I played another round of Facade this morning, and rather than aggressive play, was more passive in my responses. Of course, after you’ve played a few games you do catch on to the restrictive manner of interactivity; the program is cued for certain catch or key words, such as "divorce" say, and in effect, what really decides the turn of events is your responses to specific questions that Grace or Trip ask the player/reader.
What they’re looking for is a yes/no answer that will decide, according to the coded input, if you are agreeing with Grace or disagreeing; so that each of the two main characters more or less are on a "point" system that the character will recount back to you verbally and you realize that there and then, their next moves have been prescripted. It’s all about taking sides (which ain’t such a good thing to do particularly in the marital arguments between a couple who are your friends).
Storytron is going to be much more diverse and unknowable to even the writer as the key actions are built upon each preceding action without as limiting a range of true/false statements. It’s not clear to me as yet–I have to read and learn some more–exactly how the twists and turns of character responses will tie in to each other but the potential for variety is great.
Never though, is the creator/writer completely without some measure of control.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology