Transmedia Pathos and Plot in The Walking Dead - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 57

life than with board games.” 30 And as Zagal, Rick, and Hsi have shown, while
video games involve complex interaction with multiple technologies, contexts,
and mechanics, “the nature of board games implies a transparency regarding the
core mechanics of the game and the way they are interrelated.” Yet, as I discussed
in the previous chapter, Zagal, Rick, and Hsi actually use board game mechanics
to generalize about video games, and it is relevant that they focus speciically on
an analysis of the Lord of the Rings board game—not seen in a transmediated
relationship with the core text, but rather as a “themed” spin-of of the topics. 31
he Walking Dead board games—especially the WDGN—relect the application
of the game to “ordinary life,” as the ethical decision-making that must occur
to progress within the game inds voice in the lived experiences of the players.
As seen in a connective relationship with a core text, board games can generate
new dynamics within narrative interaction; as Wilson illustrates, focusing on
things that board games are good at, like face-to-face communication and
tactility, allows board game designers to give each game a unique identity, “a
certain feel.” 32 Transmediation allows individual texts to develop sections of the
storyworld, each one “contributing to a larger narrative economy.” 33
For Ryan, a storyworld transmedia franchise develops through a “static
component that precedes the story, and a dynamic component that captures
its unfolding.” 34 hese static components include characters, items, rules, or
other underlying existents. he dynamic components include physical events
that change the items or mental events that give those items signiicance. Static
elements remain stable from one text to another. he Hunger Games: District 12
features Katniss Everdeen. Arkham Horror will include the town of Arkham. It
would be unusual to have a Walking Dead board game that did not in some way
feature zombies. Dynamic components can change the trajectory of the particular
iteration of the narrative within the speciic text; in the comic, as I mentioned,
antagonist Shane dies very early on in the narrative, but in the television series,
Shane survives far into the second season. he dynamism of Shane's existence
clariies and separates the two iterations, lending weight to Shane's death in both.
Similarly, the way zombies are dealt with in both games highlights how this static
element can become dynamic. In the WDGN, the zombies spawn ater every
move and continue to swarm the board. In the WDTV, the playable characters
themselves can transform into zombies when they die in the game. Rather than
populating the board, zombies become playable characters themselves.
Translating a television series or a graphic novel to a board game form
requires what Ryan calls “transmedial adaptation”—the use of those static