Facade - my two cents

[Demolition Man]

If this is in the wrong forum I do apologize but since this was mentioned in this month's B&B segment....

Shane mentioned this free interactive novel game called "Facade" which he said is simular to "Alter Ego." I gave it a download at nearly 800 megs so I could give it a whirl. Here is what I think.

The idea is that you play the role of a character which you pick a name from a set list. After that you hear an answering machine message inviting you over to a friends house for a get together. Then the screen fades in with you in front of the door as you hear the husband and wife argue over wine glasses. After you knock on the door you are then greeted by the husband. From this point you are in control over what happens.

The idea behind the game is that you are interacting with the two characters by typing in dialog which they respond to along with using the mouse to, say, pick up an item or hug one of the characters. Movement in the room is done with the arrow keys on your keyboard as you are seeing the game through the eyes of your character (ala first person perspective).

Throughout the duration of the game you have to make decisions on what to say, how to react, and how to emotionally handle what is going on. The duration can be anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour depending on how you play things out. I played through this four times already and each time I've gotten different results depending on what I did right from the first decision I made.

The graphics in this game are pretty nice for underground. The game has a stylish attempt of a sketch drawn look which looks very nice. At times if you are away enough from one of the characters however the game seems to drop detail of things like mouths and what not but that's a minor detail.

One of the things that most impressed me with the game is how remarkable the speech engine is. If I didn't know any better I swear the computer was rendering the speech on the fly instead of it being pre-recorded dialog. I mean when you type something the characters reply very quickly to what you type. I also felt that the dialog itself is very well done, not to mention with my nice headphones I felt the stereo mix is very nice. When someone is to the right rear of you then you'll hear their voice in that direction. Very well done.

The music is nothing special or memorable yet however it does add to what is going on so it does work.

Overall I must give a high recommendation to Facade. It is well worth the download and I must say I hope we get to see more high quality interactive novel games like this in the future.

[Shane R. Monroe]

Thanks for looking at it .. now I really want to try it.

[Darksol]

One thing I noticed which is behind the scenes is that this game is Java based. I have tried it a few times and it is interesting. It is clearly a demo.

[Demolition Man]

One thing I noticed which is behind the scenes is that this game is Java based. I have tried it a few times and it is interesting. It is clearly a demo.

Its very well done however even with its few flaws (which are forgiveable). This is certainly something I wouldn't mind seeing a little more of today which are games that make you think much like the way a well done film does - but that you are given control over how it is played out.

[nukinetix]

It's probably the first in a (hopefully) long line of procedurally created, dynamic "interactive drama" experiences. Technically it is completely different from Alter Ego, though it appeals to the same casual audience. It's not a traditional videogame. I hope this explains it better:

This work is unlike hypertext narrative or interactive fiction to date in that the computer characters actively perform the story without waiting for you to click on a link or enter a command. Interaction is seamless as you converse in natural language and move and gesture freely within the first-person 3D world of Grace and Trip’s apartment. AI controls Grace and Trip’s personality and behavior, including emotive facial expressions, spoken voice and full-body animation. Furthermore, the AI intelligently chooses the next story “beat” based on your moment-by-moment interaction, what story beats have happened so far, and the need to satisfy an overall dramatic arc. An innovative text parser allows the system to avoid the “I don’t understand” response all too common in text-adventure interactive fiction.

The process of building Façade has involved three major research efforts: designing ways to deconstruct a dramatic narrative into a hierarchy of story and behavior pieces; engineering an AI system to reconstruct a real-time dramatic performance from those pieces that integrates the player's moment-by-moment interactions; and understanding how to write an engaging, compelling story within this new organizational framework. Along the way we have learned hard lessons about what works and what doesn't in the design and engineering of interactive stories, and developed a deeper understanding of what it will require to create even more generative story systems in the future.

Read this review for more info on the problems (plenty) and promise this one holds.

Great stuff, if you ask me!

[Menchise]

One thing I noticed which is behind the scenes is that this game is Java based.

No wonder it requires a 1.6Ghz CPU. What an extraordinary use of Java, though.

[nukinetix]

No wonder it requires a 1.6Ghz CPU. What an extraordinary use of Java, though.

There are compilers that turn java code into native code, in which case there's little to separate an app written in java from one written in just about anything else.

There are also certain optimizations (see: jazelle engine examples here and here) that allow java bytecode to run EXTREMELY fast on embedded cpus. I've tested a few and I can assure you that you get incredible levels of performance even out of a 200mhz cpu.

Sorry I had to butt in but ... you know, just to clarify a misconception

[Darksol]

There are compilers that turn java code into native code, in which case there's little to separate an app written in java from one written in just about anything else.

There are also certain optimizations (see: jazelle engine examples here and here) that allow java bytecode to run EXTREMELY fast on embedded cpus. I've tested a few and I can assure you that you get incredible levels of performance even out of a 200mhz cpu.

Sorry I had to butt in but ... you know, just to clarify a misconception

I have used GNU Classpath before to compile java code into native code, and I was pleased at the performance increase. If a major commercial vendor got behind the solution, I think you would see more use of java native code in the marketplace. Everyone touts its portability aspect, but as in your example of an embedded device, I would prefer the option of ringing out that last bit of performance. JIT compilation has come a long way since Java 1.0, but native code is still faster.

Actually I am impressed that this was developed in Java. I have not seen a lot of Java applications out there that take advantage of APIs like OpenGL. The initial startup time was the only major bummer, and I wondered why they had to reinitialize everything when you just wanted to replay the scenario over again. Why wasn't any of it cached since they wouldn't expect anyone to update the demo before they ran it again?

[DaMenace]

Gawd, Grace is fugly.. I feel bad for Trip in this game :-)

I've had more fun causing problems in the game then actually trying to solve any believe it or not hehe
Things the characters took note of that I said
I suggested I should kill myself, instead they interpreted as "You think we should kill each other?" (?)
I suggested a divorce at one point and the fact that I suggested it was brought up again later on in the scenario..
Kissing Trip when you're a male doesn't take long for you to get kicked out ;-)

[Menchise]

Version 1.1 of Facade is out now. The biggest change is better sound compression, which reduces the download size from 800Mb to 167Mb.