The Player

Videogame-style narratives are creeping into other art forms, writes JOE GRIFFIN

Last week, this writer was in a plush mansion in Hertfordshire, on the outskirts of London. I opened the door of my darkened room to find it had been ransacked. A mysterious figure in a gargoyle mask slouched on a chair, and an apparent body was lying in a foetal position under the sheets of the four-poster bed.

I walked over to the figure on the chair, glancing at the bed every now and then, and touched its arm. It was a mannequin. Confident that someone was on the bed, I fixed my torchlight in that direction while pulling back the sheets with my free hand – it was a curled-up duvet. While I negotiated the darkness on my way out of the room, a hooded man leaped from the shadows. He cupped his hand to my ear. “You . . . can’t . . . save . . . her,” he rasped.

The above is a scene from T

he Alan Wake Experience

, performed by Punchdrunk Theatre. The company used the rambling grounds and vast building of Brocket Hall to stage an interactive performance. Audience members were goaded into following directions and prompts from the actors and props, and make decisions that might affect the narrative.

The performance was based on a forthcoming Xbox game

Alan Wake

, a thriller that seems inspired by Stephen King,

Twin Peaks

and

Resident Evil

. After the performance, I chatted with Remedy’s head of franchise development, Oskari Häkkinen. “We landed on the concept of light and dark, and we realised we could progress that light and dark element with the primal fears of what you experience as a child, and that’s what you’ve experienced tonight. Everyone’s afraid of the dark.

So, from a story perspective, we were able to evolve that and start it from there. “How can we develop on that with a gameplay mechanic? It felt intuitive when we started prototyping it. And the ideas just started flowing. It was something that could integrate storytelling and gaming mechanics in one.” Indeed, Häkkinen says that as the narrative of games become more sophisticated, so can the interpretations. “One of the things we look into when we develop these intellectual properties is that we hope our ideas are so deep with story and concept that they would transfer to other kinds of medium as well. So, for example, there is an Alan Wake novel coming out.”

The website description of a Punchdrunk experience reads more like a videogame than a conventional play. “Audience members are given the freedom to follow any theme, plot line or performer they choose, or to simply soak up the atmosphere of the magical but fleeting worlds.” Of course, interactive theatre is not new, and breaking the fourth wall is as old as Brecht. But with commercial gaming now entering its fourth decade, audiences and performers are increasingly seeking more immersive entertainment, and the links between gaming and other media are strengthening. I for one would welcome a non-linear, interactive take on

Silent Hill

,

Assassin’s Creed

or

Resident Evil

. Stranger things have happened.