Computer Graphics & Animation

Biography

Biography: Siqi Cai

Abstract

In 1978, a new home video format called the LaserDisc, abbreviated LD was first commercially available for the storage and playback of movies as an alternative to videotape. Compared to other home video formats at the time, LD offered a higher image quality and resolution as well as a random access feature, which allowed the video to jump from one point to another for instant access.

1) Both these advantages allowed the LD technique to be adapted to video games.

2) Therefore, in the 1980s, a series of video games using LD as the game carrier were published, and often called “the interactive movie.”  Interactive movies are essentially video games that use a significant amount of pre-calculated image data as the primary content, focus on the cinematic narrative, and offer comparatively poor gameplay. The poor gameplay is due to infrequent interactivity, which limits players to interaction through only a few buttons to play the game. 

The development process of the interactive movie did not progress smoothly. Despite providing experimental gameplay and cinematic game experiences, the interactive movie eventually ushered in its decline at the end of the 1990s due to a poor reputation.

3) A few critical points for its failure were summarised by scholars who study video games, also known as ludologists, included a shortage of interactivity, limited branch plots, unsatisfied acting, and low video quality compared to a real movie.

4) To make matters worse, the early interactive movies were labelled as “low-interactivity games” by Chris Crawford, a computer game designer and ludologist, who was authoritative in the field of game interactivity research.

5) Most disadvantages that existed pointed to the design of the interactive movie with poor gameplay and massive usage of video clips. While it is true that the interactive movie, to some extent, was responsible for most of its failures,

6) there remain some people who continue to enjoy this type of game, and other interactive movies with related features, such as Heavy Rain (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2010), The Walking Dead (Telltale Games, 2012), and Minecraft: Story Mode (Telltale Games, 2015), which are still being published continuously. As Crawford concluded, most game designers wanted but could not make the most of the gameplay of the interactive movie due to many reasons.

7) On this basis, the reduced gameplay and the broad focus on the animated content of the interactive movies were not the key issues to blame its failures. 

Through further research, this thesis establishes a distinct understanding of the interactive movie, which helps confirm the idea that the interactive movie has the potential to transfer reduced gameplay and other specialities into accessibility, player’s thinking depth, and better overall interactivity quality. This dissertation analyses the interactive movie’s poor gameplay and its essence from a historical perspective. Professional terminologies, such as interactivity, interactivity frequency, process intensity, and data intensity are introduced and used to argue and validate the conclusion to offer a comprehensive understanding of this category of gameplay.