Is "The Road" the blueprint to TLD?

[ChillPlayer]

I've recently discovered the 2006 released book "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and I cannot help but wonder if TLD is largely based on this masterpiece of a book.
For those who didn't read the (pulizer price winning) book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road
There's also a movie made of the book: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

I think I remember Raphael mentioning this book once in a post or tweet but only after reading it I realized how much it must have influenced Raphs vision for the game, conciously or not, but if someone would've posted the text here I would've thought that this story was written after someone played TLD for an extensive time.

Like in TLD civilization ended due to some not further detailed desaster, all we know is that the sky is clouded with ash or something and almost all people are gone. The protagonists, a dad and his son, are on the road moving from village to village, house to house looting for survival, battling snowstorms, cold and hunger.

Some excerpts:

Quote

He found a can of olive oil and some cans of milk. Tea in a rusted metal caddy. A plastic container of some sort of meal that he did not recognize. A half empty can of coffee. He went methodically through the shelves in the locker, sorting what to take from what to leave. When he had carried everything into the saloon and stacked it against the companionway he went back into the galley and opened the toolbox and set about removing one of the burners from the little gimballed stove.
....
That night they camped in a ravine and built a fire against a small stone bluff and ate their last tin of food. He’d put it by because it was the boy’s favorite, pork and beans.
....
He got a can of peaches from the bag and opened it and sat before the fire and ate the peaches slowly with his spoon while the boy slept.
....
They drank tea and sat by the fire and they slept in the sand and listened to the roll of the surf in the bay.
....
In the evening he opened a can of soup and set it in the coals and he ate and watched the darkness come up

Not only do they eat the same stuff for most of the time as we do in TLD, the way they loot the houses reminds me of TLD as well:

Quote

The storm had littered the shore and he walked the tideline looking for anything of use. In the shallows beyond the breakwater an ancient corpse rising and falling among the driftwood.
....
In the first bedroom a dried corpse with the covers about its neck. Remnants of rotted hair on the pillow. He took hold of the lower hem of the blanket and towed it off the bed and shook it out and folded it under his arm. He went through the bureaus and the closets. A summer dress on a wire hanger. Nothing. He went back down the stairs.
....
He went through the house room by room. He found nothing. A spoon in a bedside drawer. He put that in his pocket. He thought there might be some clothes in a closet or some bedding but there wasnt. He went back out and crossed to the garage. He sorted through tools. Rakes. A shovel. Jars of nails and bolts on a shelf. A boxcutter. He held it to the light and looked at the rusty blade and put it back.
....
He filled the bag with odds and ends of clothing. A pair of women’s sneakers he thought would fit the boy. A foldingknife with a wooden handle. A pair of sunglasses. Still there was something perverse in his searching. Like exhausting the least likely places first when looking for something lost. Finally he went into the galley. He turned on the stove and turned it off again.
....
Inside was a yellow plastic flashlight, an electric strobebeacon powered by a drycell, a first-aid kit. A yellow plastic EPIRB. And a black plastic case about the size of a book. He lifted it out and unsnapped the latches and opened it. Inside was fitted an old 37 millimeter bronze flarepistol.
....
In the morning he rekindled the fire and they ate and watched the shore. The cold and rainy look of it not so different from seascapes in the northern world. No gulls or shorebirds. Charred and senseless artifacts strewn down the shoreline or rolling in the surf. They gathered driftwood and stacked it and covered it with the tarp and then set off down the beach. We’re beachcombers, he said.

And maybe the name "The Long Dark" is inspired by the book too:

Quote

I wont ever leave you. Do you understand? He lay in the leaves holding the trembling child. Clutching the revolver. All through the long dusk and into the dark.
...
They went down the long dark wall of the mill, the windows bricked up

And that's only the stuff I could remember two weeks after reading the book, they also found a ship wreck, looted some frozen corpse and several cars, walked through devoid hay fields and along the beach. There are so many similarities that I really like to ask @Raphael van Lierop how much the setting and gameplay of TLD (not the Wintermute story) is influenced by The Road, was the game intentionally modelled after this book?

What do others think who have read the book (before or after playing TLD), did it blew your mind too?

And lastly, it seems that the title of another very well known apocalyptic show is probably based on this book:

Quote

What in God’s name are you talking about? We’re not survivors. We’re the walking dead in a horror film.

Amazing!

 

[Frosty]

I read the book after watching the movie years ago but never thought about the connection to TLD until Raph posted this on a AMA he did recently. He also notes some other inspirations 

 Inspirations were legion, but the notable ones:

(Games) Fallout 3, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Half-Life Bioshock, etc.

(Novels) The Road, The Dog Stars, Earth Abides, Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, Oryx and Crake, etc. Really, anything post-apocalyptic and literary (not B-movie stuff).

[ChillPlayer]

45 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I read the book after watching the movie years ago but never thought about the connection to TLD until Raph posted this on a AMA he did recently.

ah yes right, thank you for reminding me, that's where I've read that comment. Certainly I was biased because I've read the book after spending hundreds of hours with TLD which is why I spotted so many similarities - but then without TLD I wouldn't even have thought about reading The Road

[GreenBeing]

What about the movie, The Grey? Plane crash in wintry Alaska, trekking across the snowy wilderness, chased by wolves the whole time.  

[ChillPlayer]

22 hours ago, GreenBeing said:

What about the movie, The Grey? Plane crash in wintry Alaska, trekking across the snowy wilderness, chased by wolves the whole time.  

yes to some extend the setting is similar but I never felt like Liam Neeson when playing TLD - I felt like playing TLD though while reading The Road.

But then TLD is also labeled often as the "Liam Neeson Simulator"  

[Turbolovers]

No, it's not. In this case, the TLD would have to make a link and so on. Copyright is a serious thing.

[Turbolovers]

TLD is an independent project with protected rights. Some coincidences are accidental.

[ChillPlayer]

1 hour ago, Turbolovers said:

No, it's not. In this case, the TLD would have to make a link and so on. Copyright is a serious thing.

there is no Copyright involved by getting inspired by something. I never said TLD is a copy of The Road, I just asked if and how much Raph got inspired by the book, knowing that he has read it.

[Turbolovers]

This film is very inspired by Naughty Dog to develop the game The Last of Us.

[Turbolovers]

This game reminds me of the works of Jack London.