Simply: a collection of games based on the infamous 1818 Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

The novel is about a scientist who uses separate body parts from dead people to create a living Monster, and who is horrified by what he has made. The story is written in “epistolary form”, meaning that it is comprised of a series of letters, by different characters, written from a first-person viewpoint. The book as a whole features three short “volumes”, with narratives from three main characters: Captain Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and The Creature.

Since the publication of the novel the name “Frankenstein” has been used erroneously to refer to The Monster, rather than to the scientist who made him.

A number of video games have used this 205 year-old, out-of-copyright novel – and the many films based upon it – as the basis of their story, and I’m going to list as many of them as possible here on this page. I’ve listed them chronologically. Click on the links to see the individual games themselves.

Games based on Mary Shelley‘s novel, Frankenstein:

Frankenstein’s Monster, Atari 2600 (1983)
Dr. Franky and the Monster, ZX Spectrum (1984)
Frank N Stein, ZX Spectrum (1984)
Frank N Stein, Amstrad CPC (1985)
Frankenstein 2000, ZX Spectrum (1985)
Bride of Frankenstein, Amstrad CPC (1987)
Bride of Frankenstein, Commodore 64 (1987)
Bride of Frankenstein, ZX Spectrum (1987)
Frankenstein, Amstrad CPC (1987) CRL Group
Frankenstein, Commodore 64 (1987) CRL Group
Frankenstein, ZX Spectrum (1987) CRL Group
Frankenstein: The Monster Returns, NES/Famicom (1991)
Dr. Franken, Game Boy (1992)
Frankenstein, Amiga (1992)
Frankenstein, Atari ST (1992)
Frankenstein, Commodore 64 (1992)
Dr. Franken II, Game Boy (1993)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sega CD (1993)
The Adventures of Dr. Franken, NES (1993)
The Adventures of Dr. Franken, Super Nintendo (1993)
Frankenstein, PC (1994)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Super Nintendo (1994)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sega Genesis (1994)
Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of The Monster, PC (1995)
Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of The Monster, Saturn (1997)

More modern Frankenstein adaptations:
Frankenstein: Master of Death, PC (2015)
Frankenstein: Beyond the Time, PC (2018)
The Wanderer: Frankenstein’s Creature, PC (2019)
My Dear Frankenstein, PC (2021)

About Mary Shelley:

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (nee, Godwin) was born in London, England, in 1797, and died in 1851, aged 53. She conceived the idea of Frankenstein in 1816, aged eighteen, at the villa of Lord Byron by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was cold and rainy that summer so Lord Byron, Mary, and her future husband, Percy, stayed in the villa and sat around a log fire reading ghost stories. To amuse themselves, Lord Byron proposed they each write a ghost story, and from this the seed of the novel emerged. Mary began writing what she initially thought would be a short story, but with Percy’s encouragement she expanded it into a fully-fledged novel, writing the bulk of it while living in Bath, England, in 1816.

There are a number of different versions of the Frankenstein novel, but the first – published by a small London publishing house called Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones – was a three volume edition that was issued anonymously. A second edition was published in 1823 in two volumes, which was the first time the story was credited to Mary Shelley, and a third – the first “popular” edition – was published in 1831 as one volume and was heavily revised by Shelley, to make it “less radical“.

Shelley also wrote and had published a number of other novels. Click here for her bibliography.

After her death Mary Shelley was buried at St. Peter’s Church in Bournemouth and her tomb is large and well-marked, located near the entrance of the church building itself. I once worked in a building just opposite that church and have visited the grave site a number of times (it’s well marked and easy to find). It’s worth a visit if you’re interested in literary history.

More: Mary Shelley on Wikipedia
More: Frankenstein on Wikipedia
More: Original 1818 version of Frankenstein on archive.org