As the March release of the Watchmen adaptation nears, the marketing team has released a video game promotional tool--creating a free early Nintendo-style karate game that plays like an artifact from inside the fictional world of the graphic novel.

Author Alan Moore loaded the original Watchmen graphic novel with countless imaginary texts: fake comic books, memoirs, films, and diaries. In that spirit, the promotional gimmick pretends to be a video game that children inside the novel could play.

The opening video game screen reads "1977 Veidt Enterprises," as if the fictional Watchmen character Adrian Veidt had actually created the game as one of his many merchandising schemes. Introducing new readers to the book while keeping the original fans excited, it's an interesting example for authors looking to build video game promotions. (Via SF Signal)