Interactive movie
Encyclopedia
An interactive movie is a video game that features highly cinematic presentation and heavy use of scripting, often through the use of full-motion video
of either animated
or live-action footage.
s and laserdisc players, the first nonlinear or random access
video play devices. The fact that a laserdisc player could jump to and play any chapter instantaneously (rather than proceed in a linear path from start to finish like videotape
) meant that games with branching plotlines could be constructed from out-of-order video chapters in much the same way as Choose Your Own Adventure
books could be constructed from out-of-order pages, or the way an interactive film is constructed by choosing from a web of linked narratives.
Thus, interactive movies were animated or filmed with real actors like movies (or in some later cases, rendered with 3D
models), and followed a main storyline. Alternative scenes were filmed to be triggered after wrong (or alternate allowable) actions of the player (such as 'Game Over
' scenes).
An early attempt to combine random access video with computer games was "Rollercoaster," written in BASIC for the Apple II by David Lubar
for David H. Ahl
, editor of Creative Computing
. This was a text adventure that could trigger a laserdisc player to play portions of the feature film Rollercoaster (1977). The program was conceived and written in 1981, and published in the January 1982 issue of Creative Computing, along with an article by Lubar detailing its creation, an article by Ahl claiming that Rollercoaster is the first video/computer game hybrid and proposing a theory of video/computer interactivity, and other articles reviewing hardware necessary to run the game and do further experiments.
The first commercial interactive movie game to be released was the 1983 arcade game
Dragon's Lair
, featuring a full-motion
(FMV) cartoon
by ex-Disney
animator Don Bluth
, where the player controlled some of the moves of the main character. When in danger, the player was to decide which move or action, or combination to choose. If they chose the wrong move, they would see a 'lose a life' scene, until they found the correct one which would allow them to see the rest of the story. There was only one possible successful storyline in Dragon's Lair; the only activity the user had was to choose or guess the move the designers intended them to make. Despite the lack of interactivity, Dragon's Lair was very popular and addictive, and has since received a remake on modern day gaming consoles (except with a complete genre change).
The hardware for these games consisted of a laserdisc player linked to a processor
configured with interface software that assigned a jump-to-chapter function to each of the controller buttons at each decision point. Much as a Choose Your Own Adventure book might say "If you turn left, go to page 7. If you turn right, go to page 8," the controller for Dragon's Lair or Cliff Hanger would be programmed to go to the next chapter in the successful story if a player pressed the right button, or to go to the death chapter if he pressed the wrong one. Because laserdisc players of the day were not robust enough to handle the constant wear placed on them by constant arcade use, they required frequent replacement. The laserdiscs that contained the footage were ordinary laserdiscs with nothing special about them save for the order of their chapters, and if removed from the arcade console would readily display their video on standard, non-interactive laserdisc players; to this day they are still much sought-after by laserdisc collectors.
was Sega
's Astron Belt
, an early third-person
space combat
rail shooter featuring live-action full-motion video footage (largely borrowed from a Japanese science fiction film) over which the player/enemy ships and laser fire are superimposed. Developed in 1982, it was first unveiled at the 1982 AMOA show in Chicago and released the following year. However, the game that popularized the genre in the United States was Dragon's Lair
, animated by Don Bluth
and released by Cinematronics
shortly after.
Several laserdisc-based interactive movie games followed Dragon's Lairs format, with slight variations. Bega's Battle, released by Data East
that same year, and Space Ace
, a Don Bluth animated game released by Cinematronics the following year, added "branching paths" to the formula, in which there were multiple "correct moves" at certain points in the animation, and the move the player chose would affect the order of later scenes. Super Don Quix-ote
and Esh's Aurunmilla both overlaid crude computer graphics on top of the animation to indicate the correct input to the player.
Because Dragon's Lair and Space Ace were immensely popular, they spawned a deluge of sequels and similar laserdisc games, despite the astronomical cost of the animation. To cut costs, several companies simply hacked together scenes from anime
that were obscure to American audiences of the day. One such example was Stern's Cliff Hanger
, a 1983 game which used footage from the Lupin III
movies Castle of Cagliostro
(directed by Hayao Miyazaki
) and Mystery of Mamo
. Another example released that same year was Bega's Battle, which used footage from Harmagedon, though it used a different approach, introducing a new form of video game storytelling: using brief full-motion video cutscene
s to develop a story between the game's shooting
stages. Years later, this would become the standard approach to video game storytelling. Bega's Battle also featured a branching storyline.
In the late 1980s, American Laser Games
produced a wide variety of live-action light gun
laserdisc video games, which played much like the early cartoon games, but used a light gun instead of a joystick to affect the action. When CD-ROM
s were embedded in home computers, games with live action and full motion video featuring actor
s were considered cutting-edge, and some interactive movies were made. Some notable ones (which, unlike Dragon's Lair, are considered adventure game
s) are Voyeur
, Star Trek: Klingon
, Star Trek: Borg
, Ripper, Black Dahlia
, The X-Files Game, Phantasmagoria
, Bad Day on the Midway
and The Dark Eye
. Others, in the action
genre, are Braindead 13
and Star Wars: Rebel Assault
.
In the early 1990s, Atari
Corporation's last game platform, Jaguar
was developed and in 1994 received an add-on CD-ROM module. An interactive movie format named GameFilm was developed and patented for Jaguar CDs that used Apple's QuickTime format video clips. These clips were organized in a branching tree-like structure that offered users alternative paths to solve mysteries or to succeed in a quest. Several interactive movies were produced for Jaguar and demonstrated at trade shows, but the Jaguar platform failed in the market soon after. Due to the limitation of memory and disk space, as well as the lengthy timeframes and high costs required for the production, not many variations and alternative scenes for possible player moves were filmed, so the games tended not to allow much freedom and variety of gameplay. Thus, interactive movie games were not usually very replayable after being completed once.
From the time of its original introduction, the DVD
format specification has included the ability to use an ordinary DVD player to play interactive games, such as Dragon's Lair
(which was reissued on DVD), the Scene It?
and other series of DVD TV game
s, or games that are included as bonus material on movie DVDs. Aftermath Media (founded by Rob Landeros
of Trilobyte
) released two notable interactive movies for the DVD platform. Their first release was Tender Loving Care
(featuring John Hurt
), this was then followed by Point of View (P.O.V). Currently, such games have appeared on DVDs aimed at younger target audiences, such as the special features discs of the Harry Potter film series.
There have been some recent video games that have used this approach using fully animated computer generated scenes, including various adventure game
s such as the Sound Novel series by Chunsoft
, Shenmue
series by Sega, Shadow of Memories
by Konami
, and Fahrenheit
and Heavy Rain
by Quantic Dream
. Heavy Rain, for example, is a dramatic thriller that uses minimal player input. During many scenes, the player has limited control of the character and chooses certain actions to progress the story. Other scenes are quick time event
action sequences, requiring the player to hit appropriate buttons
at the right time to succeed. Heavy Rain has numerous branching storylines that result from what actions the player takes or fails to complete properly, which can include the death of major characters or failure to solve the mystery.
disparages the concept of interactive movies, except those aimed at elementary-school-age children, in his book Chris Crawford on Game Design
. He writes that since the player must process what is known and explore the options, choosing a path at a branchpoint is every bit as demanding as making a decision in a conventional game, but with much less reward since the result can only be one of a small number of branches.
Wing Commander
series starting with Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger. Between combat missions, Wing Commander III featured cut scenes with live actors; the game offered limited storyline branching based on whether missions were won or lost and on choices made at decision points during the cut scenes.
Other games like Bioforge
would, perhaps erroneously, use the term for a game that has rich action and plot of cinematic proportions—but, in terms of gameplay, has no relation to FMV movies.
The term is an ambiguous one since many video games follow a storyline similar to the way movies would.
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
of either animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
or live-action footage.
Philosophy
This genre came about with the invention of laserdiscLaserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
s and laserdisc players, the first nonlinear or random access
Random access
In computer science, random access is the ability to access an element at an arbitrary position in a sequence in equal time, independent of sequence size. The position is arbitrary in the sense that it is unpredictable, thus the use of the term "random" in "random access"...
video play devices. The fact that a laserdisc player could jump to and play any chapter instantaneously (rather than proceed in a linear path from start to finish like videotape
Videotape
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
) meant that games with branching plotlines could be constructed from out-of-order video chapters in much the same way as Choose Your Own Adventure
Choose Your Own Adventure
Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome. The series was based on a...
books could be constructed from out-of-order pages, or the way an interactive film is constructed by choosing from a web of linked narratives.
Thus, interactive movies were animated or filmed with real actors like movies (or in some later cases, rendered with 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
models), and followed a main storyline. Alternative scenes were filmed to be triggered after wrong (or alternate allowable) actions of the player (such as 'Game Over
Game over
Game Over is a message in video games which signals that the game has ended, often due to a negative outcome - although the phrase sometimes follows the end credits after successful completion of a game...
' scenes).
An early attempt to combine random access video with computer games was "Rollercoaster," written in BASIC for the Apple II by David Lubar
David Lubar
David Lubar is an author of numerous books for teens. He is also an electronic game programmer, who programmedSuper Breakout for the Nintendo Game Boy, and Frogger for both the SNES and Game Boy. As a game designer, he designed the game Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge for the Nintendo Game Boy Color...
for David H. Ahl
David H. Ahl
David H. Ahl is the founder of Creative Computing magazine. He is also the author of many how-to books, including BASIC Computer Games, the first million-selling computer book....
, editor of Creative Computing
Creative Computing
Creative Computing was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from 1974 until December 1985, Creative Computing covered the whole spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format than the rather technically-oriented BYTE. The magazine...
. This was a text adventure that could trigger a laserdisc player to play portions of the feature film Rollercoaster (1977). The program was conceived and written in 1981, and published in the January 1982 issue of Creative Computing, along with an article by Lubar detailing its creation, an article by Ahl claiming that Rollercoaster is the first video/computer game hybrid and proposing a theory of video/computer interactivity, and other articles reviewing hardware necessary to run the game and do further experiments.
The first commercial interactive movie game to be released was the 1983 arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
, featuring a full-motion
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
(FMV) cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
by ex-Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
animator Don Bluth
Don Bluth
Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth is an American animator and independent studio owner. He is best known for his departure from The Walt Disney Company in 1979 and his subsequent directing of animated films such as The Secret of NIMH , An American Tail ,The Land Before Time , and All Dogs Go to Heaven ,...
, where the player controlled some of the moves of the main character. When in danger, the player was to decide which move or action, or combination to choose. If they chose the wrong move, they would see a 'lose a life' scene, until they found the correct one which would allow them to see the rest of the story. There was only one possible successful storyline in Dragon's Lair; the only activity the user had was to choose or guess the move the designers intended them to make. Despite the lack of interactivity, Dragon's Lair was very popular and addictive, and has since received a remake on modern day gaming consoles (except with a complete genre change).
The hardware for these games consisted of a laserdisc player linked to a processor
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
configured with interface software that assigned a jump-to-chapter function to each of the controller buttons at each decision point. Much as a Choose Your Own Adventure book might say "If you turn left, go to page 7. If you turn right, go to page 8," the controller for Dragon's Lair or Cliff Hanger would be programmed to go to the next chapter in the successful story if a player pressed the right button, or to go to the death chapter if he pressed the wrong one. Because laserdisc players of the day were not robust enough to handle the constant wear placed on them by constant arcade use, they required frequent replacement. The laserdiscs that contained the footage were ordinary laserdiscs with nothing special about them save for the order of their chapters, and if removed from the arcade console would readily display their video on standard, non-interactive laserdisc players; to this day they are still much sought-after by laserdisc collectors.
History
The first arcade laserdisc video gameLaserdisc video game
A laserdisc video game is an arcade game that uses pre-recorded video played from a laserdisc, either as the entirety of the graphics, or as part of the graphics.-History:...
was Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
's Astron Belt
Astron Belt
Astron Belt is an early laserdisc video game and third-person space combat rail shooter, released in 1983 by Sega in Japan and licensed to Bally Midway for release in the United States. Developed in 1982, it is commonly cited as the first laserdisc game...
, an early third-person
Third-person shooter
Third-person shooter is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting.-Definition:...
space combat
Space flight simulator game
A space flight simulator game is a genre of simulation video games that lets players experience space flight. Highly realistic examples lacking any sort of combat include Orbiter and Microsoft Space Simulator...
rail shooter featuring live-action full-motion video footage (largely borrowed from a Japanese science fiction film) over which the player/enemy ships and laser fire are superimposed. Developed in 1982, it was first unveiled at the 1982 AMOA show in Chicago and released the following year. However, the game that popularized the genre in the United States was Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
, animated by Don Bluth
Don Bluth
Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth is an American animator and independent studio owner. He is best known for his departure from The Walt Disney Company in 1979 and his subsequent directing of animated films such as The Secret of NIMH , An American Tail ,The Land Before Time , and All Dogs Go to Heaven ,...
and released by Cinematronics
Cinematronics
Cinematronics Incorporated was a pioneering arcade game developer that had its heyday in the era of vector display games. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look...
shortly after.
Several laserdisc-based interactive movie games followed Dragon's Lairs format, with slight variations. Bega's Battle, released by Data East
Data East
also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game developer and publisher. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, when it declared bankruptcy...
that same year, and Space Ace
Space Ace
Space Ace is a laserdisc video game produced by Don Bluth Studios, Cinematronics, and Advanced Microcomputer Systems...
, a Don Bluth animated game released by Cinematronics the following year, added "branching paths" to the formula, in which there were multiple "correct moves" at certain points in the animation, and the move the player chose would affect the order of later scenes. Super Don Quix-ote
Super Don Quix-ote
Super Don Quix-ote is a laserdisc video game released by Universal in . Although the game was made by a Japanese company, it features Western animation.-Plot:...
and Esh's Aurunmilla both overlaid crude computer graphics on top of the animation to indicate the correct input to the player.
Because Dragon's Lair and Space Ace were immensely popular, they spawned a deluge of sequels and similar laserdisc games, despite the astronomical cost of the animation. To cut costs, several companies simply hacked together scenes from anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
that were obscure to American audiences of the day. One such example was Stern's Cliff Hanger
Cliff Hanger (game)
Cliff Hanger was a laserdisc video game released by Stern Electronics in 1983. It used animation from the anime series Lupin III, mostly from The Castle of Cagliostro and scenes from Mystery of Mamo...
, a 1983 game which used footage from the Lupin III
Lupin III
, also known as Lupin the 3rd, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuhiko Kato under the pen name of Monkey Punch. The story follows the adventures of a gang of thieves led by Arsène Lupin III, the grandson of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc's series of...
movies Castle of Cagliostro
The Castle of Cagliostro
is a 1979 Japanese animated film co-written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is one of the films featuring master thief Arsène Lupin III.The second animated Lupin III movie and arguably the best known, Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who also co-directed the first...
(directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
) and Mystery of Mamo
Mystery of Mamo
The Secret of Mamo, or The Mystery of Mamo, is the most common English name for the 1978 first animated feature film based on the Lupin III character created by Monkey Punch, originally released in Japan as simply and now known there as in order to differentiate it from the four others that...
. Another example released that same year was Bega's Battle, which used footage from Harmagedon, though it used a different approach, introducing a new form of video game storytelling: using brief full-motion video cutscene
Cutscene
A cutscene is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, strengthen the main character's development, introduces enemy characters, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues...
s to develop a story between the game's shooting
Shooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...
stages. Years later, this would become the standard approach to video game storytelling. Bega's Battle also featured a branching storyline.
In the late 1980s, American Laser Games
American Laser Games
American Laser Games was a company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico that created a wide variety of light gun laserdisc video games. The company was founded in the late 1980s by Robert Grebe, who had originally created the system to train police officers under the company name ICAT , and adapted the...
produced a wide variety of live-action light gun
Light gun
A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games.Modern screen-based light guns work by building a sensor into the gun itself, and the on-screen target emit light rather than the gun...
laserdisc video games, which played much like the early cartoon games, but used a light gun instead of a joystick to affect the action. When CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s were embedded in home computers, games with live action and full motion video featuring actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
s were considered cutting-edge, and some interactive movies were made. Some notable ones (which, unlike Dragon's Lair, are considered adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s) are Voyeur
Voyeur (video game)
Voyeur and Voyeur II were full motion video games released in 1993 and 1996 respectively. The first game was originally released as the "flagship" product for the short lived Philips CD-i multimedia system/video game console...
, Star Trek: Klingon
Star Trek: Klingon
Star Trek: Klingon is an interactive movie/computer game set in the Star Trek universe. It was written by Hilary Bader, directed by Jonathan Frakes, and featured music by Gregory Smith...
, Star Trek: Borg
Star Trek: Borg
Star Trek: Borg is an interactive movie/computer game and audiobook set in the Star Trek universe. It was written by Hilary Bader, directed by James L. Conway, and featured an original score by Dennis McCarthy...
, Ripper, Black Dahlia
Black Dahlia (computer game)
Black Dahlia is a full motion video based game that was released on February 28, 1998 by Take-Two Interactive.The story, while fictional, is inspired by the real life Cleveland Torso Murderer and the infamous murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles....
, The X-Files Game, Phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria (computer game)
Phantasmagoria was a notable outing for designer Roberta Williams, best known for her family games like the King's Quest series. Featuring graphic gore, violence, and a rape scene, the game stirred controversy over age restrictions and target audiences in the maturing game industry. It was banned...
, Bad Day on the Midway
Bad Day on the Midway
Bad Day on the Midway is a CD-ROM game designed and scored by The Residents and a number of other graphic artists, including Jim Ludtke. The game won the 1995 'Macrovision International User Conference Award' in two categories - Best Entertainment Title and Most Innovative Use of Multimedia.The ...
and The Dark Eye
The Dark Eye (video game)
The Dark Eye is a computer game of the horror genre, released in 1995 for the PC by now-defunct software company inSCAPE. Upon its release the game attracted little attention from either critics or consumers, though it has received some attention since and, arguably, cult status.The game featured...
. Others, in the action
Action game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
genre, are Braindead 13
Braindead 13
Brain Dead 13 is an Interactive movie game produced by ReadySoft that was released for DOS in 1995 and later ported to consoles in 1996. Unlike Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, which began as laserdiscs, it was released for PCs and game consoles only....
and Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Star Wars: Rebel Assault was the first CD ROM-only game published by LucasArts, set in the Star Wars universe. It was released for the PC followed by subsequent releases on the Sega CD, Mac and 3DO platforms.-Summary:...
.
In the early 1990s, Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
Corporation's last game platform, Jaguar
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a video game console that was released by Atari Corporation in 1993. It was the last to be marketed under the Atari brand until the release of the Atari Flashback in 2004. It was designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Panasonic...
was developed and in 1994 received an add-on CD-ROM module. An interactive movie format named GameFilm was developed and patented for Jaguar CDs that used Apple's QuickTime format video clips. These clips were organized in a branching tree-like structure that offered users alternative paths to solve mysteries or to succeed in a quest. Several interactive movies were produced for Jaguar and demonstrated at trade shows, but the Jaguar platform failed in the market soon after. Due to the limitation of memory and disk space, as well as the lengthy timeframes and high costs required for the production, not many variations and alternative scenes for possible player moves were filmed, so the games tended not to allow much freedom and variety of gameplay. Thus, interactive movie games were not usually very replayable after being completed once.
From the time of its original introduction, the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
format specification has included the ability to use an ordinary DVD player to play interactive games, such as Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
(which was reissued on DVD), the Scene It?
Scene It?
Scene It? is a DVD game series created by Screenlife, in which players answer trivia questions about films or pop culture. The games were first developed to be played with questions read from trivia cards or viewed on a television from an included DVD or based on clips from movies, TV shows, music...
and other series of DVD TV game
DVD TV game
A DVD TV game is a standalone game that can be played on a set-top DVD player. The game takes advantage of technology built into the DVD format to create an interactive gaming environment compatible with most DVD players without requiring additional hardware...
s, or games that are included as bonus material on movie DVDs. Aftermath Media (founded by Rob Landeros
Rob Landeros
Rob Landeros is a computer game designer and graphic artist. Together with Graeme Devine, he co-founded Trilobyte, where he created the highly commercially successful games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour...
of Trilobyte
Trilobyte
Trilobyte is a computer game developer founded in December 1990 by Graeme Devine and Rob Landeros. They are well known in the computer game industry for The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour games, and to a lesser extent for Clandestiny and other titles.- Logo :The official company logo consists of a...
) released two notable interactive movies for the DVD platform. Their first release was Tender Loving Care
Tender Loving Care
Tender Loving Care is an interactive movie released in 1999 by Aftermath Media. It is a psychological thriller starring Michael Esposito, Beth Tegarden, and John Hurt as Dr. Turner...
(featuring John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
), this was then followed by Point of View (P.O.V). Currently, such games have appeared on DVDs aimed at younger target audiences, such as the special features discs of the Harry Potter film series.
There have been some recent video games that have used this approach using fully animated computer generated scenes, including various adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s such as the Sound Novel series by Chunsoft
Chunsoft
is a Japanese video game developer specializing in console RPGs and visual novels. It was founded by Koichi Nakamura, a video game designer from Enix...
, Shenmue
Shenmue (series)
Shenmue is an interactive cinema open-world adventure video game series created, produced and directed by Yu Suzuki, and developed and published by Sega. Shenmue was listed in the 2006 Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive video game produced for its time, with a production budget of...
series by Sega, Shadow of Memories
Shadow of Memories
, also known as Shadow of Destiny in North America, is an adventure video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo for the PlayStation 2. Originally released for the PlayStation 2, it was later ported to the PC and Xbox in 2002 by the now-defunct Runecraft company...
by Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
, and Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit (video game)
Fahrenheit, also known as Indigo Prophecy in North America, is a cinematic adventure video game developed by Quantic Dream and manufactured and marketed by Atari Europe SAS...
and Heavy Rain
Heavy Rain
Heavy Rain is an interactive drama psychological thriller video game created by Quantic Dream exclusively for the PlayStation 3. The game is written and directed by Quantic Dream's founder and CEO David Cage....
by Quantic Dream
Quantic Dream
Quantic Dream is a French video game developer based in Paris, France, founded in 1997. The company also supplies motion capture services to the film and video game industries.-History:...
. Heavy Rain, for example, is a dramatic thriller that uses minimal player input. During many scenes, the player has limited control of the character and chooses certain actions to progress the story. Other scenes are quick time event
Quick Time Event
In video games, a Quick Time Event is a method of context-sensitive gameplay in which the player performs actions on the control device shortly after the appearance of an on-screen prompt. It allows for limited control of the game character during cut scenes or cinematic sequences in the game...
action sequences, requiring the player to hit appropriate buttons
Context sensitive user interface
A context sensitive user interface is one which can automatically choose from a multiplicity of options based on the current or previous state of the program operation.Context sensitivity is almost ubiquitous in current graphical user interfaces, and should, when operating correctly, be practically...
at the right time to succeed. Heavy Rain has numerous branching storylines that result from what actions the player takes or fails to complete properly, which can include the death of major characters or failure to solve the mystery.
Criticism
Game designer Chris CrawfordChris Crawford (game designer)
Christopher Crawford is a computer game designer and writer noted for creating a number of important games in the 1980s, founding The Journal of Computer Game Design, and organizing the Computer Game Developers' Conference.- Biography :...
disparages the concept of interactive movies, except those aimed at elementary-school-age children, in his book Chris Crawford on Game Design
Chris Crawford on Game Design
Chris Crawford on Game Design is a book about computer and video game design by Chris Crawford. Although referred to as the second edition of The Art of Computer Game Design, it is in fact a completely new book. It was published by Peachpit under the New Riders imprint in 2003...
. He writes that since the player must process what is known and explore the options, choosing a path at a branchpoint is every bit as demanding as making a decision in a conventional game, but with much less reward since the result can only be one of a small number of branches.
Other uses
Some studios hybridized ordinary computer game play with interactive movie play; the earliest examples of this were the entries in the Origin SystemsOrigin Systems
Origin Systems, Inc. was a computer game developer based in Austin, Texas that was active from 1983 to 2004...
Wing Commander
Wing Commander (franchise)
Wing Commander is a video game media franchise consisting of space combat simulation computer games from Origin Systems, Inc., an animated television series, a feature film, a collectible card game, a series of novels, and action figures...
series starting with Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger. Between combat missions, Wing Commander III featured cut scenes with live actors; the game offered limited storyline branching based on whether missions were won or lost and on choices made at decision points during the cut scenes.
Other games like Bioforge
BioForge
BioForge is a 1995 computer role-playing game published by Origin Systems for the PC. The game was marketed as a movie-like production, because of its in-depth plot and extensive voice acting...
would, perhaps erroneously, use the term for a game that has rich action and plot of cinematic proportions—but, in terms of gameplay, has no relation to FMV movies.
The term is an ambiguous one since many video games follow a storyline similar to the way movies would.
See also
- Interactive cinemaInteractive cinemaInteractive cinema tries to give the audience an active role in the showing of movies. The movie Kinoautomat by Czechoslovakian director Raduz Cincera presented in the Czech Pavilion in Expo '67 in Montreal is considered to be the first cinema-like interactive movie...
- Interactive videoInteractive videoThe term interactive video usually refers to a technique used to blend interaction and linear film or video.-Interactive video on broadband:Since 2005, interactive video has increased online as the result a number of factors including:...
- Interactive artInteractive artInteractive art is a form of installation-based art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some installations achieve this by letting the observer or visitor "walk" in, on, and around them; Some others ask the artist to become part of the artwork.Works of...
- FMV-based game
- Adventure gameAdventure gameAn adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...