Earlier on this site, Sean brought a game called Façade to our attention. I'd seen the game mentioned on Gamasutra, where Ernest Adams offered the game hyperbolic praise: "Façade is one of the most important games ever created, possibly the most important game of the last ten years." What impressed Adams so much was the game's emotive engine, English recognition, and its unusually mature subject matter (marital problems). Of course, Adams did not say the game was fun--only that it was important.
I finally got around to downloading this "one-act drama" yesterday and played it through three or four times. I found the game quite exhilerating for several hours because I had never felt such "emotional realism" in a game before. What I mean is that I felt for awhile like I was really interacting with two real people, Trip and Grace--or, at least the situation was believable enough to excite me about the possibilities of doing and saying wacky things that I would never have the guts to do in real life. However, it soons becomes apparent why the game is called Façade: It's all just a clever ruse. Soon enough, I figured out how the game was reacting to my inputs. Bizarre comments resulted in automatic responses ("My, you're a kidder") ("Uh, Yeah...") and such. I had a similar experience as a kid playing Eliza. Unfortunately, these programs work by tricking us. Trip and Grace don't learn.
An article that should be mentioned is Selmer Bringsjord's Game Studies piece entitled Is It Possible to Build Dramatically Compelling Interactive Digital Entertainment?" There, Bringsjord argues that games like Façade won't succeed until they are able to convince players that the characters are "autonomous," that is, free-willed. Thus, I would have to be convinced that Trip and Grace aren't automatons programmed to respond a certain way to various inputs.
Anyway, it is definitely an interesting experiment that will probably be talked about as much in academic gaming circles as Eliza was back in the day. The facial expressions and body language alone are worth checking out. It's also fascinating to see what could be in store for the future of entertainment.
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