Eco’s The Name of the Rose – Coming from Ravensburger
The trend of literary works being transformed into games continues, but with a modern bestseller making the jump this time. Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose will appear later in 2008 from Ravensburger in a game designed by Stefan Feld (Notre Dame, Roma).
In this deduction game, players are monks who are trying to collect as many suspicion points on the other players as possible in order to figure out who the criminal is. (It’s not clear from the publisher’s description whether the deduction will involve a murder, as in the novel, or some lesser crime.) Der Name der Rose is for 3-5 players ages 12 and up with a playing time of 75 minutes. The Ravensburger sales sheet lists a September 2008 release date, while other sources are saying May/June.
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Mar 30, 2008 at 12:00 PM in Game News, The Industry at Large / 2098
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And here I thought this was already done as Mystery of the Abbey… Posted by Geoff Engelstein on Mar 31, 2008 at 08:23 AM | #
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Geoff, I’ve heard people say such things before, but if you check out Bruno Faidutti’s history of Mystery of the Abbey, you won’t find any mention of the Eco novel. In fact, that game went through a previous incarnation with a science-fiction setting. Maybe Bruno can set the record straight… Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Mar 31, 2008 at 08:54 AM | #
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I’ll be curious to hear from Bruno as well, Eric, but it’s also a fact that he mentions the book in the game’s credits (under “Bibliography") and I’m pretty sure he’s stated before that Eco’s classic was the inspiration for the (revised)theme. Posted by Larry Levy on Mar 31, 2008 at 10:40 AM | #
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Thanks for the note, Larry. I don’t own a copy and haven’t played the game, so my knowledge of the book doesn’t help here! Posted by W. Eric Martin on Mar 31, 2008 at 10:43 AM | #
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I guess what I really meant was that I can’t see how another game could be more true to the spirit of the book than MitA, regardless of whether it was intended that way or not. I certainly have an open mind, and I’ll be interested to see the new take on it, but I don’t see off-hand that we need two games about murder mysteries in abbeys. Posted by Geoff Engelstein on Mar 31, 2008 at 07:55 PM | #
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April Fool’s Day. Posted by Ryan Bretsch on Mar 31, 2008 at 08:08 PM | #
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I don’t do April Fools’ Day, Ryan. I’m not sure why you’d have a problem believing this is a real game, but ‘tis. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Mar 31, 2008 at 11:03 PM | #
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Sorry Eric. My fault. It was meant as a question; not a statement. I simply missed the question mark at the end. Punctuation makes all the difference doesn’t it? Posted by Ryan Bretsch on Apr 1, 2008 at 07:34 PM | #
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