At Amusement Showcase International in Chicago, Cecropia launched a preview of its first filmgame, called THE ACT, an interactive comedy about relationships, deception and the pursuit of romance. THE ACT gives players the unique experience of playing a game that feels more like a movie. Players control the characters' emotions while they experience the interactive story. The characters' feelings are apparent through highly skilled personality-centric animation, which is being animated by Cecropia's animators -- alumni of Disney Feature Film Animation Studios.
"THE ACT will expand the demographic for videogames to include soccer moms, teenage girls and everyone else who enjoys a good romantic comedy," said Cecropia president/ ceo Ann-Marie Bland. "We've designed THE ACT to combine everything that is great about getting absorbed into a story and playing an addictive game -- all with a very simple user interface."
The main characters in The Act are Edgar and Sylvia. Edgar is a shy window washer, who has always been unlucky in love. Throughout the filmgame, Edgar tries a variety of tactics to win Sylvia. Players have to correctly read and control the visual personality cues in the animated characters in order to move to the next level of the game. THE ACT becomes increasingly challenging, making it more and more difficult for Edgar to woo and win Sylvia over. The control system for THE ACT is a very simple and easy to use dial -- making it accessible to even the least experienced game players.
Cecropia is based in Lexington, Massachusetts with studios in Orlando, Florida. Cecropia was established in 2001 by gaming entrepreneur Omar Khudari, co- founder of the game developer Papyrus Design Group. Cecropia's approach to interactive entertainment combines internally developed intellectual properties, traditional hand-drawn animation techniques, unique game design and easy-to-use controls. The Cecropia team is comprised of creative and operations visionaries from Walt Disney Feature Film Animation, Pixar, DreamWorks and Blue Sky as well as videogaming industry veterans from Papyrus Design Group, Sierra Online, Hasbro Interactive and Atari. Additional information about Cecropia can be found at www.cecropia.com.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
