Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in English and Writing Studies

Department

English

First Reader/Committee Chair

Marshall, David

Abstract

Amalgamated adaptation is a concept that involves blending multiple sources into a hodgepodge creation. This practice has become commonplace among game creators in recent years, yet it is neither readily covered nor explicitly mentioned in current video game scholarship. My previous research highlights the profound application of amalgamated adaptation to older texts, particularly myths and sacred texts from various cultures or communities. This method grants creators the autonomy to reinvent these texts in bold and extreme ways, achieved by melding borrowed ideas that complement and, at times, synergize with one another. I argue that single-source adaptations of myths, when reshaped so liberally, have not—and would not—achieve the same success as the amalgamated approach. However, the brazen reinvention and simultaneous recognizability of certain sources are not universal across all myths or their respective cultures. In this paper, I identify Hinduism as a key example where both single-use adaptation and liberal amalgamated adaptation fail to work effectively. Here, amalgamated adaptation takes on a more subtle and purposefully disguised form. Both use cases of amalgamated adaptation, and the motivations behind them, reflect developers' need to innovate game narratives by offering "new" content while reshaping players’ understanding of the culture associated with any given myth.

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