Games can simulate a lot of things. The physics of a race car, the communication between alien species, the horrors that lurk in the night. They're not always perfect simulations, sure, but they don't always need to be.
Case in point, social interaction and awkward conversation simulator, Façade, a three-person one-act play of an evening with Trip and Grace. On the surface, you would be forgiven for passing this one by. A play? Talking? About marital arguments? No, thanks. But this isn't any old game. This is more of an experiment in Artificial Intelligence. One we really need to see first hand.
Fun Times
Façade is freely available to play on PCs and is about as much of a passion project as you can think of. Taking years to develop by a teeny tiny team of two people, Façade is simple in what you do with it - type, move, and click - but so much more is going on under the surface.
Here's the 'About' page in all its glory. It doesn't quite sound like a game, does it? Working through problems? Trying to get a word in? Taking sides and giving advice? What does it all mean?
Turns out that some 20,000 lines of dialogue are buried inside, waiting to be revealed as Trip and Grace talk not only to each other but to you, responding - as best they can - to the words you type.
Unfortunately, they don't have any friends called Frank, so it's George to the rescue. Let's go.
It's not long before Façade starts getting awkward. A joke that doesn't land, a complaint that falls on deaf ears. Trip and Grace aren't perfect AI. If they can't parse your text well enough for a response, they'll pass it off in some form, usually a cringy one.
Now I'm no great host, but I know that an empty room and unintelligible arguing is not the way to welcome an old friend into your apartment. I compliment them on the view, but nobody hears. After a short while, though, they're all over me.
Trip and Grace are clearly in the middle of something. Whenever they're not trying to talk to me, it seems they're at each other's throats. They really have no idea of zipping their mouths shut and keeping it to themselves.
We don't know much about them but can wander around the room and interact with stuff, and can, of course, try to start a conversation. How do we know each other? How long have we been friends? If I can ever find a time to politely interject in their babbling, maybe I'd find out.
Frustrations
The phone starts to ring. Trip insists on letting it go to the answering machine - we've got guests, after all - but Grace isn't so sure. I take her side and insist someone picks it up. Partly to stop the arguing, partly to get one of them away from me so I can talk to the other.
But that plan fails and I end up heading to the phone myself. Other than chucking it across the table, though, I'm not sure how to answer someone else's phone. I turn around to see Trip and Grace invading my personal space - much like I was invading their phone privacy, I suppose.
It was around this time where I got rather annoyed at their incessant jabbering. Trip and Grace just cannot let the silence linger. Dead air must be filled. Conversation must flow, as one-sided and awkward though it is. I have to get out of here.
After six minutes, I was gone. This was too much for me. On the one hand, the conversation was just not interesting to me. On the other, when it was, I couldn't get a bloody word in, and the words I chose were too much for Façade to respond to. Or too weird. Gosh. This really is a simulator.
But you don't get that from screenshots. You get that from playing it. For your pleasure, here's my first foray into Façade:
When you've finished for the evening - however long or short it turns out to be - you're rewarded with a complete script to your story, for posterity or re-enactment.
Final Word
But I won't be revisiting Trip and Grace anytime soon. It's too much for me. The controls aren't the easiest, and there's only movement and clicking to worry about, so that's saying something.
The important thing to note with Façade, however, isn't the controls. The controls aren't the point of the game. The point is that we have a story that literally unfolds in more ways you can imagine. It is directly influenced by your words and your actions.
You're not funnelled towards a good or bad ending. Good or bad is irrelevant, perhaps. What does Trip want? What's concerning Grace? Who will you help? Who do you agree with? Do you want to mess around and screw things up?
If you want to explore these characters lives, you can busy yourself for a long time, in whichever ways you can imagine. But if you don't... well, you do what I do. You play it for a few minutes and then uninstall it, the AI too freaky and frankly too chatty to deal with.
It's a remarkable title that absolutely must be played, but no, thanks, I don't want to try this multiple times. I urge everyone to try it once, but you'll know if you want to try it twice or more, and I know I don't.
But seriously, play it for yourselves. See what you think of it. This is perhaps the very definition of a video game you must play.
Fun Facts
There's more going on under the hood than you might imagine. Random events make each replay different, to the point where Trip and Grace can react differently to the exact same text input, depending on what else has gone on during the conversation, or even what might spring up in the future.
Façade, developed by Procedural Arts, first released in 2005.
Version played: PC, 2005.