Atlantic Monthly article about Facade.
Insight into the game.
“Want drama? Enter virtual soap opera.”
Mention of the next project, The Party, from the AM article:
“The Party will be a darkly comic social melodrama, along the lines of Desperate Housewives. In the prototype scripts, you find yourself cohosting a dinner party with your wife (or husband, if you play as a woman), who begs you to keep the conversation and liquor flowing smoothly. As guests arrive, the party fills with characters who have various designs on you and on each other. Your ex-girlfriend may try to break up your marriage; her angry husband may deck you; your neighbor may be snooping and your boss fishing for excuses to fire you. You can try to keep everyone happy, or you can hurl insults, or seduce your best friend’s wife, or announce that you’re gay, or refuse to admit guests… At every stage, however, the other characters — and behind them the drama manager — are conniving to draw you in. Madcap complications ensue… The designers invert the conventions of Video-Game Land, where shooting people is easy but talking to them is hard: in The Party, violence will be rare and dramatically meaningful, ricocheting through the game, as in life, with unforeseen consequences. Sex, likewise, will be dramatic rather than pornographic. It may disrupt a marriage or get someone killed. The sex will not be X-rated, but it will be realistic.”
Procedural Arts Facade website.
