[In this post: Façade]

This word has always fascinated me for its multifaceted nature. The same happens in many other languages, like “jouer” in French, or “spielen” in German: the concept of “playing” as to “play a game” becomes strictly connected with the idea of playing an instrument as well as playing a role in a drama. Maybe these ludic activities conceal some common roots, there must be something in our human nature that subconsciously and archetipically links them.

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 This cannot be truer considering electronic literature: once words move from page to screen, they acquire a new consistence, the matter which constitutes them is not ink and paper anymore, it’s much more virtual but malleable. As Espen Aarseth says,  in a slightly different context though, a “nontrivial effort” is required by electronic literature, that is going beyond the act of reading and starting to experiment and interact. In one word, we have to play with it, in every sense: we have to play it, as it was an istrument we are learning to use; we have to interact with it as we were act-ors, that is actively participate in it; and above all, as literature is pleasure by nature, we have have to enjoy it.

Moreover, a clear sign of how playing and electronic literature are connected relies on the fact that many electronic writers come from different fields of information technology, such as graphics and, of course, video game programming. 

Discovering those things was absolutely illuminating: the idea of opening literature to a new dimension is what I was looking for. But then, a question came into my mind: what about drama? I mean, if we think about electronic literature as something that has to be played, and we are supposed to evolve from readers to inter-actors, then what happens to drama as a genre? Is it still possible? In what ways?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

I started to look for an answer and this is what I have found: Interactive Drama.

“It might contain artificial people you could converse with, get to know, and love or hate. It might engineer dramatic situations, complete with revelations and reversals. Entering this world, you would feel as if you had been thrust into the midst of a soap opera or a reality-Tv show”.

(Jonathan Rauch, Sex, lies and video games, in The Atlantic Monthly, number 4, vol. 298, Nov. 2006)

What Jonathan Rauch is referring to is Façade, one of the first examples of interactive drama. Again electronic literature modifies the idea of drama, it tears words away from the stage or the page, and puts us inside of the playwright itself. We become the characters of a story and we are asked to interact with the other actors until the play gets to an end. And it’s not an happy ending, usually. Well, I think it can be, but as far as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to help Grace and Trip to fix their relationship. The first time he believed that I was trying to pick him up, and consequently Grace was not treating me exactly “gracefully”.

 

So, I definetely encourage you to try Façade and see how you like it. Try to interact with Grace and Trip, go and visit them for dinner and help them with their marital crisis. It’s not like every other interactive game. Maybe because their voices are recorded by real actors, so you perceive an intonation and some find of feeling in their voices, maybe because in one way or another we know what happens when a couple is facing a crisis so we can imagine how they’re feeling…sometimes they act like machines and there’s a kind of fake reaction to what you say. But it’s fun to type in words and see how you can play the role of the actor who plays the role of a friend of them. Chinese boxes.