HomeNewsAlfred Hitchcock – Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo will be a video game this yearIt looks trippy and uneasy, so they’re doing something right
It looks trippy and uneasy, so they’re doing something right
I’m beginning to notice a trend of developers making games based on things I studied in school, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Last year it wasGeorge Orwell’s Animal Farm, and now this year Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 psychological thrillerVertigois getting a game adaptation. Developers Pendulo Studios showed a teaser trailer during Saturday’s Guerrilla Collective indie game showcase, which is rather trippy and dramatic. It made me feel a bit uneasy too, which is how I felt when I first watched Vertigo, so they must be doing something right.
Publisher Microïds announced the Vertigo adventure game back in 2018, at the same time revealingthey’d licensed Alfred Hitchcock’s name and likenessfor it. Back then, they said it was “loosely based” on Vertigo, though from the sounds of things, “loosely” might be underselling it.
Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo | Teaser | Microids & Pendulo StudiosWatch on YouTube
Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo | Teaser | Microids & Pendulo Studios
“The main themes of the game are roughly the same ones that appear in the movie: obsession, madness, manipulation, identity, and the confusion between imagination, dreams, memory and reality,” narrative designer Josué Monchan says in a dev diary.
The old Vertigo film follows an ex police-officer who’s both afraid of heights and suffers from vertigo after a, uh, stressful event at work. He falls into a tangled love web, and it’s all very dark and dramatic. Vertigo: The Game follows a slightly different plot, based around a man who becomes traumatised after a car crash. He’s convinced his family was in the car with him, though it’s unclear whether or not that was the case, and through the game he’ll try to figure out what really happened. With lashings of drama thrown in too, it seems.
Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo | Dev Diary - Hitchcock Inspirations | Microids & Pendulo StudiosWatch on YouTube
Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo | Dev Diary - Hitchcock Inspirations | Microids & Pendulo Studios
“Vertigo is not our only frame of reference. For instance, the fact that therapy is at the core of the narrative echoesSpellbound, and some characters resemble protagonists from Rebecca, Psycho, and many more,” Monchan adds.
“We’ve been studying Hitchcock’s camera work: subjective shots, his use of detail shots, and even the dolly-zoom effect, also known as ‘the Vertigo effect’.”
Pendulo Studios previously made adventure games includingBlacksad: Under The Skin(which is also an adaptation), Yesterday andThe Next Big Thing.
