Transmedia Pathos and Plot in The Walking Dead - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 70

dies at the same point in both the comic and the television series. Canonically,
the character experiences the same things in both texts as well.
Examining the aesthetics of each of these board games allows us to interpret
not only how the games are being marketed and sold to audiences but also how
they are being positioned within the media franchises themselves. 67 Investigating
the aesthetics of games is important in and of itself: as Flanagan notes, “the play
experience has, for thousands of years, been intertwined with aesthetics.” 68 But
for paratextual board games, aesthetics help deine the connection to the original
text even more strongly. he WDTV reveals a close connection to the television
program, mirroring images that have already appeared or are reappropriations
of those that might have referred to diferent elements within the show. Similarly,
the WDGN hews close to the aesthetics of the original graphic novel, but
augments those aesthetics with original drawings, as if the game relected the
spirit of the comic.
Interestingly, just as I was completing revisions on this chapter, Cryptozoic
released a third Walking Dead board game, he Walking Dead : he Best Defense
Board Game , based on the television series. he Best Defense Board Game ofers
a melding of the types of paratextuality and adaptation I have described in this
chapter through the cooperative mechanisms of the game play. As mentioned
in the previous chapter, designer Reiner Knizia emulated the cooperative,
character-based pathos in he Lord of the Rings rather than the narrative of
Tolkien's topics. As he describes: “more important [than the story] was the
feeling of the world. he true focus of the topic was not the ighting, but more
personal themes—the development of each character's sense of self as they
attempt to overcome adversity.” 69 he Best Defense Board Game mimics this
sentiment by having the players cooperating to defend themselves by defeating
the zombie hordes. However, the personal afect developed in the television
series is mirrored in the game by forcing each player to act as the “leader” of the
group in alternating turns. he leader must make decisions that afect the other
members of the group but is oten in the dark as to what the other players may
need to do. his rotating hierarchy generates feelings of transmedia pathos via
the cooperative mechanics of the game play; that is, players have to cooperate
instead of competing but may sometimes have to inadvertently work against
the group as a whole. Much like in the television series, where characters have
multiple motivations propelling their actions, to be an efective survivor in
this game, one must play it as a paratext, being both part of, and apart from,
the group.