NY Times covers Façade

[After a brisk nap]

In an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/arts/07arti.html) covering AIIDE (the "Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment" conference) yesterday, The New York Times leads with a number of paragraphs about Façade, the long-awaited interactive drama game.

MARINA DEL REY, Calif., June 3 - Standing outside the apartment on Thursday, Walter could hear the barbs and retorts of a failed marriage's final throes.

Walter's friends, Grace and Trip, had invited him over. Now, though only every third word seeped through the door, Walter could hardly mistake the bickering.

At Walter's knock the voices stopped. The couple adopted brittle masks of happiness. But as their banter moved from Trip's new bartender set to recent Italian vacations to Grace's latest apartment makeover, the couple gradually returned to the needling exchanges of domestic strife.

As Grace and Trip retreated to opposite sides of the living room, sniping about old grievances, Walter appealed to the couple's loyalties, trying valiantly to reconcile his friends.

This is the future of video games.Apparently, Façade will finally be out next month, and will be released free to download.

I'm certainly looking forward to that.

[fov]

This game sounds so interesting. The premise reminds me of the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (EDIT - I said that before reading the article. Apparently I'm smart. :D)

As a big fan of art that imitates life, I can't wait to experience this game.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

"The graphics hardware is now getting powerful enough that basically everything looks good now. So what is starting to differentiate games is what is happening inside the characters, how the opponents behave and make plans, how comprehensively and realistically the worlds respond to what the players want to do."

"At the same time," he added, "players are demanding a lot more freedom. Often they don't want to be put on a roller coaster track that just takes them along one path, no matter how entertaining that one path may be. They want a range of choices and they want those choices to matter in creating the overall experience. You put together all of these demands, and that's why you're seeing all of this attention now on artificial intelligence in games."

:( When are some adventure game developers gonna take advantage of all this? WHEN?!!!

[fov]

:( When are some adventure game developers gonna take advantage of all this? WHEN?!!!

Jeez, you're impatient. :D

This stuff is being developed. That's the point of the article. I think it gives us a lot to be optimistic about.

You know all too well that adventure games have smaller budgets than many other types of games - budgets that don't allow for being innovative with technology. Facade did it (apparently at the expense of graphics!), but as an experiment. The innovations always come from people who don't have to worry about staying in business, but it's great that in this case it's out of a university, from people who are not in it to make money. They get to stay truer to their vision that way. I'm hoping Facade gets a lot of acclaim and based on that, AG developers will take steps in the same direction. But it doesn't surprise me at all that other than Facade (which is really an academic project, not a commercial endeavor), the games that are mentioned in that article are from other genres. Of course they are. That's where the money is.

I just don't see what the point is of getting all negative about it because they're not doing it YET. They will. :)

[After a brisk nap]

It's taken Mateas and Stern nearly three years to get close to a release date with Façade, and the game is only 15 minutes long! That should tell you why adventure game developers aren't really taking advantage of it yet. The technology is still in the research stage, and most AG developers don't have the resources to push the state of the art in AI.

[LeChimp]

Just because a game has a low budget doesn't mean that they have to make a generic and boring adventure game. Lumines, a game for the PSP, probably had one of the lowest budgets for the psp launch games, it had 2-d graphics and appeared to be a tetris clone, but it was considered to be the best out of all of the launch games since it merged music and sound so well with its gameplay. All of the other games for the psp were sports games or playstation ports. And ID Software's early games like Wolfenstein 3-D had almost no development cost at all and they were some of the most revolutionary games (in the FPS genre) ever made. It's not a low budget that's keeping developers from making great games, it's just that they aren't finding imaginitive ways of getting around obstacles that a low budget can create.

I mean, couldn't someone use the Torque engine (http://www.garagegames.com/) to create an adventure game that takes place in a huge world? It's dirt cheap and they distribute the games on the site. You really wouldn't have to worry about publishers refusing to publish a game because it's a risk.

[After a brisk nap]

You can be innovative on a low budget, but I doubt you can push the envelope technologically on a low budget these days. AI-directed storytelling, even AI characters, in commercial adventure games is still pretty far out there.

And if you're going to create a game that takes place in a huge 3D world, the biggest cost isn't licensing or developing the engine, it's creating all the 3D models, textures and animations. That's why computer games are so much more expensive to develop now than they were 10 years ago. (After all, games don't, in general, offer more gameplay now than they did back then.) Content is expensive. Making things look nice is expensive.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Thing is, it's very possible to be insanely creative with very little new technology involved and having to work only with what you have within your budget. However, it WILL shut off possibilities to having more things to work with, tinker with, play and experiment with, and hence be INSPIRED WITH, if your resources are very limited. Just imagine what kind of adventure games in addition to the great ones we already have* could have come out back in the mid-late 90s had developers tinkered around with more progressive technology, how that could have affected things like the design of puzzles, environments, interfaces.






* Happy? :shifty:

[fov]

Haven't we had this conversation somewhere before? Lemme go check Jake's sticky thread. :frusty:

I'm sorry. I'm just getting frustrated with every conversation about everything turning into how there is no innovation and how AG developers are pussies for not taking chances. The whole point of this NY Times article -- and of the Facade project -- is that some creative guys took a chance, and it could have a great impact on future adventure games. That's what I wish we were talking about... not about how some games don't live up to some people's expectations.

Apologies if I'm being a spoilsport.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Stop being so defensive. There are lots of good things in the adventure genre as it is, things I'm perfectly happy with as is, like beautiful graphics, creative art direction, and some good puzzle ideas. But why should I shut my mouth from fear of hurting people's feeling just because I have some criticisms?

Remember, I came to this genre with enthusiasm, much of which came from playing good adventure games. But no genre should ever be excempt from critical scrutiny, just as no other kind of media should be. I also have issues with first person shooters and RPGs, as well as the dialogue of console game designs. But this is an adventure game forum, so I can't talk about those, can I?

[JHousequake]

Well for what it's worth, I'm anticipating this title and I hope whether it breaks the mold or not that it is at least fun to play. It may be fifteen minutes long but from what's been written about it the replay value seems uber-high.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I just hope it'll be fun and good. :D

[nikoniko]

Well for what it's worth, I'm anticipating this title and I hope whether it breaks the mold or not that it is at least fun to play. It may be fifteen minutes long but from what's been written about it the replay value seems uber-high.

Sounds like there will be a lot of replay value. As an 800MB download, Facade must include quite a bit of recorded dialogue, representing many possible directions your experience could take.

Here is the e-mail I just received from the Facade team:

Hello! Thanks for your e-mail requesting a freeware copy of the interactive
drama Facade. Facade is just a few short weeks away from being released -
we're currently in the final days of production and testing. We're going to
send you another email when Facade is totally ready.

Facade requires Windows XP, on a computer 1.6 GHz or faster, with 256MB or
more of RAM and about 1.0GB of hard disk space.

The Facade installer is pretty large - about 800MB. Unfortunately, it's too
large for us to put on a server for many people to download at the same
time. Instead, here are two ways you'll be able to get Facade:

1. As a free BitTorrent download. We will send you instructions for
installing free, safe, non-spyware software called BitTorrent, a
commonly-used program to allow people to download very large files. We have
no relationship whatsoever with BitTorrent, we are just offering it as a
means to freely download Facade. If you are familiar with BitTorrent, and
would like to help us seed the download process by initially serving a
BitTorrent of Facade, please write us at bittorrent@interactivestory.net.

2. As a 2-CD-rom set mailed to you, for the cost of pressing and mailing the
CD's. We have signed on with a low-cost on-demand CD pressing company to
offer Facade as a CD. Since Facade is freeware, we will be offering it AT
COST - that is, only charging you the cost it takes to process your credit
card, press the CD and ship it to you - no profit at all for us. The best
deal we could find for such a service will end up charging you around $14,
for mailing with the US (a bit higher for shipping overseas).


Note that once you get Facade, you are FREE TO COPY IT and
give it to ALL YOUR FRIENDS. :-) And we hope you do!


FAQ

- Why is Facade free?
- Who made Facade?
- How did you make Facade?
- Is Facade available for the Mac?


Q: Why is Facade free?

Facade is an art/research project, that we're hoping will also serve as an
example prototype for an interactive drama commercial product. We could
charge money for it (beyond the cost of pressing and shipping you the CD),
but we'd rather make it easier to get Facade to as many people as possible.
We figure that if enough people play it and like the experience, we'll be in
a position to make an even bigger and better interactive drama in the
future, as an actual product.


Q: Who made Facade?

Facade was created over a period of 5 years primarily by two collaborators,
Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern. We are each designer / artist /
programmers focused on making artificially intelligent art and
entertainment. The production was an almost entirely self-funded,
industry-academia collaboration: Andrew has 10+ years of game industry
experience, and Michael creates AI-based art and is now an assistant
professor at Georgia Tech. You can read about us, our research papers
describing Facade, and our other work at interactivestory.net. Also we
regularly discuss interactive story, games, literature and art with several
others at our group blog, grandtextauto.org - we'd love to hear your
thoughts on this new field, so please join in the discussion there!

Also, on Facade we collaborated with some very talented voice actors, Chloe
Johnston and Andy Bayiates, who supplied the voices for Grace and Trip.
They are actors and writers perhaps best known for their work with the
Neo-Futurists in Chicago. We also received volunteer contributions from
several talented folks from all over the globe, some who created the
soundtrack, and some who created additional art, animation and programming.


Q: How did you make Facade?

Facade is designed, programmed and written from scratch by Michael and
Andrew. It required developing an array of new design and AI techniques and
technology, building upon some past research at Carnegie Mellon University,
and years of hard work.

We very much want to share what we learned during the process, to help seed
a new genre of interactive entertainment. We'll be releasing a document
called "Behind the Facade", including detailed descriptions of how Facade
works, plus hints for players of how to see all of the variation in the
drama. Until then you can peruse our somewhat technical research papers,
freely downloadable at interactivestory.net. Over time, parts or all of the
technology will become available for others to use for their own art,
research or industry projects.


Q: Is Facade available for the Mac?

Not currently, but only because we haven't ported it to the Mac yet. If you
are a Mac programmer interested to help us port Facade to the Mac, which
should be a reasonably simple task as the graphics are implemented in
OpenGL, please write us at our personal e-mail addresses, available at
interactivestory.net.

[After a brisk nap]

Also, on Facade we collaborated with some very talented voice actors, Chloe
Johnston and Andy Bayiates, who supplied the voices for Grace and Trip.
They are actors and writers perhaps best known for their work with the
Neo-Futurists in Chicago. We also received volunteer contributions from
several talented folks from all over the globe, some who created the
soundtrack, and some who created additional art, animation and programming.Ah, the Neo-Futurists! Excellent!

In our excitement upon reading this, all the people I work with just decided to go see TMLMTBGB at the soonest possible date. :)

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Sounds like there will be a lot of replay value. As an 800MB download, Facade must include quite a bit of recorded dialogue, representing many possible directions your experience could take.

Here is the e-mail I just received from the Facade team..:

:) doroposo, thank you SO MUCH for sharing the email and all that information with us. You probably have an idea how excited I am personally for this game, as well for the possibilities it can offer future commercial game design, particularly in the more story and character driven ones, like adventures and RPGs. Let's hope Facade becomes a huge success and that many, many people will experience it.

Welcome to the community! :D

[gillyruless]

:) doroposo, thank you SO MUCH for sharing the email and all that information with us. You probably have an idea how excited I am personally for this game, as well for the possibilities it can offer future commercial game design, particularly in the more story and character driven ones, like adventures and RPGs. Let's hope Facade becomes a huge success and that many, many people will experience it.

Welcome to the community! :D
I'd better find and butter up to a friend who has a T1 connection! I don;t think my dial up access at home could handle 800 MB download. It would take years.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

You have dialup? Time to switch to broadband, my friend. ;)

You can scale up the speed by paying a bit more, but standard cable, DSL, or wireless speed is very good anyway and about the same price as sloooooooowwww dialup.

[gillyruless]

You have dialup? Time to switch to broadband, my friend. ;)

You can scale up the speed by paying a bit more, but standard cable, DSL, or wireless speed is very good anyway and about the same price as sloooooooowwww dialup.
I used to have cable Trepsie but the my building is old and have bad wiring so I had to cancel the service. Neither my landlord nor the cable company are willing to play for the wiring upgrades. I'm too far away from the central office to make DSL an option. Wireless is just about the only option but ever since I learned of your nightmare, I have been reluctant to go that route. What I need to do is to move. This is why I conduct most of my forum activities at work.