- NECN Features The Act (2006-12-15)
- Hardcore Gamer Magazine on The Act (2007-8)
- Beau and arrow: Only shots in video game 'The Act' are from cupid (2007-1-11)
- Game vet hopes to reach the 'casual gamer' with The Act (2006-12-22)
- Spielberg For A Day (2006-11-06)
- Boston Globe: Sidekick (2006-11-03)
- Caught In The Act: a CG Society Production Focus (2006-11-03)
- Ex-Disney animators raise curtain on new Act (2006-9-28)
- The Act: Emotion Control with Single-Knob Gameplay (2005-03-31)
- Emotion trumps violence in new game (2005-01-25)
- Fluttering Off the Beaten Path (2004-12-01)
- Collected blogger reports
Hardcore Gamer Magazine, August 2007
When Dragon's Lair appeared in arcades in 1983, it set a precedent for a new style of arcade game that brought gamers in droves: the "interactive movie." While those early laserdisc games were billed as a movie that you could play, the experience generally turned into a memorization exercise where the game simply used pre-recorded footage as an interactive background. Cecropia, a start-up company comprised of former Disney animators, is single-handedly attempting both to revive and redefine the interactive movie genre with The Act.
The Act runs on a hard drive mounted in a custom Linux PC. The cabinet itself is stylish, sporting a 26" 1366x768 resolution LCD monitor and a specialized internal daughterboard that interfaces the PC with the coin-op hardware. The Act's unique controller is an innovative optical sensor knob that could revolutionize interactive movie gameplay.
In The Act, you play the role of Edgar, a shy window washer that accidentally ends up having to pretend to be a doctor. The player's job is to help Edgar keep up "the act" throughout the game. By using the knob, the player directly controls Edgar's personality. Altering his emotions and actions takes him through eight different scenarios. There are two scenarios where the player will use the knob to guide Edgar's actions, but most decisions are focused on manipulating someone's feelings.
Cecropia developed the unique knob controls both to make its game stand out, and to make sure the gameplay appeals to the widest possible audience. Positions on the knob are mapped to different behaviors and emotions, and also allow you to control the intensity of each behavior or emotion. For example, if Edgar is presented with a situation where he meets a beautiful woman, the player can use the knob to determine whether he's charmed or indifferent, and exactly how intense his reaction is.
Manipulating Edgar's type of emotion and its intensity triggers the potential branches in the storyline. A "perfect" game takes an hour to complete, but the branching storylines makes it possible for players to clock over twenty hours on a given machine. There is no scoring or other goal-oriented system in place, to further make the player feel like they are playing an interactive movie.
When asked about his decision to support coin-op as opposed to the home console or PC market, Cecropia CEO Omar Khudari replied with laughter. "That's the question I always dread, but it's fairly simple. An arcade machine can reach people in the mainstream market that a game console normally doesn't touch. If you're walking along in a bar and you see the game, it may interest you much more than if it were buried in the game console aisle at the store, which is a place certain people never visit."
Release information isn't yet available for The Act, as Cecropia is working out the details of manufacturing game cabinets. It has already gone through successful location testing, drawing crowds of interested players both casual and hardcore. Hopefully many arcades will pick up The Act, and players can experience something a little more fulfilling than just another racing clone.For more information and news related to arcades, visit Shaggy's blog at ArcadeHeroes.com
Manufacturer: Cecropia
Developer: Cecropia
Genre: Interactive Movie
Release Date: Q3 2007
Players: 1