Crossing Worlds The Ellisonian Mode in Narrative Video Games

The mid-1990s saw the works of Harlan Ellison adapted in three different video games across a two-year period. Between 1995 and 1997, three of Ellison's greatest short stories found new life on PC screens, one with Ellison's direct involvement and two without. This paper looks at these three titles - I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of This World, and Fallout. It is demonstrated that Ellison’s video game adaptations have a recurring interest in alternate worlds, which manifest differently across all three titles but nevertheless present a consistent and recurring theme that transcends development studios and even international boundaries. Examining the development histories of these games, one can consider the function of authorship, adaptation and inspiration in video game design, theorizing a “Ellisonian” mode of game design, the influence of which on subsequent works is significantly greater than previously understood.