Game Over
My girlfriend and I try the relationship-in-crisis game Façade. Will we survive?
by Grant Stoddard
December 13, 2005
I'm one of the rare males born after 1970 who has never owned a game console nor dumped an inordinate number of quarters into arcade machines. There's always an awkward moment between me and my video game-playing best friend when he proudly tells me that he'd slaughtered a battalion of reanimated zombie-Nazis or singlehandedly guaranteed peace throughout the Galactic Republic. He talks as if it were actually he who fought off a wrecking crew of mercenary ninjas, not the image he haphazardly controlled with his callused thumbs. He says I don't like computer games because I suck at them. I maintain it's the other way around.
Façade is supposedly the latest word in artificial intelligence, a glimpse into a future in which being successful at a video game might rely less on hand-eye coordination and more on emotional reasoning and interpersonal skills. This appeals to me. While my peers can be easily engorged by a new shoot-'em-up with graphics that rival the latest CGI technology, I've always believed that the high-water mark of video gaming would be an environment in which a player could interact in a realistic scenario: something that might happen in his or her own life, given that slaying reanimated SS officers with a bazooka is a relative rarity for most of us.
The scenario of Façade is this: the player arrives at the luxury apartment of a WASPy married couple he or she introduced in college. The minute you walk in the door, Trip and Grace begin to argue, and what you do and/or say as the intermediary in their progressively ugly dialogue ultimately affects the evening's outcome. The characters ask for advice via hypothetical questions and encourage you to side with them. This is where my argument about everyday scenarios in video gaming falls apart. I'll undertake hand-to-hand combat with mutated Dobermans in a post-apocalyptic dystopia before I'll mediate a couple's spat.
As an exercise, my girlfriend and I decided to take turns playing the game, both aware that in doing so we might be loosening the fabric that loosely keeps us together. In fact, Façade exposed some fissures in our union before we'd even downloaded it. "Who designed this shit?" Amanda demanded. "I'm fucking freezing out here!" We were walking through a snowstorm to borrow a laptop with the requisite 1.21 gigawatts. Neither of our machines had the type of juice we needed to run the program, and my programmer girlfriend was beside herself with incredulous rage.
Once we fire it up, the first thing I notice is that Façade is actually a huge leap backward in terms of graphics, sort of like Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" video. The up, down, left and right keys control the player's movement in the apartment. You can pick stuff up, put it down, open closed doors, call the elevator, kiss, hug and comfort with the mouse and communicate by typing sentences.
Amanda plays first. The game begins with a stilted phone call from Trip, then gives way to tense and sinister Twin Peaks-esque music. Every time a new game is started, the screenplay is altered slightly. How the characters react also depends on the gender of the character. Amanda is first "Genevra," one of a plethora of odd names to choose from. From the outset, you get the idea that Trip is thinking about fucking Genevra; he's all compliments and is quick to offer her some neat alcohol.
"Maybe Genevra would prefer juice or mineral water," says Grace, cockblocking her hubby.
Undeterred, Trip uncorks the Bordeaux that Grace was saving for their tenth anniversary, to more effectively get his extramarital flirt on. The shit hits the fan, and soon Amanda (as Genevra) is in the middle of a tug of war. The argument is multilayered:
Grace feels that Trip has prevented her from establishing herself as an artist, and that he's materialistic, pompous and class-obsessed and is in denial about the state of their marriage.
Trip feels that Grace is cold and distant. He aspires to be more like Grace's upper-class parents and makes fun of his own background.
It quickly becomes apparent that Grace is obsessed with her decorating and aware that her marriage is a sham. She is a little heavy-handed with the metaphors and talks about all the crumbling buildings they saw on their recent trip to Italy.
Trip, in addition to being effete in word and deed, is obsessed with social climbing and their aforementioned recent trip to Italy.
GRACE: Genevra, don't you think that a marriage should be about...
GENEVRA: Yes
TRIP: What? Genevra, don't you think that a good relationship means...
GENEVRA: Yes
GRACE: What?
"This game is making me uncomfortable," says Amanda.
It's clearly a no-win situation with these two. Amanda tries to cut the tension.
GENEVRA: Let's talk about it.
GRACE: Trip, your fascination with everything European is making our guest uncomfortable.
Though Façade has been five years in development, the characters still manage to "mishear" a lot of the prompts a player types, sending the conversation off on a series of non-sequiturs. Then again, fights between couples often take that route.
After almost ten minutes of game play, Grace decides that the marriage is not working, thanks Genevra for allowing her to see the light and storms out of the apartment. The game ends with Trip howling after her and the music becoming more sinister.
"Grace, NOOOOOOOOO!"
Sobbing. Fade to black. Game over.
"Well, that was just really upsetting," observes Amanda.
"My turn!" I say.
We had planned to play the game at least five times each, so we still had plenty of time to bring Mr. and Mrs. Headroom back together. First, I wanted to see if I could fuck with the game for my own amusement. It's just something I get an infantile kick out of; whenever I see a kid's Speak & Spell I will happily while away an hour making it spell out dirty words in its metallic timbre.
As soon as Trip opens the door, I French-kiss him twice.
"Oh Gonzalo!" he says. "You're kissing me! How very European. We just came back from there. They typically greet each other with a kiss. Though I didn't see two men do that."
GONZALO: Listen Trip, I have a thick mocha cock.
TRIP: Ha ha, you sure are a kidder. Okay, let me go get Grace.
GONZALO: I'm not afraid to use it, my friend.
Trip heads to the kitchen. I can hear them arguing as I sit on their IKEA sofa.
"What are you doing?" says Amanda.
"Just watch."
GRACE: GONZALO! You look great. I'm so glad that you're here. Perhaps you can tell me where I went wrong in decorating this room?
GONZALO: Grace, you have a superb ass!
"You're pathetic!" says Amanda and rolls her eyes.
GRACE: Um . . . well that's one way to say hello.
GONZALO: Say, do you know what a rim-job is?
Grace and Trip's eyebrows arch violently upwards. They look at each other and me.
GRACE: Trip, what is he . . .
TRIP: I think Gonzalo is just having fun with us.
GONZALO: No dude, I'm dead fucking serious. Let's all fuck. I mean, that's why you invited me over, right?
In what is surely a coding oversight, Trip walks through his wife. He then gets all up in my/Gonzalo's grill.
TRIP: You should leave right now!
I am manhandled out of the apartment and into the hall. The door slams in my face. I'm laughing so hard I can barely type.
"Okay, have you got that out of your system now?" says Amanda.
Not even close. Before I'm ready to play properly, I've stolen a bottle of wine, waved around one of Grace's phallic-looking glass sculptures, threatened to piss my pants if Trip and Grace didn't tell me where the bathroom was, confessed to killing a drifter and tried to induce a threesome. No dice. Certain keywords and phrases will result in a player's immediate dismissal. These include, but are not limited to, threesome, fuck and cocksucker.
I watch Amanda play the game earnestly six times. Every time, Trip or Grace have walked out on each other for varied reasons: Trip's pomposity, Grace feeling stifled, etc. According to the hints on interactivestory.net, Trip and Grace respond to flattery and agreement. But while saying "You're right" or "I agree" may get you in good graces with Grace, it'll send Trip into a hissy fit. Grace leaves, accusing Trip of flirting with Jesper, Espen or Kha. Trip prances out, crying foul over Grace taking sides with Olivia, Anna or Jessica. In one scenario, Trip suggests that I (as Eric) bring the hot girl "from accounting" to a party the star-crossed pair is throwing next week. Grace overhears this from the kitchen and goes on the warpath.
GRACE: Eric, why are you telling Trip about interesting women that you work with, huh?
Grace, Amanda and I agree, is a frigid, joyless cunt. After spending much more time with Trip and Grace than I would with an actual quarrelling couple, I'm convinced that they totally deserve each other.
We play for more than three hours, although Amanda loses interest two-and-a-half hours in.
"What's the point of this?" she finally asks.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, shouldn't there be some sort of personality test integrated into how you played the game? What else do you get out of it?"
The idea of some hidden level where Trip and Eric would have a wanking competition for Grace's viewing pleasure was the only reason I was still playing at three a.m. If there is such a thing, I couldn't find it.
Ultimately, Façade was a disappointment because it could have been so much more. The game is really a tarted-up version of Eliza, a computerized therapy program that was devised in the 1960's. Eliza was designed to ask appropriate questions triggered by key words and phrases. I found the program online and tried it out.
ELIZA: How do you feel?
ME: Sad
ELIZA: Why sad?
ME: I feel lost.
ELIZA: Do you like feeling lost?
ME: No
ELIZA: Would you like to be happy feeling lost?
ME: Get bent
ELIZA: I'm not sure I understand.
I tried to convince myself that Grace and Trip were actual friends of mine, using that as motivation to heal their rift. But can keeping a totally mismatched couple together be gauged a success? Not in my experience.
And there's got to be room for an X-rated version of Façade. In every game, Trip is wearing tight pants, is hell-bent on getting everyone drunk and is obviously bi-curious. Grace implies that she attended a liberal arts school. But try as I might, any mention of sex got me thrown out instantly.
I suppose my conception of A.I. has been informed by Hollywood: the diazepam indifference of HAL, the campy, mother-hen tone of KIT and C-3PO. I'll have to return to character-driven computer programs in twenty years, or whenever they surpass the type of relationship one can have with an ATM machine. n°
©2005 Grant Stoddard and hooksexup.com