Have you heard about the strategy game for iOs (iPhone,iPad, iPod touch) of the Hunger Games: Girl on Fire? Here is the poster for that game.
I am excited to play this game. I hope they will release an Android version too.
"So as far as the setting, and the story, and the things that are in the
game, these things are all sourced directly from the film, and by
extension the books, and we even got some guidance on specific ideas
from Suzanne Collins herself. But visually our inspiration comes from
classic Sega Genesis games, especially Treasure games, and even more
modern pixel art games like you see coming out of
WayForward the last few years."
Visually our inspiration comes from classic Sega Genesis games,
especially Treasure games, and even more modern pixel art games like you
see coming out of WayForward the last few years.- Adam Saltsman
The use of pixel art helps cement
Girl on Fire
as a "game," separate from its source material. "I feel like if we're
going to make a video game based on a film," he said, "then it shouldn't
pretend to be anything else but a video game. Like to me intentionally
using a pixelated style of presentation is a maybe not-so-subtle way of
saying 'this is its own thing.'" As its own thing,
Girl on Fire takes place within the universe of the books, but covers new events.
As an avowed
Hunger Games
fan, Saltsman had no trouble finding an aspect of the story to adapt.
In fact, he had more trouble narrowing it down. "A hardcore survival
simulation? A political thriller adventure game? A resource management
thing? There are so many metaphors and so many ways to approach the kind
of emotional or thematic core of the story that it was a bit
overwhelming," he said.
I
feel like if we're going to make a video game based on a film, then it
shouldn't pretend to be anything else but a video game.- Adam Saltsman
The
limitation of making a "teaser game" for the first movie helped the
team figure out where to go. "This placed some constraints on the game:
it should be small, and it must take place BEFORE the actual Hunger
Games themselves; before the actual arena event in the story," Saltsman
said. He continued, offering the first real hint of what the gameplay
will be in the iOS title: "So the specific almost systemic things we
decided to work off of based on those constraints were things like the
heroine's talent for archery, her tendency to go for long walks in a
sort of forbidden forest area, and her brains-over-brawn approach to
solving problems." He intends for the game to carry the "urgency" of
facing the consequences of the choices made by the character Katniss --
after she chooses to take part in the violent, deadly Hunger Games.
As
for the apparent disconnect mentioned above -- a tiny iOS team being
put on the only game adaptation of a giant franchise -- Saltsman doesn't
see the matchup as unusual at all, after applying the model of other
art forms to video games. "So for almost every other art form, right,
the idea that a big creative license or franchise would team up with a
small creative studio to make a new work that is also commercial in
nature is just commonplace," Saltsman said.
"You don't hire, I don't know, some monolithic advertising giant if you want to design a great poster, you hire Saul Bass (or
Olly Moss,
for us hip youngsters!)" Saltsman believes digital distribution,
middleware, and "a more mature independent game making community" allow
video games to be commissioned in the same "boutique" capacity as other
design work. "And I think that is good for everybody."
Lionsgate told us that
The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire "will come out timed to the theatrical release." The theatrical release takes place March 23.