When Alfred Hitchcock made Rope, it was impossible for him to let the bad guys win.
How The Hays Code Killed Suspense, And How Hitchcock Got Around It
Released in 1948, the thriller — about two former prep school chums who kill their friend because they believe themselves to be Übermensches to whom the normal rules prohibiting murder do not apply — was made at the height of the Motion Picture Production (or Hays) Code. Those industry-imposed moral strictures were Hollywood’s way of avoiding government censorship by beating it to the punch. The Code required that “no picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil or sin.”
These were the confines Hitchcock’s movies had to work within, which made the endings of his thrillers tend toward foregone conclusions. You knew that, however dark things got along the way, good had to win and evil had to lose. In Rope, the lead killer, Brandon, played by John Dall, is so sure that they’ll get away with the crime that he’s invited the deceased’s family and friends over for a dinner party which will be served from the very chest where the body has been stored. But we know that the Code requires that they be caught, so the suspense lies not in wondering if they’ll get found out, but how and when. This works well for Rope as a film, but a great video game version could use the looser moral requirements of modern media to make an engrossing interactive crime story where you could, potentially, get away with it.
There’s precedent for video games based on Hitchcock’s work. Back in 2021, developer Pendulo Studios and publisher Microids released Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo, an adventure game inspired by the director’s film of the same name, and his work more broadly.
Rope’s big conceit was that it was filmed in “oners” — lengthy shots where there are no obvious cuts. The movie isn’t all one-take — there are some crucial cuts, like a reaction shot of James Stewart when he begins to realize that something is amiss at the party — but the film is otherwise a series of long shots. Hitchcock uses this real-time pacing to build (and build, and build) the tension until it feels ready to explode. At one point, Brandon’s housekeeper begins clearing off the platters and decorations on top of the chest where David lies dead. We watch and watch and watch, waiting for release, and are relieved when Stewart’s character finally intervenes unknowingly, to prevent the discovery.
12 Minutes Lays The Groundwork
Because it’s a movie, we have no control over what happens. We can only watch and wait for the body to be discovered. But, a game that cast you as the murderer could mine a different vein of tension. Given the small, apartment setting and the murder-centric plot, the game that comes to mind is Luís Antonío’s 12 Minutes, a divisive (but effective) point-and-click thriller set over the course of 12 real-time minutes. 12 Minutes stuck its protagonist in a time loop that was ticking down toward the moment a mysterious stranger would invariably break down the door and murder the player character and/or his pregnant wife. As you play, you have to figure out who the man is, why he wants to break into your apartment, and various other bits of information that will help you break the loop.
12 Minutes was very small in scale. There were only three major characters, and the game had a very short time frame. But, a game based on Rope could ahem rope in more characters, asking the player to manage ten attendees who all have different desires, motivations, and quirks that could lead to them discovering the body. You would need to juggle all of them, running around the apartment, and managing many branching conversations while attempting to figure out which choices are giving your secret away. It could play more like a social RTS than a point-and-click adventure game.
I’m gonna wrap this up here, because I don’t want to sit on this article for a second longer. Now I just want to play this game. If you’re a game developer reading this, please, make this game ASAP.
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