Transmedia Pathos and Plot in The Walking Dead - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 66

the player holds the character card for Rick, he or she only gets her special power
(an extra roll of the die and an ability to experience additional fatigue) if Carl is
also part of the players' team. Similarly, if the player holds the character card for
Patricia, a minor character in the graphic novel, the special power (an extra roll
of the die) is only provided if Otis, another minor character, is also part of the
players' team; in the comic, Patricia and Otis are in a relationship. his focus on
character-dependent traits illustrates a particular complexity in the pathos of the
WDGN and the luid mobility of character types across the game.
In contrast to the WDGN, the WDTV does not devote as much attention to
character development as it does to narrative idelity. For example, the WDTV
features only six characters from the show, and no special relationships are
revealed in the game play. In an interview with Morgan, WDTV creator Cory
Jones describes: the “interplay between the characters themselves … that's a hard
abstraction in some ways and very dependent on who plays what character. I didn't
want to create a situation where I pick my character because you picked a certain
o n e .” 57 he creators of the WDTV seem to have adapted the semantics of the show
as a way of generating corporate synergy and franchisability. 58 Characters are given
less “freedom” in the WDTV than in the WDGN; they have fewer attributes and
players have less of a chance to make decisions based on those attributes. Fewer
creative interactions with the characters reify the character's original nature from
the television series, rather than augment it through player collaboration.
he WDTV includes an attribute not in the WDGN: players commonly
lose their encounters before securing all the objectives. When this happens,
the player's character is turned into a zombie for the rest of the game. he
play changes and the zombies attempt to attack the other players. When two
players are turned into zombies, the game shits again as all players form two
teams—Team Zombie and Team Survivor. he objective for Team Zombie is to
defeat the other players. he objective for Team Survivor is to secure the corner
locations. Because of this fundamental switch of character, the reliance on any
one particular character isn't as meaningful as it is in the comic game. Jones
describes the character shit as:
When you die, you become a zombie. You are still playing on the board, but
your hand goes away and is replaced with new zombie cards.… You are playing
against the remaining players and trying to kill them, so we emulate the strange
dynamic from the show where some of the characters do die and they have to
be put down. 59