Those really are just incremental improvements over the games I played on my Atari 2600 and Commodore 64. Graphics and sound are better, the worlds are larger, and “stories” are longer. Three years into “next-gen” video game consoles and we haven’t seen any truly “next-gen” ideas. Patrick Star Trek Svartsot Testament testicles The Band The Economist Thin Lizzy Twisted Sister U2 vaccines Viking metal Yes yoik Yoko Ono (Bad Science) Alert bacteria Beatles Bigfoot Billy Preston Carl Sagan chimpanzee Colbie Caillat comet Commodore 64 David Lee Roth Dokken Doug Sulpy Dragonforce drum solo Dune Empire Strikes Back Evanescence evolution Facade (video game) Fairport Convention Finntroll folk metal genetics George Harrison Get Back glacier humppa Ice Age Insane Clown Posse Jethro Tull John Lennon Jonathan Franzen Let It Be Lynyrd Skynyrd mitochondria Monty Python Motörhead Paul McCartney podcast Queen racism ragworm Ringo Starr Rutles sandworm soy sperm St.
However, with active intervention, it is possible to inspire the two to rediscover their love for one another, or to push one to leave the other – sometimes admitting a past affair, one of many events decided at random when play begins.īecause much of it is designed to simulate 'on-the-fly' reactions to the player's or other characters' actions, and because the scenario features a random series of events (such as what conversational topics are brought up, what drinks Trip wants to serve, etc.) it possesses a certain amount of replay value. Most playthroughs end with either Trip and Grace managing an initial reconciliation and telling the player they need to be alone, or being so offended by the player that Trip forcibly removes them from the apartment.
These stage-plays are stored as script text files which can be read after the player has finished.įaçade was released for Microsoft Windows in July 2005, as a free download from the web site.Īs of 2006, the creators of Façade were developing another title called The Party, however, in December 2013, Michael Mateas confirmed that they were not currently working on it. The player can take an active role in the conversation, pushing the topic one way or another, as in an interactive stage-play.
Incorporating elements of both interactivity and drama, Façade takes advantage of voice acting and a 3-D environment, as well as natural language processing and other advanced artificial intelligence routines, to provide a robust interactive fiction experience.
Making full use of the incorporated language processing software, Façade allows the player to type sentences to "speak" with the couple, either supporting them through their troubles, driving them farther apart, or being thrown out of the apartment. This pleasant gathering, however, is somewhat damaged by the clear domestic confrontation between Grace and Trip upon the player's entry. Façade puts the player in the role of a close friend of Trip and Grace, a couple who recently invited the player to their New York City apartment for cocktails.