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'HyperBole Studios explores interactive multimedia as a new artistic and cinematic forms, and believes audiences are ready for sophisticated, intelligent products.' Interactive multimedia entertainment was first started in 1990 by such pioneers as Greg Roach, one of the country's leading interactive designers. He was the founder of HyperBole Studios. This sophisticated company explores and creates compelling interactive media as a new creative form of story-driven multimedia, games, and online entertainment (winning CD-ROM awards for over 8 years, proves that) Interactive entertainment technology is capturing many audiences with its leading edge and will only get better. Some award-winning HyperBole CD-ROM titles include the interactive novel The Madness of Roland, the VirtualCinema interactive movies, Quantum Gate and its sequel, and more. Perhaps people will be more familiar with The X Files Game, which is produced by Hyperbole Studios. I have not yet experienced the popular computer game. Although, I was recently introduced to The Madness of Roland, with it being my very first exposure to this type of interactive novel. This interactive CD-ROM novel was created in 1992, and I must say this interactive entertainment novel did take me by surprise. The Madness of Roland is the world's first interactive multimedia novel. The creators of Roland used 256 colour paintings, animation, QuickTime video, original music, professional 'radio theatre' narration, hypertextual links, and a complete sound track to transport the audience to the world of Charlemagne's France. All the efforts put into this interactive novel made it worth the while for me to watch. I also understand why The Madness of Roland CD-ROM was the Winner of Best Interactive 1993 QuickTime Film Festival, Best interactive 1992 QuickTime Movie Festival Best Story/Script, and Invision Multi-Media Awards. My first impression from watching The Madness of Roland was boring. The sound quality was a bit fuzzy and the static noise in the background was distracting, making it sound cheap and poorly made. However, the sound effects were up to my expectations considering that it was the first interactive novel made back in 1992. I thought that the characters voices could have been made more professional to attract the audience more. Some parts were a bit corny sounding because it was done in a theatre theme. Also, I would have actually liked to see more visuals when reading along with the characters to make it more interactive. One last draw back I picked up was that this CD-ROM is only MAC compatible. Despite of all the critism, the overall performance impressed me. I think the audience just have to take some time to get into the novel. It became more interesting when I discovered some 'special' buttons to press. Some things that caught my attention were the Sun level textual commentary icon, the Moon level textual commentary, and the Help command keys. The Sun level gives historical quotes appropriate for each link when pressed. The Moon level acts as a pictograph that could be a digital video or animations, but it is not a direct illustration of the story. I found some of them to be very humourous and provocative to watch. In the Help command, the narrator shows up on the screen and speaks to the audience to tell the audience what to do if they need help. I found it most gratifying when I started to play around with the all the 'special' buttons. For instance, when I selected the option "I wasn't really paying attention," the narrator would stop and asks the audience, "I'm sorry, where were we?" Then the dead emperor speaks to the audience, he speaks with a temper and threatens the viewer to give him more respect, and calls the audience who was not paying attention a Saxons. After viewing Roland, I thought that the graphical features combined with musical sound, and 'real' life scenes gave a more realistic approach for the audience to interact with. This was a very deep interactive novel that had symbolic meanings in it which points to the audience to interact. The Moon level, for instance, was meant as a jump off place for the audience to imagine and was to be provocative to appeal to the audience. The Sun levels were to set different thoughts into the audience. So what is HyperBole up to now? The company is now working on their newest project, Mage: The Ascension Mage. Some advancement the company is looking on is creating new 3D graphics enhancements, ongoing and expanding relationship in the game arena. Greg Roach, one of the creators of this novel said "The Role of Roland" was made to be interactive as a way to better understand novels." I believe he has achieved his goal. The interactive CD-ROM was easy to navigate, instructions were kept simple, and the amazing graphics took my breath away. The digital technology combined with entertainment makes interactive multimedia a success.
(Source Site: http:// www.hyperbole.com/v4/v4Nnhome.html) |
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FACER E-Zine
Foundations, Projections and Issues
