Interactive Narrative - Gameplay (FACADE)

Week 2 - Day 3 (2/3/2016) (Edited for final submission - 13/4/2016)

In this week's gameplay, I'm choosing to address question 3. Does your chosen game(s) make user input feel meaningful in terms of story direction and progression? Why or why not? The game in question will be "Facade" which I played alongside Tea for a few runs and had a discussion over the game as it played out.

Facade is a text parser game where you navigate a discussion between two argumentative spouses by attempting to defuse the situation by inputting text to steer the conversation along to safer pastures. Unfortunately, despite multiple attempts, all of my experiences with the game ended negatively. Since the very beginning of the game and as it progressed, it became more and more apparent that I was rapidly losing control of the situation - Grace accuses me of picking sides and all Trip seemed to want to do was talk about Grace's problems rather than address their relationship as a whole. "We are part of the text ourselves – it needs our input to happen." (Page 7/38 of the week 2 PowerPoint.) However, this is not always the case: if a reply from my end was too slow, the story would progress with or without my input and sometimes a keyword would be taken completely out of context and I would lose my footing within the conversation.

"Video games are first-person storytelling: you are the actor living out the story. Instead of simply being told what’s going on, or watching it happen, you’re experiencing it firsthand" (Page 8/38 of the week 2 PowerPoint.) We are, unfortunately, the awkward third wheel in this unhappy marriage. In many cases, the story seems as if it wouldn't matter what my input would be; either I would get kicked out for being (accidentally) inappropriate, or Trip would leave. I felt that my input was ignored for most of the times except at the very beginning before the situation delved into a kind of domestic disturbance with me in the middle. Little things like what kind of drink I wanted, or how I found the decor; those were acceptable responses for the game. However, as soon as either Grace or Trip begin an argument over the state of their marriage, my input became very limited and were usually not taken into consideration. In the end, I did not find the game very enjoyable. That being said, Facade does very well in making you feel at fault with the dissolution of the marriage and/or angry at the devolving situation.