Transmediation of Spatial Characteristics — Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast Series and Philip Cooke’s Gormenghast: A Board Game set in the World of Mervyn Peake

Abstract

The text discusses notable spatial characteristics of the storyworld created in Mervyn Peake’s Gormeghast literary series and relates them to the mechanics used in a paratextual board game designed by Philip Cooke. Spatiality is crucial in Peake’s series, thus allowing for a specific relationship between literary pre-text and the board game as a medium that allows participation. The text thus tries to answer the questions how the Gormenghast storyworld utilises spatial categories, how the spatiality of the novels represents certain “transfictional affinity” with board games, and how the board game utilises game mechanics to convey the affect and pathos of the pre-text.