In her latest article published on Loading..., Lindsay Meaning analyzes the adaptation of the novel Kim (1901), by Rudyard Kipling, into a video game by the same name, Kim (2016). The article "Adaptations of Empire: Kipling’s Kim, Novel and Game" focuses on the ways the video game deals with the underlying imperial and colonial ideologies of the book.
According to Meaning, the game's procedural rhetoric (communicating meaning through players interacting with systems) brings the previously obscured practices of colonial violence to the forefront of the narrative. For example, whereas violence in the book would have been implied, the video game uses combat as a mechanic and requires the protagonist to engage.
Meaning sets out to understand the ideological alignment of the game - whether it is still aligned with the imperialism and colonialism that marked the era of the original text despite the fact that the game was created recently, in a time when many are aiming to dismantle these frameworks.
Read the article for Meaning's explanation of the ways the game centres imperialism and colonialism and her argument that "the game fails to interrogate or critique these practices, ultimately reinforcing the imperial ideological framework in which [the novel] was developed".