Can a poem be adapted into a video game? Here’s what I learned from trying

Video game adaptations of novels and short fiction have long helped bring works of fiction to new audiences. The Witcher, for example, which now spans three games and a Netflix series, began life as a series of fantasy stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.

Frank Herbert’s novel Dune (1965) has been adapted into more video games than movies. The same is true of Terry Pratchett’s popular Discworld series (1983-2015), while Harlan Ellison’s short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967) was turned into a point-and-click adventure game in 1995 under supervision from Ellison himself.

Shakespeare’s work has been adapted into video games many times, most notably in Elsinore (2019), and has also been the subject of multiple game-making contests.

But what of poetry? There’s a long history of poetry crossing over with puzzles and games, which suggests the medium could survive being brought into the age of visual interactive entertainment.

Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature by Dick Higgins (1987), for example, documents examples of chessboard, labyrinth and riddle poems from centuries past. There’s also a form Higgins calls “leonine verse”, which features branching paths for the reader to follow in a “choose your own adventure” style.

The mid-20th century, meanwhile, saw a variety of poets and artists experimenting with new “ludic”...

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