Animal Farm, George Orwell’s classic social satire, is finding an unlikely new medium. An indie game based on the novel is currently in the works, with help from the author’s estate.
The game, which is still early on in development, will adapt the story of Manor Farm’s thinly veiled descent into communism as a hybrid of two genres. One part will follow the mold of an adventure game: Players will assume the role of one of the barnyard’s animals as they navigate its descent into a power struggle. The other part is described as tycoon-esque, which will have players making choices to manage and maintain the farm.
“It’s particularly important for the readers and players to be able to identify with both oppressors and the oppressed,” team member Imre Jele (RuneScape) told us about the transition from novel to game. “This personal journey through fiction can hopefully allow our audience to better understand the motives of the powerful and their own place in an increasingly divided society bearing hallmarks of totalitarian regimes.”
The involvement of the Orwell estate highlights that aim, and Jele told us that it “scrutinized our goals and ideas extensively during this process, as they should.”
Alongside Jele, members working on the project include George Baker (Fable), Kate Saxon (The Witcher 3), Jessica Curry (Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture) and Andy Payne (Gambitious). Each one has a connection to Animal Farm, Jele told us, and the entire team feels a particular responsibility in bringing the story to a new venue for a modern audience.
“It’s the right time for us as creators as we are mature enough to take on the responsibility, it’s the right time for the audience as gamers are keen to experience more sophisticated themes and subject matters, and it’s the right time for society as we’re heading into an era uncomfortably similar to the universe described by George Orwell,” Jele said.
Animal Farm has not yet been dated, nor has the team announced platforms yet. More details will emerge throughout the year and beyond.
Comments
Just as all war films by their very nature glorify war, this adaptation should be handled with care, lest it glorify totalitarianism and Stalinism (Animal Farm was not necessarily a critique of "communism" with a small ‘c’, per se, more the Soviet implementation of it). A lot of games fall into this trap, especially in the strategy/city-building genre, as Rob Zacny has written about extensively. It’s easy to putter along in SimCity, building and expanding as you address each crisis of the moment, until you look back and discover that you’ve created a balkanized city—-a result inadvertently encouraged by the innate rules of the game.
Similarly, the designers of the game Spent (which is about the experience of being poor) had tremendous difficulty balancing it such that it couldn’t be easily "solved", because systemic poverty is not a challenge that can be "solved" by wits alone. If the average player could escape poverty with clever play, that would send the exact wrong message and defeat the purpose of the game!
By axemtitanium on 09.06.17 3:09pm
I’d prefer a Telltale Games style version of the book myself.
By TheSlap on 09.06.17 4:03pm
Huh? Most war films I’ve seen portray war as tragic.
What they do glorify is heroism.
By Sbirch on 09.07.17 8:39am
I’m paraphrasing a famous hypothesis by filmmaker François Truffaut that every war film, regardless of authorial intent, becomes a pro-war film.
Your example has been thoroughly litigated by critics smarter than me. Calum Marsh writes "War isn’t great; war makes you great." Taken to its logical conclusion, war is necessary for heroism, which is a pro-war stance.
By axemtitanium on 09.07.17 4:20pm
For instance: Saving Private Ryan was jingoistic in the sense of creating "sacrifice."
I’m sure you’ve heard people talk of heroic sacrifice – at least around Remembrance Day.
The film didn’t portray war as a waste of life – that not one of these people deserved to be there, that the land, towns, factories, would be better put to use farming, etc. The tragedy only created a the feeling of sacrifice. These people died so that one may live. The film is book-ended with American flags waving above a graveyard with rousing military music playing over the top.
Every country has military propaganda centered around a heroic death; one’s sacrifice to their country, their brother’s in arms, their mission of peace. It’s all bull-smells.
By SirOwlbear on 09.07.17 4:40pm
I only see that as triumphing adversity. Doesn’t mean that adversity is a good thing by itself.
By Sbirch on 09.13.17 3:28am
This was a fascinating comment, thank you.
I have a hard time believing that this will "work" without seeming to be cheap and ridiculous. That said, I’m cheering them on and hoping they find a way so that that isn’t the case.
By Tanneseph on 09.07.17 1:55pm
Thank you. I hope it’s good too. I think Papers, Please is a great example of conveying its message through gameplay without glorifying the act that is represented by its gameplay.
By axemtitanium on 09.07.17 4:25pm
Paper’s, Please is one of the best anti-war games out there. It doesn’t even explain or show the war which led to that point.
By SirOwlbear on 09.07.17 4:41pm
Don’t forget this is an allegory. It’s hard to see how one could sympathize with the pigs given how thinly the story is veiled.
I guess it depends on how the game is structured; it sounds like you can pick which "side" you want to be on, though I don’t know how much freedom you’ll get to decide what happens. The story has a plot with a set ending, so I assume the game will force you into that setting.
By Higher_Ground on 09.08.17 3:34pm
Okay.
By Alain-Christian on 09.06.17 3:32pm
I literally want to die right now. I had an RPG with this tone in works for years.
By Bananas4Bananas on 09.06.17 5:05pm
Your game can still find its audience, there is room for exploration in this area! Don’t give up. From my perspective, this team has shown exactly nothing of their game yet, it may as well not exist at this stage.
By NickAVV on 09.07.17 9:44am
Don’t worry about that! Having a unique idea isn’t what makes a good game. Its having a fun game that does.
How many RPG’s start with the same idea? ?(Zelda, Secret of Mana, etc.). Yet I don’t think there’s anyone that says "Aww they took my idea of a young kid with a sword going off on adventure".
By NYCman100 on 09.08.17 11:11am
This game, essentially a retelling of Animal Farm, is devoid of any creativity. Your game using the same themes, but with original characters and settings, may even end up being superior.
By Higher_Ground on 09.08.17 3:37pm
-Hannah Arendt
By BOWi on 09.07.17 4:42am
huh. I wonder how this game will be received. I’ve done a lot of traveling and I’ve met a lot of people. it’s the popular new trend among millennials to hate on capitalism. I’ve even met discussion groups who want communism to return.
now I’m not saying communism is evil by nature, I just don’t think these pro communism groups know exactly what it is they’re trying to bring about.
Maybe an Animal Farm game is just what we need.
By Moonbeast32 on 09.07.17 12:52pm
I’ve decided that the hard thing about communism is that it legit sounds great when you write the core idea on paper, and from there on out proves to be AWFUL. And we have enough history showing the latter part of that now that if you believe pure communism is the answer, you’re blind.
Capitalism has its problems, too. I suspect that, like so many other things, the answer is somewhere in the middle. But we have so much knee-jerk BS going on that if it even slightly whiffs of communism, it must be Evil-with-a-capitol-E. It’s frustrating.
By Tanneseph on 09.07.17 1:54pm
People say "The answer is somewhere in the middle"; but nearly every society is already "in the middle". The United States is touted as a capitalist country; but it has some of the most onerous regulations on business out there.
But I think there’s also a difference in what people’s idea of "capitalism" is. Some would say it means a free-market; others equate it to corporatism. Two different things.
By NYCman100 on 09.08.17 9:40am
Then I guess my opinion is that it could afford to swing a hair more towards the communist side of the spectrum. Not a ton, but to the point where giving someone a hand up isn’t considered distasteful, and regulations meant to prevent the condition of "too big to fail" weren’t under threat. The market should be free, but not free enough to strangle us all.
By Tanneseph on 09.08.17 11:47am
I should clarify : I think you have a great point, my point with the middle is that people fight to move things to just one ideology or the other.
Also, I want to be clear that I use "hand UP" very intentionally. My mother hung out on welfare for years, and I was deeply ashamed that there was no motivation to get off. It sounds like the system has gotten better since then.
By Tanneseph on 09.08.17 12:04pm
Dude, it matters not whether you practice capitalism or communism. The "evil" is greed and the lack of empathy for your neighbors.
Don’t buy into the "us vs. them" that requires you to label economic theories as good/bad/evil.
It’s not even that something sounds better on paper than in reality. It’s that power allows individuals to abuse others and the tendency to view that imbalance of power as "right" or natural.
By Higher_Ground on 09.08.17 3:50pm
Psst. Kids? Hey, kids. Wanna try social democracy?
By Massimo Di Saggio on 09.11.17 8:39am
Hopefully it won’t be misconstrued as a warning against Communism. That’s kind of a shallow read of the story, which mimics Stalin’s coopting of the Russian Revolution from Lenin and Trotsky. Of course I’m neither an English teacher nor a historian, so I could be wrong
By Higher_Ground on 09.08.17 3:47pm
Going to give this an "F" for creativity but other than that, it could be pretty sweet.
I love Animal Farm. I suspect many others do too. It’s going to be easy to fall short of any hype the name will generate.
By Higher_Ground on 09.08.17 3:20pm