Official Animal Farm game is an adventure-tycoon
Oh well.
There's an official game adaptation of Animal Farm in the works.
A raft of prominent UK video game developers have come together to work on the game, which is fully authorised by the estate of George Orwell.
The Animal Farm game is described as an "adventure tycoon". You play one of the animals in the Manor Farm just before the revolution. Here's the official blurb:
"The Animal Farm game will be an adventure-tycoon, placing the player in the Manor Farm as one of the animals just before the revolution, and will follow their journey through the ups and downs of Animalism. The gameplay will combine story choices and the running of the farm into a consistent narrative, giving players a chance to experience the consequences of their decisions first hand.
"When George Orwell's seminal novel Animal Farm was first published in 1945, it was seen as a critique of Soviet Russia. But as an allegory of absolute power and totalitarian authority, both a needle-sharp satire and a terrible warning, it has proved to have timeless and universal significance.
" 'Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely', one of the many lessons in Animal Farm, is as relevant today as it was at the end of the Second World War. Orwell posed the reader many questions about power and the corrosive misuse of language. This is a chance to plant the players at the heart of these questions, luring them towards utopia or dictatorship."
We don't have any screenshots or gameplay footage, but we do know who's working on the project: Imre Jele (founder of Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread developer Bossa Studios), Andy Payne (founder of Just Flight and AppyNation and ex-Mastertronic), Georg Backer (A Brave Plan, Fable series), Jessica Curry (Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Dear Esther) and Kate Saxon (Mafia 3, Alien: Isolation, Witcher 3).
Here's a telling quote from Jele on his motivation for spearheading the project:
"Over the last decade some governments started using language eerily similar to what I heard growing up under a communist regime. So I can't help feeling personally challenged to spread Orwell's dystopian warning by adapting Animal Farm into a game."
Expect a release on PC and "other platforms".