Shelf Control: Prepare To Be Perplexed By The Upcoming Franz Kafka Video Game
December 9, 2013
Things are about to get quite buggy for iOS gamers. As this week's edition of Shelf Control points out, a video game inspired by the works of Franz Kafka is set to make its existential entry in the App Store.
The game is simply called The Franz Kafka Videogame. And it's based on the influential Czech writer's major works. Of course, these include "The Metamorphosis," which tells the story of a traveling salesman turned monstrous insect-like creature. Understandably, the game features a sharply dressed bug.
The game, as its trailer teases below, also features various other instances of "absurdity," "surrealism," and "puzzles."
If you can't see the video embedded above, please click here.
If the upcoming game's style looks familiar to you, you might have played a certain game that's also inspired by a famous author's major work. I'm referring to Hamlet!, or The Last Game Without MMORPG Features, Shaders and Product Placement. As it turns out, Denis Galanin aka mif2000, who is behind Hamlet!, is the same guy who's working on The Franz Kafka Videogame.
The Franz Kafka Videogame is currently under development for iOS as well as other popular gaming platforms, including Android, Mac, PC, and Linux. It's set to be released in 2014.
In the meantime, why not familiarize or reacquaint yourself with Kafka's works, particularly those on which the upcoming game is mainly based?
Many of Kafka's works are in the public domain, so they're readily and freely downloadable from Project Gutenberg, ManyBooks, Feedbooks, and other similar sites. But featured below are premium iBooks editions of three of Kafka's most famous books from perhaps Kafka's best-known publisher, Schocken.
"The Metamorphosis and Other Stories," $7.99
This collection brings together the stories that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime. To Max Brod, his literary executor, he wrote: “Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these.”"The Castle," $8.99
Left unfinished by Kafka in 1922 and not published until 1926, two years after his death, The Castle is the haunting tale of K.’s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle. Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harman’s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power previously unknown to English language readers."Amerika: The Missing Person," $9.99
Kafka’s first and funniest novel, Amerika tells the story of the young Karl Rossmann who, after an incident involving a housemaid, is banished by his parents to America. Expected to redeem himself in this magical land of opportunity, young Karl is swept up instead in a whirlwind of dizzying reversals, strange escapades, and picaresque adventures.As always, if you have suggestions for Shelf Control, please feel free to email me at aldrin@appadvice.com or simply leave a comment below. [gallery link="file" order="DESC"]