Façade combines interactive fiction with images. Unlike Galatea, the user can type input but the output comes with visuals and verbal responses from the characters. The whole object of the game is to select a person, visit a married couple, and try to keep them together. For me, I was only able to resolve their issues once out of the ten times that I played it. Grace seems to flirt with the male characters and really likes for you to be on her side. Trip tends to get really jealous and if you kiss Grace or flirt with her too much, he will literally escort you out of the apartment. If you offend Trip too many times he will kick you out. If the user is rude before the character enters the apartment, Trip will slam the door in the users face.
This game is very much interactive fiction on the next level and each story line is different. Olivia is a character that is responsible for setting them up in college. The couple invites her over to celebrate and thanks her for years of pain and suffering but also love. Olivia tends to flirt with Trip too and doesn’t set well with him. Depending on how the user plays Olivia, if she tends to be more on Grace’s side, the flirting is minimal and Olivia can help them. If Olivia sides too much with Trip, the couple tends to split. Each reason may be different. Grace may feel she cannot be an artist because Trip won’t allow her to follow her dreams. Trip feels guilty because he manipulated Grace into marrying him because he proposed in front of his parents. No matter what, the game never ends the same way twice. The game reacts to anything the user types in and the characters respond directly to the user or to each other in reference to what the user said. The user can walk around the apartment and drink, rearrange the sculptures, answer the phone, check messages, or just sit on the couch. Using the information the characters give, the user can make them feel heard, understood, and stay together, or upset them and either be asked to leave or one of them leaves, which ends the game.
Apparently there is a hidden key behind their wedding photo that allows the user to unlock the back door. The user then walks into a room full of guns and must quickly shoot Trip. I have tried several times to figure out how to get the key but have failed. The following youtube clip explains how it should be done.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzodFltaX70[/youtube]
I’m not 100% sure, but I think this may be a joke, in the fine tradition of fictitious videogame lore that sends players on fruitless quests for non-existant Easter Eggs. 🙂
Also, who is Olivia? There’s no character with that name, unless that’s the name you give your character when you start the game.
Olivia was an option on the version I downloaded. She’s a female version of the character that introduces them back in college, but she also seems to have bisexual characteristics because she flirts with the wife as well as the husband.