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An interactive movie is a video game genre composed entirely of full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage. As the genre has fallen out of favor, the term is sometimes used, in a derogatory way, to describe games (usually computer role-playing games) that have a heavy emphasis on cut scenes and plot, at the expense of engaging gameplay.
Philosophy
This genre came about with the invention of laserdiscs 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. 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 combining random access video with computer games was "Rollercoaster," written in BASIC for the Apple II by David Lubar for David 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 was the 1983 arcade game Dragon's Lair, featuring a full-motion 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 he chose the wrong move, he would see a 'lose a life' scene, until he found the correct one which would allow him 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 him 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.
History
Several laserdisc-based interactive movie games followed Dragon's Lair's format, with slight variations. Space Ace, made the next year by the same company and animator, added "branching paths" to the formula, in which there were multiple "correct moves" at certain points in the cartoon, 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 games, despite the astronomical cost of the animation. To cut costs, several companies simply hacked together scenes from obscure (at least to American audiences of the day) anime, creating games like Cliff Hanger (with footage from the Lupin III movies Castle of Cagliostro and Mystery of Mamo) and Bega's Battle (with footage from Harmagedon).
In the late 1980's, 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-ROMs were embedded in home computers, games with live action and full motion video featuring actors were considered cutting-edge, and some interactive movies were made. Some notable ones (which, unlike Dragon's Lair, are considered adventure games) are Voyeur, Klingon, Borg and Psychic Detective. Others, in the action genre, are Braindead 13 and Rebel Assault.
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.
For these reasons, and after the evolution of the infinitelly flexible 3D graphics, interactive movie games were soon forgotten. However, their legacy lived on in the form of the full-motion video cut scenes that appeared in many ordinary computer games as Moore's Law brought increased processing and storage capacity to personal computers and video game consoles alike.
It is also worth noting that when the DVD format was created in the late 1990s as a successor to laserdisc, its original specification included the ability to use an ordinary DVD player to play interactive games, such as Dragon's Lair (which was reissued on DVD) or games that are included as bonus material on movie DVDs.
Currently, such games are increasingly on DVDs with younger target audiences, such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Other uses
Some studios hybridized ordinary computer game play with interactive movie play; the earliest examples of this were the entries in the Origin Systems Wing Commander flight simulator 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.
Narrativity
In the digital medium, computer-mediated interactivity provides opportunities for combining traditional cinematic techniques with various software technologies. Through this convergence, an interactive movie may be based on dynamically-created computer graphics with virtual actors, cast into particular roles and behaviors, dynamically determined by the actor's character. The types of cinematic techniques available to the author include:
- Nonlinear story trees: There are three common forms of story trees which provide distinct types of navigation:
- maze, which converts the story into a physical model of interconnections;
- character, which allows the viewer to follow a particular character throughout the story; and
- alternate reality, which creates multiple, concurrent realities, and in which the viewer may switch among them.
- Gradual disclosure: Presenting information to the viewer as it is needed; this prevents overloading the viewer with too much information at one time, and can also be used to add continuity, by incrementally filling in information that the viewer needs to know.
- Parallel action: Cutting back and forth between two or more ongoing concurrent events which are linked.
- Separation: Refers to the alternation of a scene into distinct views, eg. to show a conversation from the viewpoints of two actors, involved in a dialog.
- Repetition: Building structure within the composition, this technique can be used in movies to improve the continuity by repeating a significant detail.
- Camera movement: Used to control the viewpoint, focus, and level of detail in order to achieve various emotional and psychological effects.
An example
Consider a possible movie in which:- the author has used various cinematic techniques and software technologies to create a movie;
- the viewer can interact at any level — plot, role, and character;
- the presentation of the movie is controlled dynamically by a computer system which also monitors the viewer's behaviors as a source of interaction; and
- the story is constructed from a scripting language which is interpreted at run-time by the computer. The movie script can therefore be modified, at any time, in response to the actions of the viewer. The scripting language is directly analogous to the movie script in that it controls the flow of events of the actors, camera movement, and scene.
Since a movie is a form of storytelling, the author can create a script which presents all the necessary information at the particular time and place, required to realize the story. The viewer, however, desires the freedom to navigate through the movie, in ways possibly not envisioned by the author. Since the computer is dynamically creating the movie, and monitoring the response of the viewer, complete knowledge exists concerning what the viewer has seen, what is required to understand later events, and the original sequencing of events as created by the author. The script can therefore be dynamically modified to include or exclude certain information, guide the focus of attention, or adjust the level of detail according to the viewer's previous experience.
As an example of this style of presentation, consider a detective story in which the author instructs the computer to use gradual disclosure to first show blood stains on the carpet, then at a later time, to show a knife on the table. Since the movie is synthesized from computer-graphic scenes and actors, the position of the virtual camera can be controlled, using standardized techniques for the camera movement. However, the viewer may also control the camera, and therefore not see the clues that the author placed in the room. In anticipation of the viewer, missing certain critical information in the development of the story, the author can embed a link to a flashback sequence within the story line. This link may or may not be followed, depending upon the previous experience of the viewer. If the viewer missed a critical detail, then this link will be followed, and the scene may be shown with a high or low level of detail, depending upon what the viewer has previously seen in this scene. Thus, in this style of presentation, the computer controls the cinematic features, and the viewer controls the subject or content. As such, the viewer has the illusion of freedom, and the author can still maintain control over the experience.
Movie examples
External links
"Interactive movie"