ABSTRACT
The opening cutscene takes place in the dark. You hear an audio track against a blacked-out screen, a phone message from Trip inviting you over to his and Grace’s place. After a brief title screen showing the two of them and the interior of their apartment, and another blackout, you find yourself (via a cursor-hand from the first-person point of view, reminiscent of Myst, say) in the hallway outside, facing their front door, behind which you overhear the couple arguing-either about getting rid of something or about where to find wine glasses (it varies in replay). Your first action is to move forward (using the arrow key) and knock on the door (with your mouse). In response, the now-whispered argument turns to a dispute over the time of your arrival, but after a few seconds (maybe you knock again), Trip opens the door and a graphic novelstyle animated NPC (non-player character) standing in the 3-D apartment greets you by the name you’d selected before starting to play Façade, the award-winning 2005 experimental interactive drama by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern.1
