Response to Facade

Sep 16, 2013 by bganter

Facade is a game that I had encountered a few years ago. I don’t believe I’ve ever played it but I did read other people’s reviews of it (most of which were mocking or frustrated) and watched a few playthroughs of people on Youtube trying to get the characters to do various ridiculous things. By the time we got to it in this class though, I’d forgotten most of my knowledge about the game and it wasn’t until I saw a picture of the characters that I remembered anything about it.

Considering the year it came out, I can see why this game was though of as kind of a groundbreaker. The characters really do respond to the player’s words and actions if the words were carefully chosen and the sheer number of possible responses one can get from them was intriguing. On other other hand, most of the words I tried only got them to talk in circles. Maybe this was what the developers were trying to do or was something two people in that situation would have done anyway, but it made me rather frustrated. Some of what I said didn’t get a response and some of the stuff I said got a response that didn’t make sense. I got kicked out in the end trying to get them to work out their issues and couldn’t be bothered to try again.

This was an interesting game and might have occupied my time more if it were remade with more logical responses (even with just something that indicated that your choice of words won’t garner a reaction) and better art.