It's taken me nearly a week to really get over the death of fantasy author Terry Pratchett. Everyone knew it was coming ever since he was diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's, but it was still an unexpected blow that left a tremendous hole in the world.
Shortly after Pratchett was diagnosed, he announced his daughter Rhianna would be the custodian of the Discworld legacy, though what exactly that meant was somewhat vague. Rhianna is a writer in her own right, mostly for video games like Tomb Raider and Mirror's Edge, but she isn't a novelist. She recently told Digital Trends that she was not planning on writing any new Discworld books herself but was mostly involved in overseeing things like the TV series based on the Watch books and the film version of The Wee Free Men.
And while those are all well and good, what Discworld needs now is a video game. A big, big video game, and Rhianna is just the person to make that happen.
There hasn't been an official Discworld game in 16 years. I recently picked up the original Discworld for PlayStation as an anniversary present and it's a very bittersweet experience. On one hand, all that perfect Discworld humor is there. Plus the three main voice actors are Eric Idle, Jon Pertwee and Tony Robinson, so if you like, you can pretend that the whole thing is a Monty Python skit set on Discworld featuring the Third Doctor with Blackadder's Baldric as his companion. That might actually be the most British thing ever.
But on the other hand, it's a famously frustrating game to actually play because it makes no bloody sense half the time. It's a point-and-clicker, but often what you're supposed to point-and-click is located vast distances away with zero clue on why you're supposed to go there, not to mention some of it is damned near invisible because of the limited PS1 graphics. Neither the sequel or the buggy Discworld Noir was much better.
Pratchett was an avid gamer himself, and Rhianna talks about tucking herself into his big chair at his back as he played computer games as a formative experience (My daughter does the same thing). He even contributed directly to Discworld Noir with some dialogue, but he never really took a guiding hand in taking Discworld intractive. Rhianna, though, has the credentials to finally do so.
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