1953: A children's television programme called Winky Dink
and You, begins the move towards interactive TV. Kids in the US buy a special
transparent sheet to place over the screen and, using ordinary crayons, help
the show's characters draw things like pathways or tools. The series is
discontinued because children begin drawing directly on the TV screen.
An interactive movie is a video game that features highly
cinematic presentation and heavy use of scripting, often through the use of
full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage.
This genre came about with the invention of laserdiscs and
laserdisc players (1978), the first nonlinear or random access video play
devices. The fact that a laserdisc player could jump to and play any chapter
instantaneously (rather than proceed in a linear path from start to finish like
videotape) meant that games with branching plotlines could be constructed from
out-of-order video chapters in much the same way as Choose Your Own Adventure
books could be constructed from out-of-order pages, or the way an interactive
film is constructed by choosing from a web of linked narratives.
Interactive movies were animated or filmed with real actors
like movies (or in some later cases, rendered with 3D models), and followed a
main storyline. Alternative scenes were filmed to be triggered after wrong (or
alternate allowable) actions of the player (such as 'Game Over' scenes).
Laserdisc games:
A laserdisc video game is a video game that uses
pre-recorded video (either live-action or animation) played from a laserdisc,
either as the entirety of the graphics, or as part of the graphics. The first
arcade laserdisc game was Sega's Astron Belt, an early third-person space
combat rail shooter featuring live-action full-motion video footage (largely
borrowed from a Japanese science fiction film) over which the player/enemy
ships and laser fire are superimposed. Developed in 1982, the game's unveiling
at the 1982 AMOA show in Chicago marked the beginning of laserdisc fever in the
videogame industry, and its release in Japan the following year marked the
first commercial release of a laserdisc game. However, its release in the
United States was delayed due to several hardware and software bugs, by which
time Dragon's Lair had beaten it to public release there.
The first laserdisc game to gain popularity in the United
States was Dragon's Lair in 1983. It contained animated scenes, much like a
cartoon. The scenes would be played back and at certain points during playback
the player would have to press a specific direction on the joystick or the
button to advance the game to the next scene, like a quick time event. For
instance, a scene begins with the hero falling through a hole in a drawbridge
and being attacked by tentacles. If the player presses the button at this
point, the hero fends off the tentacles with his sword, and pulls himself back
up out of the hole. If the player fails to press the sword button at the right
time, or instead presses a direction on the joystick, the hero is attacked by
the tentacles and crushed. Each move of the joystick, however, would produce a
few moments of black screen, when the laserdisks switched between either a
successful outcome or the death of the character, which interrupted the
continuous flow of gameplay found in other videogame graphic systems of the
time; this was a common criticism of some players and critics.
Despite the high cost of the animation, a deluge of similar
laserdisc video games followed Dragon's Lair because of its immense popularity.
To cut costs, several companies simply hacked together scenes from several
Japanese anime movies that were obscure in America at the time, creating games
like Cliff Hanger (from Hayao Miyazaki's Castle of Cagliostro and Mystery of
Mamo) and Bega's Battle (from Harmagedon), both of which were released roughly
around the same time as Dragon's Lair. Later arcade laserdisc games include
Freedom Fighter, Badlands, Space Ace, and Road Blaster.
Other laserdisc video games followed the lead of Astron Belt
by integrating more and more computer graphics with the pre-recorded video. For
example, Funai's Inter Stellar in 1983 was a forward-scrolling third-person
rail shooter that used computer graphics for the ships and full-motion video
for the backgrounds. Similarly, M.A.C.H. 3 and Cube Quest were vertical
scrolling shooters that used the laserdisc video for the background and
computer graphics for the ships. The Firefox arcade game included a Philips
Laserdisc player to combine live action video and sound from the Firefox film
with computer generated graphics and sound. The game used a special CAV
Laserdisc containing multiple storylines stored in very short, interleaved
segments on the disc. The player would seek the short distance to the next
segment of a storyline during the vertical retrace interval by adjusting the
tracking mirror, allowing perfectly continuous video even as the player
switched storylines under control of the game's computer. This method of
seeking was noted for being extremely strenuous on the player and frequently
led to the machines breaking, slightly hindering the appeal of laserdisc arcade
games. In the 1990s, American Laser Games produced a wide variety of
live-action light gun laserdisc video games, which played much like the early
laserdisc games, but used a light gun instead of a joystick to affect the
action.
Bega's Battle, released by Data East in 1983, took a
different approach and introduced a new form of video game storytelling: using
brief full-motion video cut scenes to develop a story between the game's
shooting stages. Years later, this would become the standard approach to video
game storytelling. Bega's Battle also featured a branching storyline.
DVD (DVDi) games:
A DVD game (Sometimes called DVDi, "DVD
interactive") is a standalone game that can be played on a set-top DVD
player. The game takes advantage of technology built into the DVD format to
create an interactive gaming environment compatible with most DVD players
without requiring additional hardware. DVD TV games were first developed in the
late 1990s. They were poorly received and understood as an entertainment
medium. However, DVD-based game consoles like the PlayStation 2 popularized
DVD-based gaming, and also functioned as a DVD video player. In addition, the
format has been used to import some video games to the DVD format, allowing
them to be played with a standard DVD player rather than requiring a PC.
Examples include Dragon's Lair and Who Shot Johnny Rock?. The PC/console game
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was released in 2006 as a DVD game entitled
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Action Adventure. Japanese games such as visual
novels and eroge that were originally made for PC are commonly ported to DVDPG
(a term that stands for DVD Players Game). Instead of standard save methods,
DVDPGs use password save systems. Similar game types include BDPG (Blu-ray Disc
Players Game) and UMDPG (Universal Media Disc Players Game).
Criticism:
Although interactive movies had a filmic quality that
sprite-based games could not duplicate at the time, they were a niche market—
the lack of direct interactivity put off many gamers. The popularity of FMV
games declined after around 1995, as more advanced consoles were released.
Cost was also an issue, as these games were often very
expensive to produce: Ground Zero: Texas cost Sega around US$3 million, about
the same as a low-budget movie would cost in 1994.
Another issue that drew criticism was the quality of the
video itself. While the video was often relatively smooth, it was not actually
"full motion" as it was not of 24 frames per second or higher. In
addition to this, the hardware it was displayed on, particularly in the case of
the Sega CD, had a limited color palette (of which a maximum of 64 colors were
displayable simultaneously), resulting in notably inferior image quality.
Interactive TV games:
Interactive TV allows people to play games through the TV
remote that comes with their digital TV.
Initial games included platform based games such as lunar lander and
expanded to puzzle games. As interactive
TV developed further the red button became a popular feature of modern
TVs. Broadcasters saw an option to
provide viewers with a new level of interactivity by providing play a long
games, quizzes and competitions linked to popular TV shows.
In 1994, Visiware has established itself as the authority in
creating custom TV user experiences for gaming and interactive TV. With
established partners throughout the world our portfolio and expertise allows us
to offer design, development and integration with multiple technologies and
multiple platforms. With our end user focus and team of experienced game
editors and interactive TV specialists we are on the forefront of technology
and use case evolution, Visiware provides a complete end to end solution for
IPTV, cable, satellite, and web operators.
Visiware, S.A. is an interactive television agency in North
America and Europe. It is based in France.
Founded in 1994 by Laurant Weill, Visiware is a French
publisher and distributor of video games for interactive television, mobile
phone and internet, and a specialist in casual gaming. Its main interactive
channel Playin' TV, airs on more than 30 cable, satellite and ADSL networks in
77 countries. Since October 2009, Visiware is also the head of a skill gaming
website, PlayinStar.
In 2010, Visiware created PlayAlong, a new system that
allows synchronisation between TV and mobile devices as TV shows are broadcasting.
The first TV show to use this system is Endemol's The Million Pound Drop. TV
viewers could play and answer the questions as they were appearing -and their
answers revealed- on TV.
Playin' TV is a North American, European and Latin American
Interactive Television channel, owned by Visiware America.
Playin’ TV is known to propose several different games in
six categories. The board and card games include Solitaire, Poker, Chess and
Backgammon. Action and adventure games include Carrot Mania, Johnny Megatone,
King Kong and Miss Pearl. Sports games include Football, Tennis, Golf and
Basketball. Strategy and puzzle games include Scrabble, Magic 4 and Mine Mania.
Ludo-educative games include Spot the differences, Jigsaw and Memory. Casino
games include French Roulette, Black Jack, Texas Hold’em and Slot machines.
Each week a new pack of 35 different games, become
available.
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