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An interactive film is a
video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
or other
interactive media Interactive media refers to digital experiences that dynamically respond to user input, delivering content such as Text (literary theory), text, images, animations, video, Sound, audio, and even Artificial intelligence, AI-driven interactions. O ...
that has characteristics of a cinematic
film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
. In the
video game industry The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, ...
, the term refers to a movie game, a video game that presents its
gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game. The term applies to both video games and Tabletop game, tabletop games. Gameplay is the connection between the player and the game, the player's overcoming of challenges, and t ...
in a cinematic, scripted manner, often through the use of
full-motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information duri ...
of either animated or
live-action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games or ...
footage. In the
film industry The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production company, production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre- ...
, the term "interactive film" refers to
interactive cinema Interactive cinema tries to give an audience an active role in the showing of movies. Another newer definition of interactive cinema is a video game which is a hybrid between participation and viewing, giving the player – or viewer, as it were ...
, a film where one or more viewers can interact with the film and influence the events that unfold in the film.


Design

This genre came about with the invention of
laserdisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
s and laserdisc players, the first nonlinear or
random access Random access (also called direct access) is the ability to access an arbitrary element of a sequence in equal time or any datum from a population of addressable elements roughly as easily and efficiently as any other, no matter how many elemen ...
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 Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually Sound recording and reproduction, sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog signal, analog or Digital signal (signal processing), digital signal. V ...
) 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 ''Choose Your Own Adventure'' is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actio ...
'' books are 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). A popular example of a commercial interactive movie was the 1983
arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...
''
Dragon's Lair ''Dragon's Lair'' is a video game franchise created by Rick Dyer. The series is notable for its film-quality animation by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth, and complex decades-long history of being ported to many platforms. It has also been adapte ...
'', featuring an animated
full motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than Sprite (computer graphics), sprites, vector graphics, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games featur ...
(FMV) by ex-
Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
animator
Don Bluth Donald Virgil Bluth ( ; born September 13, 1937) is an American filmmaker, animator, video game designer and author. He came to prominence working for Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Productions before creating his own film studio in ...
, where the player controlled some of the moves of the main character. When in danger, the player was to decide which move, action, or combination to choose. If they chose the wrong move, they would see a 'lose a life' scene, until they found the correct one which would allow them 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 them to make. Despite the lack of choice, ''Dragon's Lair'' was very popular. 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'' was programmed to go to the next chapter in the successful story if a player activated the correct control, or to go to the death chapter if they activated the wrong one. Because laserdisc players of the day were not robust enough to handle the wear and tear of 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 play their video on standard, non-interactive laserdisc players. Later advances in technology allowed interactive movies to overlay multiple fields of FMV, called "vites", in much the same way as polygonal models and sprites are overlaid on top of backgrounds in traditional video game graphics.


Origins

The earliest rudimentary examples of mechanical interactive cinematic games date back to the early 20th century, with "cinematic shooting gallery" games in the United Kingdom. They were similar to shooting gallery carnival games, except that players shot at a cinema screen displaying film footage of targets. They showed footage of targets, and when a player shot the screen at the right time, it would trigger a mechanism that temporarily pauses the film and registers a point. The first successful example of such a game was ''Life Targets'', released in the UK in 1912. Cinematic shooting gallery games enjoyed short-lived popularity in several parts of Britain during the 1910s, and often had
safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...
animals as targets, with footage recorded from British imperial colonies. Cinematic shooting gallery games declined some time after the 1910s. Capitol Projector's 1954 arcade electro-mechanical game machine '' Auto Test'' was a driving test simulation that used a
film reel A reel is a tool used to store elongated and flexible objects (e.g. yarns/ cords, ribbons, cables, hoses, etc.) by wrapping the material around a cylindrical core known as a '' spool''. Many reels also have flanges (known as the ''rims'') a ...
video projector A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image onto a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc l ...
to display pre-recorded driving
video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
footage, awarding the player points for making correct decisions as the footage is played. It was not intended to be cinematic or a
racing game Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a motor racing, racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more re ...
, but was a driving simulation designed for educational purposes. An early example of
interactive cinema Interactive cinema tries to give an audience an active role in the showing of movies. Another newer definition of interactive cinema is a video game which is a hybrid between participation and viewing, giving the player – or viewer, as it were ...
was the 1967 film '' Kinoautomat'' , which was written and directed by Radúz Činčera. This movie was first screened at Expo '67 in
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
. This film was produced before the invention of the laserdisc or similar technology, so a live moderator appeared on stage at certain points to ask the audience to choose between two scenes. The chosen scene would play following an audience vote. An early example of an interactive movie game was
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...
's '' Wild Gunman'', a 1974 electro-mechanical
arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...
that used a pair of
16mm film 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical Film gauge, gauge of Photographic film, film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 mm film, 8 mm and 35mm movie film, 35 mm. It ...
projectors to display live-action
full-motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information duri ...
(FMV) footage of Wild West gunslingers that the player could shoot and kill with a light gun. In 1979, Kasco (Kansei Seiki Seisakusho) released ''The Driver'', a hit electro-mechanical arcade game with live-action
16mm film 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical Film gauge, gauge of Photographic film, film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 mm film, 8 mm and 35mm movie film, 35 mm. It ...
projection of a car chase filmed by Toei. In 1975, Nintendo's ' was a horse race betting arcade game that used Electronic Video Recording (EVR) technology to playback video footage of horse races from a video tape. Before each race, players would place bets on each horse, with the machine dispensing medals (tokens) to any player that successfully chose the winning horse. ''EVR Race'' was Japan's highest-grossing medal game for three years in a row, from 1976 to
1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd ...
. Another horse race betting game, Electro-Sport's ''Quarter Horse'' (1982), was the first arcade game to utilize a laserdisc player, and operated in the same manner as ''EVR Race'', with the laserdisc being used to play back pre-recorded non-interactive video footage of horse races; Gameplay was limited to the player placing bets before the race. An early attempt to combine random access video with
computer games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
was ''Rollercoaster'', written in BASIC for the Apple II by David Lubar for David H. Ahl, editor of ''
Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format t ...
''. This was a text adventure that could trigger a laserdisc player to play portions of the 1977 American feature film '' Rollercoaster''. The program was conceived and written in 1981, and it was 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'' was 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.


Specialized hardware formats


LaserDisc games

A LaserDisc video game is a video game that uses pre-recorded video (either live-action or animation) played from a
LaserDisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
, either as the entirety of the graphics or as part of the graphics. The first major arcade laserdisc video game was
Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
's '' Astron Belt'', a third-person space combat
rail shooter Rail shooter, also known as on-rails shooter, is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video game. Beginning with arcade games such as the 1985 '' Space Harrier'', the gameplay locks the player character into a set path, only allowing for limited or no di ...
featuring live-action
full-motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information duri ...
footage (largely borrowed from a Japanese science fiction film) over which the player/enemy ships and laser fire are superimposed. Developed in 1982, it was unveiled at the September 1982
Amusement Machine Show The Japan Amusement Expo (JAEPO) is an annual trade fair for amusement arcade products, such as arcade games, redemption games, amusement rides, vending machines, and change machines. The event is hosted one weekend per year in the Greater Tokyo ...
(AM Show) in Tokyo and the November 1982 AMOA show in Chicago, and was then released in Japan in March 1983. However, its release in the United States was delayed due to several hardware and software bugs, by which time other laserdisc games had beaten it to public release there. The next laserdisc game to be announced was
Data East , also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game, pinball and electronic engineering company. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, and released 150 video game titles. At one time, the company had annual sales of 20 billion yen in ...
's video game adaptation of the Japanese
anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
film '' Genma Taisen'' (1983), introduced in March 1983, with the game released internationally in June 1983. It introduced a new approach to video game storytelling: using brief full-motion video cutscenes to develop a story between the game's
shooting Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missile ...
stages; years later, this would become the standard approach to video game storytelling. ''Bega's Battle'' also featured a branching storyline. In the United States, the game that popularized the genre was ''
Dragon's Lair ''Dragon's Lair'' is a video game franchise created by Rick Dyer. The series is notable for its film-quality animation by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth, and complex decades-long history of being ported to many platforms. It has also been adapte ...
'', animated by Don Bluth and released by
Cinematronics Cinematronics Incorporated was an arcade game video game developer, developer that primarily released vector graphics games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other companies released games based on raster graphics, raster displays, early ...
. Released in June 1983, it was the first laserdisc game released in the US. It contained animated scenes, much like a
cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...
. The scenes would be played back and at certain points during playback the player would have to press a specific direction on the
joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control devic ...
or the button to advance the game to the next scene, like a quick time event. For instance, a scene begins with the hero, a knight named Dirk, falling through a hole in a drawbridge and being attacked by tentacles. If the player presses the button at this point, Dirk fends off the tentacles with his sword and pulls himself back up out of the hole. If the player fails to press the sword button at the right time, or instead presses a direction on the joystick, Dirk is attacked by the tentacles and crushed. Each unsuccessful move, however, would produce a few moments of black screen, when the LaserDisc switched to the scene showing the death of the character, which interrupted the continuous flow of gameplay found in other video game graphic systems of the time; this was a common criticism of some players and critics. There were generally two styles of laserdisc games that emerged. Those that followed the lead of ''Astron Belt'' integrated pre-recorded laserdisc video with
real-time computer graphics Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface ( GUI) to ...
and gameplay, making them more like traditional interactive video games. Those that followed the lead of ''Dragon's Lair'' integrated
animated cartoon Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...
laserdisc video with quick time events, making them more like interactive cartoons. The latter style of laserdisc games were generally more successful than the former.


Real-time gameplay

Among those that followed the lead of ''Astron Belt'', combining pre-recorded video with
real-time computer graphics Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface ( GUI) to ...
and gameplay, several were introduced at Tokyo's AM Show in September 1983, with its successor ''Star Blazer'' unanimously hailed as the "strongest" laserdisc game of the show. Other games at the show included Funai's ''Interstellar'', a forward-scrolling third-person
rail shooter Rail shooter, also known as on-rails shooter, is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video game. Beginning with arcade games such as the 1985 '' Space Harrier'', the gameplay locks the player character into a set path, only allowing for limited or no di ...
that used pre-rendered
3D computer graphics 3D computer graphics, sometimes called Computer-generated imagery, CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional Computer-generated imagery, computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian coor ...
for the laserdisc video backgrounds and real-time
2D computer graphics 2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models (such as 2D geometric models, text, and digital images) and by techniques specific to them. It may refer to the branch of computer s ...
for the ships. '' Cube Quest'', introduced at the same AM Show in Tokyo, was a vertical scrolling shooter that used pre-rendered computer animation for the laserdisc video backgrounds and real-time
3D computer graphics 3D computer graphics, sometimes called Computer-generated imagery, CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional Computer-generated imagery, computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian coor ...
for the ships. Later that year, Gottlieb's '' M.A.C.H. 3'' was a vertical scrolling
shooter game Shooter video games, or shooters, are a subgenre of action video games where the focus is on the defeat of the character's enemies using ranged weapons given to the player. Usually these weapons are firearms or some other long-range weapons, a ...
that combined live-action laserdisc video backgrounds with 2D computer graphics for the ships. The ''
Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
'' (1984) arcade game included a Philips LaserDisc player to combine live action video and sound from the ''
Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
'' film with computer generated graphics and sound. The game - a
rail shooter Rail shooter, also known as on-rails shooter, is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video game. Beginning with arcade games such as the 1985 '' Space Harrier'', the gameplay locks the player character into a set path, only allowing for limited or no di ...
- used a LaserDisc containing multiple clips stored in very short, interleaved segments on the disc. The player would seek the short distance to the next segment of a clip during the vertical retrace interval by adjusting the tracking mirror, allowing perfectly continuous video even as the player switched clips under control of the game's computer. This clip-switching method was used to allow the game to randomise the placement and timing of the enemy aircraft - which were part of the LaserDisc footage - as well as to show them exploding seamlessly wherever the player managed to hit them, as opposed to other LaserDisc games, which would have enemies appear at the same predetermined place and moment every time. However, this method was notorious for being extremely strenuous on the player and frequently led to the machines breaking, slightly hindering the appeal of LaserDisc arcade games. In the 1990s, American Laser Games produced a wide variety of live-action light gun LaserDisc video games, which played much like the early LaserDisc games, but used a light gun instead of a joystick to affect the action.


Quick-time events

Among those that followed the lead of ''Dragon's Lair'', progressing pre-recorded video with quick time events, was its successor '' Space Ace'', another Don Bluth animated game released by Cinematronics later the same year. It featured " branching paths" in which there were multiple "correct moves" at certain points in the animation, and the move the player chose would affect the order of later scenes. The success of ''Dragon's Lair'' spawned a number of sequels and similar laserdisc cartoon games incorporating quick time events. However, original animation production was expensive. To cut costs, several companies simply hacked together scenes from Japanese
anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
that were obscure to American audiences of the day. One such example was
Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. O ...
's '' Cliff Hanger'' (1983), which used footage from the ''
Lupin III , also written as ''Lupin the Third'', ''Lupin the 3rd'', or ''Lupin the IIIrd'', is a Japanese media franchise created by Monkey Punch. The series follows the endeavors of master thief Lupin III (character), Lupin III, grandson of gentleman t ...
'' movies '' Castle of Cagliostro'' (directed by
Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. He co-founded Studio Ghibli and serves as honorary chairman. Throughout his career, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Anime, Japanese ani ...
) and '' Mystery of Mamo'', both originally animated by TMS Entertainment. Anime-based laserdisc games helped expose many Americans in the 1980s to Japanese anime, particularly ''Cliff Hanger'' which exposed many Americans to ''Lupin III'' and Hayao Miyazaki before any ''Lupin'' or Miyazaki anime productions had officially been released theatrically or on
home video Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
in the United States. In 1984, '' Super Don Quix-ote'', ''Esh's Aurunmilla'' and '' Ninja Hayate'' overlaid crude computer graphics on top of the animation to indicate the correct input to the player for quick time event scenes, which the 1985 games '' Time Gal'' and '' Road Blaster'' also featured. ''Time Gal'' also added a time-stopping feature, where specific moments in the game involve Reika stopping time; during these moments, players are presented with a list of three options and have seven seconds to choose the one which will save the character. Another example of an arcade LaserDisc game using a similar style would be '' Badlands''.


Decline

After laserdisc arcade fever had peaked in 1983, the laserdisc arcade market declined in 1984. While there were some laserdisc arcade hits that year, such as ''Space Ace'' and '' Cobra Command'', they were not able to achieve the same level of mainstream success as earlier laserdisc games the previous year. Following the end of the golden age of arcade video games, there were high expectations for laserdisc games to revive the arcade industry, but laserdisc games failed to live up to those expectations. Instead, the arcade market was being reinvigorated by sports video games such as '' Karate Champ'', ''
Track & Field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and ...
'', '' Punch-Out'' and several Nintendo VS. System titles.


VHS and CD-ROM

In 1987, the game '' Night Trap'', featuring full-motion video, was created for
Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...
's Control-Vision video game system (originally codenamed "NEMO"), which used VHS tapes. When Hasbro discontinued production of Control-Vision, the footage was placed into archive until it was purchased in 1991 by the founders of Digital Pictures. Digital Pictures ported ''Night Trap'' to the Sega CD platform, releasing it in 1992. In 1988,
Epyx Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and video game publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded in 1978 as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, publishing a series of tactical combat games. The Epyx ...
announced three VCR games including one based on its video game '' California Games''. They combined videotape footage with a board game. From the late 1980s, American Laser Games started to produce a wide variety of live-action light gun laserdisc games, which played much like the early cartoon games, but used a light gun instead of a joystick to affect the action. Meanwhile, Digital Pictures started to produce a variety of interactive movies for
home console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few game ...
s. When
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...
s were embedded in home consoles such as the Sega CD as well as home computers, games with live action and full motion video featuring actors were considered cutting-edge, and some interactive movies were made. Some notable adventure games from this era are '' Under a Killing Moon'', '' The Pandora Directive'' (both part of the '' Tex Murphy'' series), '' The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery'', '' Voyeur'', '' Star Trek: Klingon'', '' Star Trek: Borg'', '' Ripper'', '' Snatcher'', ''
Black Dahlia Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – , 1947), posthumously known as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947. Her case became highly publicized owin ...
'', '' The X-Files Game'', '' Phantasmagoria'', '' Bad Day on the Midway'' and '' The Dark Eye''. Others in the action genre are '' Brain Dead 13'' and '' Star Wars: 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.


DVD games

A DVD game (sometimes called DVDi, "DVD interactive") is a standalone game that can be played on a set-top
DVD player A DVD player is a machine that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...
. The game takes advantage of technology built into the DVD format to create an interactive gaming environment compatible with most DVD players without requiring additional hardware. DVD TV games were first developed in the late 1990s. They were poorly received and understood as an entertainment medium. However, DVD-based game consoles like the
PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...
popularized DVD-based gaming and also functioned as a DVD video player. In addition, the format has been used to import some video games to the DVD format, allowing them to be played with a standard DVD player rather than requiring a PC. Examples include ''Dragon's Lair'' and '' Who Shot Johnny Rock?''. The PC/console game '' Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness'' was released in 2006 as a DVD game entitled '' Tomb Raider: The Action Adventure''. Japanese games such as
visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...
s and
eroge An ''eroge'' (, ''eroge'', or , ''erogē'', ), also called an H-game, is a Japanese genre of erotic video game. The term encompasses a wide variety of Japanese games containing erotic content across multiple genres. The first ''eroge'' were crea ...
that were originally made for PC are commonly ported to DVDPG (a term that stands for ''DVD Players Game''). Instead of standard save methods, DVDPGs use password save systems. Similar game types include BDPG (
Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...
Players Game) and UMDPG ( Universal Media Disc Players Game). From the time of its original introduction, the DVD format specification has included the ability to use an ordinary DVD player to play interactive games, such as ''Dragon's Lair'' (which was reissued on DVD), the '' Scene It?'' and other series of DVD games, or games that are included as bonus material on movie DVDs. Aftermath Media (founded by Rob Landeros of Trilobyte) released the interactive movies '' Tender Loving Care'' and ''Point of View'' (P.O.V) for the DVD platform. Such games have appeared on DVDs aimed at younger target audiences, such as the special features discs of the ''
Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven Fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...
'' film series.


Live interactive movies

The world's first live interactive movie was ''My One Demand'' filmed and premiered on 25 June 2015. Created by Blast Theory, the film was streamed live to the TIFF Lightbox on three successive nights. The cast of eight included Julian Richings and Clare Coulter. Audiences in the cinema used mobile phones to answer questions from the narrator, played by Maggie Huculak and their answers were included in the voiceover as well as in the closing credits.


Modern developments

Later video games used this approach using fully animated computer-generated scenes, including various adventure games such as the '' Sound Novel'' series by Chunsoft, '' Shenmue'' series by Sega, '' Shadow of Memories'' by
Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...
, '' Time Travelers'' by Level 5, and ''
Fahrenheit The Fahrenheit scale () is a scale of temperature, temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the German-Polish physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accou ...
'' by Quantic Dream. During many scenes, the player has limited control of the character and chooses certain actions to progress the story. Other scenes are quick time event action sequences, requiring the player to hit appropriate buttons at the right time to succeed. Some of these games, such as the ''Sound Novel'' series, ''Shadow of Memories'', ''Time Travelers'', '' Until Dawn'', '' Heavy Rain'', '' Beyond: Two Souls'' and '' Detroit: Become Human'', have numerous branching storylines that result from what actions the player takes or fails to complete properly, which can include the death of major characters or failure to solve the mystery. Cast members' work during the 1990s on interactive movies'
chroma key Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a Visual effects, visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues (colorfulness, chroma range). The techniq ...
sets was different from traditional filmmaking: They performed multiple possible actions players choose in a game, usually looked into the camera to react to the player, and usually did not react to others on the set. Such products were popular during the early 1990s as CD-ROMs and Laserdiscs made their way into the living rooms, providing an alternative to the low-capacity cartridges of most consoles. As the first CD-based consoles capable of displaying smooth and textured 3D graphics appeared, the full-FMV game had vanished from the mainstream circles around 1995, although it remained an option for PC adventure games for a couple more years. One of the last titles released was the 1998 PC and
PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...
adventure '' The X-Files: The Game'', packed in 7 CDs. That same year, '' Tex Murphy: Overseer'' became the first game developed specifically for DVD-ROM and one of the last "interactive movies" to make heavy use of live-action FMV. In 2014, the ''Tex Murphy'' series continued with a new FMV game, '' Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure''. With advances in computer technology, interactive films waned as more developers used fully digitized characters and scenes. This format was popularized by Telltale Games, achieving success in '' The Walking Dead'' series, where player actions can drastically change future games, for example, different characters may be alive in the end depending on choices made by the player in '' The Walking Dead: Season One'', but those same characters affect '' The Walking Dead: Season Two''. Other examples of episodic adventure games include Telltale's '' The Wolf Among Us'' series and the '' Life Is Strange'' series, created by Dontnod Entertainment.


David Cage: video games referred to as interactive films

At its release, '' Heavy Rain'' (a 2010 video game by Quantic Dream) received very positive reviews and won several gaming and film and television awards. What is most striking, however, is the unanimity of critics in defining it an interactive-film more than a video game. This definition is certainly inspired by the phenomenon, typical of the Nineties, of films available in
home video Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
or computer that presented to the viewer a series of pre-recorded sequences, at the end of which it was possible to make choices that directly influenced the direction of the story. David Cage, head of Quantic Dream, defines his ''Heavy Rain'' as an interactive film and, in fact, the goal of the video game coincides with the type of film just mentioned; to combine the interactive potential of the video game with the expressive richness of cinema. However, unlike its predecessors, Cage chooses not to work with
live action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games o ...
, but to use only synthetic images, avoiding, at least in part, the effect of estrangement typical of interactive films in the passage from moments of exploration to sequences of narrative exposure. From the interactive films on DVD Cage assimilates two different aspects in his videogames, respectively the use of quick time events (QTE) and the freedom of choice left to the player to determine the development of the plot. In the gameplay of ''Heavy Rain'', however, QTEs are not used solely for the purpose of succeeding in certain actions but also as a vehicle to perform the countless narrative choices placed on the player. In the first case the player finds himself testing his reflexes by pressing the keys that appear on the screen. In the second case, up to four different keys can appear to be pressed, each of the which represents a choice that affects the narrative of the video game. As for non-interactive phases, it is difficult to distinguish from the interactive phases, as what can appear as a simple cutscene can often hide several QTEs. Regarding identification with the main characters; ''Heavy Rain'' removes each element of the challenge typical of graphic adventures is removed to ensure that the player can be fully focused on it. Also, as already stated, in ''Heavy Rain'' there is no game over: depending on the player's actions and choices, the video game shifts to different storylines, culminating in one of the many endings planned for the story. The identification with the characters is not given only by the type of actions that we are asked to perform but also by how, at game design level, the player is required to complete QTEs that aim to make the player feel the physical effort of the playable character. In an interview, director Cage stated that the game was designed with a focus on physical immersion by letting the player control the animation of the character with the right
analog stick An analog stick (analogue stick in British English), also known as a control stick, thumbstick or joystick, is an input method designed for video games that translates thumb movement into directional control. It consists of a protruding stick mo ...
. The idea behind this is to put the player further in the same physical space as that of the character. Although the innovation given by this type of mechanics in the gameplay is undoubted, interaction remains a very small part of the experience offered by David Cage's titles; the relationship between gameplay and cutscenes in Cage's works is broken by what we could define as the insertion of the first into the second creating interactive cutscenes. Another example comes from '' Quantum Break'', published by Remedy in 2016. Between the game's acts, episodes from a TV show filmed in live action are displayed to the player: the scenes in these episodes change conforming to the decisions the player has taken and the objects he has interacted with. The looks of the characters are maintained between the live action sequences and the 3D computer generated ones, thanks to the use of the motion capture technique.


Interactive films in the internet era

With the advent of
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
annotations in 2008, a series of five '' Interactive Adventures'' were created by Chad, Matt & Rob that utilized the annotations to tell interactive stories that allowed the user to guide the narrative. The series included ''The Time Machine,'' ''The Murder,'' ''The Birthday Party,'' ''The Teleporter,'' and ''The Treasure Hunt.'' Annotations were removed from YouTube in 2019, which makes many of these videos unable to be interacted with. In the 2010s,
streaming services A streaming media service (also simply called a streaming service) is an online platform that allows users to watch or listen to content, such as film, movies, Television show, TV shows, music, or podcasts, over the internet. Instead of downloadi ...
like
Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
started to grow in popularity and sophistication. By 2016, Netflix had started experimenting with interactive works aimed at children, including an animated version of '' Puss in Boots'' and an adaption of Telltale's '' Minecraft: Story Mode''. Netflix's first major interactive film with live-action scenes was '' Black Mirror: Bandersnatch'', a film in the '' Black Mirror'' anthology series and released in December 2018. Netflix worked with ''Black Mirror''s creator Charlie Brooker to develop a narrative that took advantage of the interactive format, while developing their own tools to improve caching of scenes and management of the film's progression to use on future projects. In 2020 Netflix released an interactive television special of the long standing ''
Carmen Sandiego ''Carmen Sandiego'' (sometimes referred to as ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?'') is a media franchise based on a Carmen Sandiego (video game series), series of computer video games created by the American software company Broderbund. Whi ...
'' interactive media with '' Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal''. In 2022, another interactive short released by Netflix, called '' Cat Burglar'', which is an interactive trivia cartoon, where the viewer plays a cat burglar named Rowdy who is trying to steal a valuable artwork from a museum which is being protected by security guard dog named Peanut and must answer the correct questions in order to progress through the story.


Reception

Although interactive movies had a filmic quality that sprite-based games could not duplicate at the time, they were a niche market— the limited amount of direct interactivity put off many gamers. The popularity of FMV games declined during 1995, as real-time 3D graphics gained increasing attention. The negative response to FMV-based games was so common that it was even acknowledged in game marketing; a print advertisement for the interactive movie '' Psychic Detective'' stated, "Yeah, we know full-motion video games in the past sucked." Cost was also an issue, as live action video with decent production values is expensive to film, while video shot on a low budget damages the overall image of the game. '' Ground Zero: Texas'' cost
Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
around US$3 million, about the same as a low-budget movie would cost in 1994. Though not as crucial an issue as the limited interactivity, another issue that drew criticism was the quality of the video itself. While the video was often relatively smooth, it was not actually full-motion as it was not of 24 frames per second or higher. In addition to this, the hardware it was displayed on, particularly in the case of the Sega CD, had a limited color palette (of which a maximum of 64 colors were displayable simultaneously), resulting in notably inferior image quality due to the requirement of dithering. Game designer Chris Crawford disparages the concept of interactive movies, except those aimed at elementary-school-age children, in his book '' Chris Crawford on Game Design''. He writes that since the player must process what is known and explore the options, choosing a path at a branch-point is every bit as demanding as making a decision in a conventional game, but with much less reward since the result can only be one of a small number of branches. Defenders of the genre have argued that, by allowing the player to interact with real people rather than animated characters, interactive full-motion video can produce emotional and visceral reactions that are not possible with either movies or traditional video games.


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'' series starting with '' Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger''. Between combat missions, ''Wing Commander III'' featured
cutscene A cutscene or event scene (sometimes in-game cinematic or in-game movie) is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward the ...
s 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 cutscenes ('' Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom'', with some of the same actors, was similar). 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. The term is an ambiguous one since many video games follow a storyline similar to the way movies would. Games that highlight a linear story at the cost of the player's freedom may be better described as ''story-dominant games''. This is also the case of videogames that offer long and detailed cutscenes with a cinematographic aesthetic, as seen in
Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game designer. Regarded as one of the pioneering auteurs of video games, he developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence, which in turn has had a significant influence on his game ...
's '' Death Stranding'' released in 2019, which critics described as a videogame movie or interactive film; in this example, the player's actions have no direct consequence in the storyline, and the interaction is limited to the field of the gameplay.


Further reading


Byte Magazine
- Interactive Videodiscs, June 1982


See also

* Web documentary * List of interactive films * Interactive video * Interactive art *
Art game An art game (or arthouse game) is a work of Interactive art, interactive new media art, new media digital art, digital software art as well as a member of the "art game" subgenre of the serious game, serious video game. The term "art game" was ...
* Interactive Adventures * Chad, Matt & Rob * Cheer screening * Pioneer LaserActive * Halcyon Game System * AnimePlay


References


External links


The Dragon's Lair Project: A repository of information about laserdisc video games

"Laser Daze"
from The Dot Eaters: Videogame History 101 {{VideoGameGenre Video game genres *