Few would argue that famed fantasy author Terry Pratchett is a man of great accomplishment. But although Pratchett’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia means a more erratic flow of new Discworld novels, that does not rule out the possibility of his involvement in one more Discworld videogame. In fact, the recent resurgence of graphic adventure games, the greater variety of digital and episodic publishing options, and the close proximity of Terry Pratchett to the videogame industry through his daughter makes the return of Discworld to our computer screens extremely plausible.
Welcome to the World of Discworld
A flat, circular world resting on the backs of four giant elephants, who in turn stand atop a gargantuan space turtle – it’s enough to capture the imagination of even the most unimaginative. And it’s this very premise, mixed with Terry Pratchett’s trademark witticisms, and uniquely idiosyncratic characters, locations and philosophies, that has lead Discworld to be loved by many the world over.
The tales of Discworld currently span 40 novels, four spin-off “science” books, a handful of feature length television programmes and, of course, videogames. The first of these titles is the relatively unknown text adventure game The Colour of Magic – based on the novel of the same name – which was released for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 back in 1986. Discworld’s venture into videogames really made its mark, however, with 1995’s eponymous point-and-click adventure Discworld, developed by Perfect Entertainment.
With its bold, vibrant visuals, witty storyline, ridiculous puzzles and unforgettable voice acting – which included the vocal chords of Eric Idle, Tony Robinson and Rob Brydon – Discworld made somewhat of a splash. Even to this day it features in many retrospective lists of great, PC based point-and-click adventures, and is considered to be up there with the likes of Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island and Myst. As expected, Perfect Entertainment put out Discworld II: Missing Presumed…!? – Discworld II: Mortality Bytes! in North America – a year later and kicked things up a notch with cel-shaded graphics, a reworked P&C interface and far more of Discworld to explore.
The Europe only Discworld Noir released in 1999 and attempted to buck the trend set up in the previous two games by introducing a new, “noir” version of Discworld complete with original characters and locations. Discworld Noir also set itself apart from many point-and-click adventure games of the time by including pre-rendered 3D environments and animated 3D character models. But despite their best efforts, Perfect Entertainment were unable to hold back the growing disinterest in point-and-click adventures and disbanded shortly after Discworld Noir’s release. This resulted in a complete lack of post-launch support, no patches for the game’s numerous bugs and the end of the Discworld videogame series.
<h3>Rhianna Pratchett: The Bridge Between Discworld and Videogames</h3>Although it’s been roughly 14 years since Discworld appeared on our computer screens, Terry Pratchett is closer now to the videogame industry than he’s ever been thanks to his daughter, videogame writer Rhianna Pratchett. With titles such as Mirror’s Edge, BioShock Infinite, the Overlord series and the recent Tomb Raider reboot under her belt, Rhianna Pratchett is no stranger to the world of modern videogame production. As such, she is in excellent position to aide her father in steering his Discworld legacy safely into a new videogame title.
And it’s not as if the thought has never crossed the Pratchetts’ minds; in an interview with Digital Spy back in March of last year, Rhianna Pratchett revealed that not only are both Pratchetts open to the idea of a new Discworld game, but that the pitches are already coming in.
“Every now and again, dad gets approached about a game. Dad is a gamer himself so he has an idea what he'd like to see … You never know what's out there; if the right developer, the right pitch came knocking, then I think it'd be something dad and myself would be interested in.”
Furthermore, when asked by Digital Trends about the future of Discworld, Rhianna Pratchett had the following to say:
“I think what I’m interested in [personally] would be adaptations and spin-offs [like] The Watch. I’ve had experience with adaptations, completely outside of games and completely outside of Discworld, and I feel I can come to the table with more skills and experience in that area.”
Rhianna Pratchett is already working on creating a television programme and a film set within Discworld – The Watch and Wee Free Men – so a videogame tie-in is nothing short of logical. Fortunately, finding a developer who will respect and make good use of Discworld mythology is the hypothetical game’s only major issue. <h3>Supply and Demand? The Graphic Adventure Resurgence Speaks for Itself</h3>Although it may have been a problem a decade or so ago, publishing a Discworld videogame would be easier now than it ever was before. Publication through digital distribution services such as Steam, Desura, GamersGate and GOG.com doesn’t require a partnership with a conventional videogame publishing house. Furthermore, the phenomenal strength of the Discworld “brand” and the series’ already sizeable fanbase would ensure that any new game would be sufficiently discussed between gamers and covered by the gaming press – without the need for a PR firm to get involved.
The unmeasurable demand for another Discworld point-and-click adventure – assuming it’d even be a graphic adventure game of any kind – may have also been an issue a decade ago when “high octane” action games and first person shooters with 3D graphics were all the rage. Thankfully this has all changed mainly as a result of Telltale Games’ recent string of high quality, officially licensed and extremely successful graphic adventure tie-ins including Back to the Future: The Game, Jurassic Park: The Game and the seminal “Season One” of The Walking Dead: The Game.
The combination of the recent resurgence of point-and-click adventure games and digital distribution also offers a fantastic opportunity to re-release the three PC Discworld games in a similar fashion to The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Director’s Cut. Rebuilding these games for modern PC platforms, as well as for console and mobile platforms, would be significantly cheaper than creating an entirely new Discworld videogame and, as mentioned above, anything carrying the Discworld name practically sells itself.
This being said, there’s the obvious problem of intellectual property ownership. The developer of all three games, Perfect Entertainment, is long gone and the publisher of the first two games, the Sony owned company Psygnosis, merged with Sony in 1999, was renamed SCE Studio Liverpool, and was eventually shut down in 2012. Discworld Noir, on the other hand,was published by GT Interactive, which was acquired by Infogrames in 1999 and has recently gone under as the renamed Atari Inc. It’s a confusing mess to say the least, but if those issues were resolved, remastered versions of the previous Discworld games would show, if anything, whether or not the demand for Discworld videogames still exists.
Now is clearly the right time for the colourful, creative world of Discworld to leap once more from the pages of the novels and onto our computer screens. However the decision is not ours to make, and until that perfect pitch from the appropriately talented and passionate developer falls into the hands of Terry and Rhianna Pratchett, Discworld and point-and-click adventure fans will simply have to make do with the novels. It’s a good job then that any one of the 40 Discworld novels makes for a bloody good read!
