Apr
03
2007
Cecropia’s “The Act” - Emotional Gaming

I was just lucky enough to get a hands-on demo of “The Act”, a totally new type of video game created by a local game development company named Cecropia. There’s a trailer of the game online, but it doesn’t give you a sense of what it’s actually like to play–which, right now, you unfortunately can’t do anywhere, because they’re still working out a business/distribution model.

The Act

Anyway, the game is an interactive cartoon, animated by former Disney animators. Of course, my initial thought was that it would be a next generation Dragon’s Lair of some sort. Well, that’s basically what it is, but it’s not at all what I expected.

The action in the game is controlled by a single knob instead of a joystick. But you’re not controlling the movements of the protagonist, you’re controlling his personality. Each scene requires you to interact (silently, there’s no dialogue) with other characters via facial expressions and gestures.

For example, in the first scene, you’re trying to pick up a woman at a bar. The way you do this is by carefully “ramping up” and “easing back” (via the knob) on your level of shyness/aggression–in reaction to her facial expressions and body language. In another scene, you’re trying to pass yourself off as a doctor, finding yourself in a cluster of other doctors. You’re trying to blend in as they alternate between laughter and seriousness. Again, you control this spectrum of emotion via the knob. Laugh when they’re serious, or neglect to laugh when they laugh, and the jig is up.

The Act

Unlike with Dragon’s Lair, the animation is totally smooth, and infinitely varied, with no obvious “breaks” in the animation. It truly feels like a real cartoon. Watching the game, you’d never know someone was actually “playing” the character.

The game was play tested as a coin-op machine in several locations around Boston, but it remains to be seen what its final incarnation will be. Regardless, if you ever get a chance to play it–or any possible future products using Cecropia’s technology–you must. It like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. If they can work out a distribution model, Cecropia is sitting on a goldmine.

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