appropriate art and music?)

Games using licensed IP have a very, very long history of only being vaguely related to the original works. In the early 8-bit era this was particularly true because of technical limitations; from around the advent of 16-bit consoles on, the default became "generic action-game gameplay that is visually similar to the IP." The main thing that has changed since then is the kind of generic gameplay used - at first it was almost always platform games; nowadays third-person action-adventures tend to be the default. The inclusion of mock-Japanese elements is mostly a reflection of the NES in particular, but games from the U.S. and U.K., on other platforms, tended to be wacky too, just not as much(probably because the licensors were more hands-on about the content of the game).

Some examples(some bad games, and some really good ones too):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFVEtVEYtBw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqdtn-gaGbo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6x4wQJMLEc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9t_tAGKKkQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJTNGoBvkVU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkBLLH5fiZk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3GmQrQPXc8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2zfOBOYLwo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYFdgyuv6fU

In general, the further the developers are allowed to stray from the original work, the more they can actually do with it as a game. But at the same time, some IP-holders will get obnoxiously protective of the brand image, take a "merchandising tie-in" view of the game that blinds them to other sources of value, and as such are willing to cut large amounts of the game out for the sake of making it fit into their vision. When this happens it can be very discouraging for both parties.

Here's an example of a real game license that I worked on a pitch for(never went into production): Michael Phelps. It was the most perplexing thing. What the fuck do you do in a Michael Phelps game? The publisher had come up with two concepts to work from - generic action-adventure(Phelps...swims very fast...to save the day from terrorists?) or generic party game(lots of swimming minigames with Michael Phelps in them?).

This was shortly after the stories came out about his pot-smoking habits, so one idea we desperately wanted to put into the concept, if it weren't so obviously un-befitting of brand image, would be to do the action-adventure but turn it into a parody and have him "power up" with bong rips and enter bonus stages where he's literally swimming in the clouds. With this simple change, the license does a 180 in terms how much novel/interesting gameplay can be had from it.

I just noticed that a Kinect game featuring Michael Phelps has been announced. Time will tell if this is brilliant, or if it's the latest way to flail badly in front of your TV. Does look like it'll make you exercise, though. http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/02/michael-phelps-push-the-li...

Man, that's the kind of idea that gets people to quit their jobs and live out their lives as struggling indie game developers. Of course the character would have to be named Fykel Melps or somesuch, but it would be a huge hit with a core gamer demographic: stoners.

Not at all.

I'm flattered.

Nice. The too-smooth gameplay (and the all-star credits) give it away. I like the Mega Man-esque ending.

Oh man, I totally thought this was real until I looked at the contact page. Though the credit to "N. Uematsu" was certainly surprising! I suppose putting in credits to "Bun Bun" and "Yuukichan's Papa" was appropriate as one or two of the level musics were rather Mega Man-ish.

This is actually a really, really well put-together platformer! Fast, just enough of a challenge, cute and fun, and brilliant music too.

Fantastic!

Oh man, I just began reading this book four days ago, it's my current book to read while commuting, and it's pretty weird to think that tomorrow this will probably be in my head when I read a chapter... maybe this will be too much and I'll put the book on hold for a month or so.

The game itself is a nice classic platform.

I've read "Gatsby" over 25 times in the last 5 years, and have taught it twice. It's my favourite piece of literature by far, and would be my nominee for "Most Beautifully Written Book In The English Language" (should such an award exist).

After you are finished, go back and re-read the first 2 pages or so (until the double-carriage return); they take on a whole new meaning when the end of the novel is known.

Found it through Google books. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FV5R6_FgLUAC&printsec...

Do you mean the idea of decay? That Gatsby is constantly building himself up, but prayed on by time and dust?

I mean the whole thing. The advice given to Nick by his father (in his younger and more vulnerable years), the statements he makes about how others seem to see him as a confidante, and also the way he characterizes Gatsby ("a romantic readiness for hope"), and definitely the last sentence. Additionally: Nick's statements about conduct ("Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes...") and the "fundamental sense of decency". There's so much here.

When I taught "Gatsby", I did so in a Language & Rhetoric course. Instead of doing the standard New Critical Theory thing, we evaluated the statements Nick presents as factual, particularly those he makes about himself and about Gatsby, with the larger goal of 1) building a broader understanding of character as it relates to language and the presentation of the self, and 2) looking for inconsistencies (the end of Ch. 3, for example: "Everyone is guilty of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine. I am one of the most honest men I know." (paraphrased slightly)).

I can't speak conclusively to whether or not this was the best possible approach, but I will say that I had more than 30 students (out of just over 120) come up to me and say "Mr. E, this is the best book we've ever read in an English class." I'll also say that class discussions were livelier and better informed than any of the college literature courses I took (students were required to use quotations to back up almost every evaluative statement they made, and by the end of the 3-4 weeks we spent on "Gatsby" knew the book almost as well as I did. I cannot say the same for even my senior/grad level literature courses in college).

Thanks.

English was my favourite subject at school, but I didn't get Fitzgerald at all. I remember arguing with my teacher around the introduction - the teacher was trying to talk about the prejudices that the narrator brings to the book, but I thought the opening was Fitzgerald's attempt to convey that the narrator was largely free of prejudice.

Something put me back onto all this all about six months ago. I've just reread _Tender is the Night_ (fifteen years on after a couple of retries. I don't think I finished it at school although was somehow familiar with some of the end). I'm pleased I did, and now feel I'm doing better with that than Gatsby, which I'll tackle after I've finished _The Beautiful and the Damned_.

I will be content only when I feel that I know what Fitzgerald was trying to say.

If you're in London at a time and would be happy to let me buy you coffee to discuss Gatsby further, that would be much appreciated. There's lots of things I don't really get - valley of ashes, owl-eyed man, significance of who turns up at the funeral. As well as the arc itself. My email is in my profile. I do occasional trips to NY, Chicago and Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide too if you're around any spots there.

Do you still have your notes for that course? I've been meaning to reread Gatsby for a while, and it sounds like this could be an interesting way of looking at it.

Dear God... why?! This brings back nightmares of my freshman English class in High School.

I found it easier when I crossed my hands over so I could do the left/right keys with my left hand, as is the original Nintendo way.

I'm glad there were only a few levels, as I really struggle to leave platform games half finished.

Just signed up to say this is awesome! I'm teaching this at the moment to middle schoolers and I'm sure they're gonna love the game. :)

The game sporadically decides to ignore all my keypresses. It looks good until it becomes impossible though.

If you double click a few times on the game screen, that usually straightens it out.

I didn't like the book, didn't like the movie, but the game.. I like it. Died against the first boss.

The music in the first stage sounds familiar, anyone familiar with it?

Anyone managed a no-death game? Does it do anything differently?

Haven't done it yet, but word is that there's a special ending...

I managed it, I can confirm it. I notice now on the about page it suggests something might happen if you find all the gold bags; has anyone done this?

The entire repo is 125 MB?

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