The Problem

The gaming industry and Hollywood have spent millions without success on titles attempting to bring the power of stories into the interactive world. Before AlterAction, no one had been able to position the player as the protagonist of a story, as opposed to a skill-based game. Still, no one has been able to allow the players to become invested in these virtual story-worlds by letting them create story-relevant content.                 

Potential Market-Clients

•        Story-based industries around the world such as TV, Film, Fiction Books and Manga have no pathway to capitalize their drama-based IP in the interactive world.

•        Thousands of screenwriters are watching their audiences migrate to the interactive world with no way to capitalize their skills there.

•        The mainstream market has always embraced stories and will be attracted to participating as an active protagonist in them, as well as creating content for these virtual story-worlds.

AlterAction's Solution-a platform

For decades no one had the know-how to solve this problem...until now! AlterAction is building a platform for authors and corporations to make their stories interactive, and for the mainstream market to participate and create in these Virtual-Story Worlds.

Proof of Know-how, Masq

As proof-of-concept for our unique know-how, we developed a prototype in a genre considered impossible by the Industry...what was believed a contradiction of terms: an Interactive Story...and we eschewed 3D engines or any other display technology that by today's standards are considered commodities. We released Masq for free to the online market place, and without any advertising...

•        Masq has been played by more than 60,000 people (while we gather player behavior)
•        Masq is getting amazing reviews by players, blogs and magazines in many languages
•        Reviews position Masq as the first/best Interactive Story a.k.a. Interactive Drama a.k.a. Story-World

You can find players comments and opinions at http://alteraction-masq.blogspot.com/


Use and Scalability

•        Our Platform will trigger a whole new entertainment category and a new paradigm.

•        Authors around the world and big media will use the platform to develop an endless stream of new Virtual Story-Worlds with different themes for different markets.

•        There will be development of proprietary IP and popular franchises too.

How everything started

In 2002 AlterAction finished development of an interactive entertainment design model (design rules and principles), completed a 3000-scene title-prototype, Masq, and created the foundations of a technology to develop more titles or story-worlds. Our intensive focus tests proved the design model very appealing to a mainstream demographic, including non-gamers and the female market.

Our design model makes the user an active protagonist of immersive, multi-path stories. Not missions or puzzles, but STORIES in which the user's choices not only really matter, but revolve around personal relationships with well developed characters. The user experiences emotions associated with romance, friendship, betrayal, and many others they could not experience in traditional games. Further, the user is confronted with a whole spectrum of moral choices and dilemmas and has the chance to explore an incredible range of scenarios and endings.

We were inspired by interactive graphic adventures, comics, action-adventure games and cinema. We blended all these into our presentation utilizing a set of design principles (the design model) that intertwine game design, screenwriting and film language. This new interactive paradigm, this new combination, even when difficult to differentiate from other branching interactive products (even by experts) is, as far as we know, unique.

Even though we finished our design model and Masq many years ago (and we designed it years before that) our design model still seems to be unique and appealing despite minimalist production values and a virtually obsolete technology. As we claimed privately years ago, our design model works in a fundamental way that production values and technology only enhance, but don't supplant.

Still we learned a great deal during development, market tests and through the hundreds of emails and recorded playthrough paths of our players. So yes, a new title would be superior to Masq in a variety of ways, and yes, there is lots of information to share. Most of the information found in this site was written in 2003 but we'll keep updating and reviewing as best we can. Your feedback will be highly appreciated.

We decided to share our experience and findings for many different reasons: we believe this design model has the potential of becoming a new interactive entertainment genre, we believe the know-how we developed can contribute to enhance established interactive entertainment categories. And we want to join the current discussions regarding interactive drama, virtual story-worlds and the future of games; All this will remain an obscure craft until someone somewhere delivers a commercially succesfull title that validates interactive drama (a.k.a Interactive Stories) as a profitable genre for all of us. So in an era of wikis, web 2.0, open source, blogs and such great community spirit it seems only logical to share, so we might achieve this goal together, and a bit faster.

Finally, thanks Andrew Stern for your review in Grand Text Auto, and a big THANKS to Tom Francis in the pages of PC Gamer UK for spreading the good word about Masq!