Over at Out of Print, you can play The Great Gatsby video game and donate books at the same time.

Follow this link to play. For every player that reaches a score of 25,000 on the game, Out of Print will donate one book. So far, 280 books have already been donated.

Back in 2011, Charlie Hoey and Peter Malamud Smith created the video game, turning the famous novel into a Nintendo-era video game.

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Back in 1998, did you play the novelistic video game Grim Fandango? Disney shuttered LucasArts yesterday, closing the storied video game studio that created one of the best video games that this GalleyCat editor ever played.

You can watch the trailer for the game (embedded above) written by Tim Schafer or visit the Grim Fandango fan site for more information. One dedicated video game player actually wrote an entire novel based on the video game. Download the Grim Fandango novel at this link:

First appearing in installments on the now-defunct website Glottis’ Garage, the Grim Fandango novel by MeddlingMonk was initially well received. Although still sought after, it has become increasingly hard to find. Now, a thorough revision of the novel has been completed to be hosted here. Many plot points are developed more fully and the entire text has been tweaked to become more textured, more adult. If the game was intended to reflect film noir, then the novel is meant to key off of the writings of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. Although adapted from an episodic game, the Grim Fandango novel presents a continuous story, filling in the gaps using hints from the game itself (including unused elements found in the game’s data) or by using reasonable extrapolations.

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Below, we’ve listed to all the nominees both categories. You can follow the links below to explore gameplay videos on YouTube–a chance to watch the games unfold in a series of fan-made videos.

Jack in a Box won the Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media Award. You can also follow the links below to watch the Guild’s nominees for the best web video writing, another new frontier for writers.

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Below, we’ve listed to all the nominees in the Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing category. You can follow the links below to explore gameplay videos on YouTube–a chance to watch the games unfold in a series of fan-made videos.

The winners will all be revealed on February 19, 2013 at a Los Angeles ceremony. You can also follow the links below to watch the Guild’s nominees for the best web video writing, another new frontier for writers.

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The first installment will be titled Wild Born. Fablehaven series author Brandon Mull will write that book. The not-yet-titled second installment will be written by The Raven Boys author Maggie Stiefvater.

This book will be released in January 2014 and marks Stiefvater’s first time writing middle-grade fiction.

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If you want to sample some creative examples from the world of gaming, explore our Best Video Game Writing of the Year feature. We also interviewed the CEO of a gaming company, finding out Why the Video Game Industry Needs Writers.

Here’s an excerpt from the Irvine interview: “There are a lot of social games out there, as this game gets going, I think there is going to be a lot of opportunities coming. I would expect to see a lot more games like this. I also think, because the gaming space is changing so fast, that a lot of writers are going to see what sort of opportunities are out there in new hybrid forms between prose and animation, gaming and comics. It’s all going to get mashed together, remixed and recombined in lots of interesting ways over the next few years.”

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J.K. Rowling has written new Harry Potter content for Sony’s Book of Spells, a video game for the Sony PlayStation Wonderbook.

The game will include “backstories to the famous spells, valuable lessons and brand new creatures” written by Rowling. In the video embedded above, you can see a simulation of the video game–an interactive book-like object that will bring Harry Potter spells to digital life.  What do you think? Here’s more from the release:

Written by Miranda Goshawk over two hundred years ago, the Book of Spells can be found in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. This advanced textbook will assist students on their journey to becoming an accomplished witch or wizard. Read, discover, learn and practice spells such as Incendio, Wingardium Leviosa and Expelliarmus, as well as discover mischievous notes, spells and humorous anecdotal facts scribbled into the margins by previous Hogwarts students. J.K. Rowling has written a conundrum that leads you through the experience, providing insight into the values a witch or wizard has to learn, and inviting you to journey through the book to unlock new content, rewarding successful students along the way.

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The University of Southern California has received a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to produce a video game based on the work of Henry David Thoreau. You can explore the game in the video embedded above–what do you think?

Here’s more about the project: “The game will take place in a real-time 3D environment which will replicate the geography of Walden Pond and the woods in which Thoreau made his home using both game technologies and video. Beyond the replication of a virtual environment, however, the gameplay itself will embody the experiment that Thoreau set for himself, reinforcing the basic messages of his work. Walden, a game posits a new genre of play, in which reflection and insight play an important role in the player experience. ”

You can download free eBook edition of Thoreau’s Walden at this link. At the same time, a number of PBS shows saw significant reductions or cuts in their NEA grants this year.

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The complaint argues that the video game featured a device that allowed the character to experience old memories throughout history. The suit also alleges that the video game maker copied  the “spiritual and biblical tones” and “the battle between good and evil” featured in his novel series.

Here’s more from the complaint: “In Link, characters experience notable and accurate historical moments through their ancestors’ memories; this is a major plotline of Link. In the Assassin’s Creed video game series, characters experience various historically accurate times in history through their ancestor’s memories; this is a major plotline of the Assassin’s Creed video games and books.”

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Novelist Andrea Buchanan has commissioned a Minecraft map to accompany her new novel, Gift. In the video embedded above, you can explore the Minecraft world for the novel.

Minecraft is a popular video game where players must build shelters in a 3D game universe while defending themselves against strange creatures.  The digital edition of Gift includes “music, video, art, and spooky text events,” so creating a video game component was a natural step. Check it out:

In this specially commissioned custom map, based on the world of the book and designed by the shadowy Minecraft map mastermind known only as Vechs (creator of the Super Hostile series of maps), the player must locate and retrieve special blocks while tackling treacherous terrain and battling bad guys in order to win. Players navigate through both the geography of where the book takes place and the imagined world of the ghost story within. Just like the novel, the map features three main areas: a Southern California town where the characters live, the dream world and the ghostly underworld. While anyone can enjoy playing through the map, if a player has read the book, he or she will recognize the settings and might even be able to use some of this knowledge to get ahead.

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At the Inside Social Apps conference last month, we caught up with Tista Games CEO Aunim Hossain. In the video embedded above, he shared how writers can find a place in the evolving field of video games. 

According to Hossain, 500 million people worldwide currently play video games, and experts predict that figure will triple in the next ten years. The gaming company CEO explained why that booming industry will need writers.

Check it out: “As we move further and further toward hardcore games with long story-lines and depth of character, you’re really going to have a need for writers to come in and actually give us content that we can then package into a game that players can engage with. When you think about that–that you can actually become this character and interact with objects and other characters. You will have a depth of storytelling that will far surpass everything we see in TV and movies … Storytelling is the best way of keeping people engaged and keeping them playing.”

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Here’s more from Spinale: “We started off making games for MySpace and it wasn’t obvious that Facebook would be THE social network and I don’t think they realized they’d be a games platform. Games drive usage and purchases and engagement. Apple came reluctantly to the games space and Facebook came accidentally. A lot of the user engagement and adoption of the platform is driven by gaming and now they’re beginning to stabilize their business around gaming.”

The company hired comic book writer Alex Irvine to develop Marvel: Avengers Alliance, the first Facebook game from Disney-owned Marvel Comics.

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Follow this link to watch a trailer for the upcoming title that will compete with popular Facebook games like Farmville. Irvine shared tips for aspiring video game writers–you can explore the growing field in our Best Video Game Writing of the Year feature.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “There are a lot of social games out there, as this game gets going, I think there is going to be a lot of opportunities coming. I would expect to see a lot more games like this. I also think, because the gaming space is changing so fast, that a lot of writers are going to see what sort of opportunities are out there in new hybrid forms between prose and animation, gaming and comics. It’s all going to get mashed together, remixed and recombined in lots of interesting ways over the next few years.”

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Below, we’ve listed to all the nominees in the Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing category. You can follow the links below to explore gameplay videos on YouTube–a chance to watch the games unfold in a series of fan-made videos.

The winners will all be revealed on February 19, 2012 at simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. Here’s more about the awards: “Credited videogame writers must have been or must have applied to become members of the WGA Videogame Writers Caucus at the time scripts were submitted. Work that was not produced under WGA jurisdiction was also eligible for submission.”

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The new series will be written by six children’s authors, including zombie novelist Carrie Ryan, fantasy writer Lisa McMann, YA lit writer Matt de la Peña, historical fiction novelist Matthew J. Kirby, middle grade author Jennifer A. Nielsen and The Maze Runner trilogy author James Dashner. Dashner will write the first book (A Mutiny in Time) and the not-yet-titled final book.

Both the Infinity Ring website and A Mutiny in Time will be released simultaneously in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada starting September 2012. The final book will be published in March 2014.

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