Monday, April 9, 2012

Book 1 Project




Book 1 Project: The Hunger Games

My idea is to create a video game that allows you to experience The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, in the most realistic way possible. The players would be able to participate in the reaping, in which they would be chosen as a tribute, then go through the training required prior to the games themselves. Through the training, they would determine their best skill and then before the games begin, demonstrate that skill in front of the judges, just like Katniss and the rest of the 24 tributes did in the book. Because you have to give the judges a good show, it is important to take the training seriously in order to perform at your best abilities when it matters. When in it is time to enter into the arena, the same principle of the 60 second rule will come into play, and when the time is up you have the option to fight for supplies. Then it’s time to win. You will be able to do whatever it takes to win the Hunger Games. Just like the tributes, you will have a kill list and various other stats that will appear at the bottom of your screen. An overall score based on hiding and hunting tactics, resourcefulness, and just plain staying alive will determine the number of sponsors if any that you receive. The obvious goal is to win and stay alive in order to return back to your district with new found respect and a higher quality of life.
The video game would encompass many of the aspects in The Hunger Games novel. Because both the game and book are focused on the same thing, the two would be very relatable. Before and during the reaping, Katniss is overcome with anxiety and fear that she will be chosen. Katniss explains, “The word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the word corpse” (22). During the setup of the game, you can enter your real name into a database so that when you are chosen at the reaping, it will be more personal.  Although the players of the video game will know that they are going to be chosen at the reaping, the feeling of your actual name being called on the screen will create some anxiety in the player. One scene from the book that relates directly to my idea is when Katniss has her first kill of the boy who plunges a spear into Rue. The reality of the games begins to sink in as she adds her first kill to the list. During her realization, she is filled with mixed emotions. “Then I realize…he was my first kill. Along with other statistics they report to help people place their bets, every tribute has a list of kills” (243). The players list of kills will grow throughout the games, obviously based on how many fellow tributes you kill. The overall major goal is to be as realistic as possible in all aspects of the video game, and in order to do that you have to have the players go through everything that the characters in the book go through. In addition to this, obstacles will be a setback for some when the game makers put them into effect at random times. At the conclusion of the games, if you have won, the exact same announcement as in the book will boom through your television set. Claudius Templesmith announced, “I am pleased to present the victors of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!”(345). In the case that you do not win and are killed during the action in the arena, you will be given a quick overview of how the games turned out and who killed who, and then you will be free to begin a new journey.

This idea will work because readers around the world have become fascinated with The Hunger Games and all that it is about. Almost every person that you ask in a random survey has read or is reading one of the three novels. Obviously, the books have become extremely popular in a relatively short amount of time and anything outside of reading that relates to them will certainly spark peoples’ interests to a new level. When I was reading the book myself, I often wondered what it would be like to be in the position of the character and be forced by your own government to fight others just like you to the death. That thought has without a doubt crossed the minds of hundreds of thousands of other readers and this video game will finally give them a chance to find out in a sense what it actually is like. People will hopefully become just as attached to the new game as they did to the books, movie and characters.


2 comments:

  1. I like all of the specifics you have woven in from the book. I think the way you describe the virtual experience in paragraph 1 makes a lot of sense--since people can't re-live the book, this allows them to get some aspect of the experience Collins describes in the book. It definitely extends the book for fans.

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  2. Sounds like a fun game. A lot of people will buy it and make the books/movies even more popular!

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