Cover art by @yedo_x_x.
Our monthly feature on unfairly maligned games for @PIZZAPRANKS‘ Indiepocalypse returns, with a return to Camp Crystal Lake. That’s right, folks: We wound up talking about Friday the 13th on NES again! Of course, this new article represents entirely new talking points, and focuses mainly on the novelty of its progression systems across individual characters, as they’re divided across the map and control over them is swapped. It’s a concept I felt like I didn’t give nearly enough credit in our original article on the game, and I was happy to have the excuse to revisit one of my favorite 8-bit horror titles.
Personally, I’ve never been all too bothered by my film-to-game adaptations making changes to the script in order to make them play more like – you know – conventional video games. Call me a contrarian, but I don’t think casual games consumers in 1989 were particularly interested in a game that would be largely spent wandering around a completely empty campground, until suddenly and immediately being killed by Jason Voorhees without so much as a chance or option to fight back? Sure, maybe by 2017 they’d have become more amenable to it, but these were simpler times fit for more traditional games. As such (and considering that I’m writing for an audience largely composed of indie game developers), I’m not really gonna fixate on the intricacies of successfully adapting film to cartridge here. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.
