Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Emotion and Games at MSNBC

my affiliations

Ian Bogost - videogame theory, criticism, design

about me

contact

Water Cooler Games

Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

You are reading an archived version of this article. The original URL was (loading...)

Emotion and Games at MSNBC

by Ian Bogost January 30, 2004

categories: Emotion in Games

There's a good article on the future of emotion in games at MSNBC, featuring Ion Storm's Warren Spector and our friends Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern from Grand Text Auto.

The article both mentions and shows a screenshot of Facade, the interactive drama Mateas and Stern have been working on for the past four years or so. Facade is also an Independent Games Festival finalist this year.

From the article,

"Facade" could represent a new step in gaming. Its artificial intelligence could be adapted by other genres, bringing a new realism to games. nd as the technology improves, what's to stop what Stern calls, "new genres of interactive experiences, such as interactive love stories, family dramas and virtual friends."

I know many of you haven't had a chance to play Facade, but it's really quite a departure from other games; the player gets a sense of trying to get inside of the emotional disturbance in the characters' lives. Those of us used to Eliza and her many kindred will see how Facade progresses the player through a story encounter, rather than responding to cells of dialog like other AI gags. If you're coming to GDC in March, I encourage you to try out Facade on the tradeshow floor, along with the other IGF finalists.