Laserdisc Video Games - Philosophy

Philosophy

This genre came about with the invention of laserdiscs and laserdisc players, the first nonlinear or random access video play devices. The fact that a laserdisc player could jump to and play any chapter instantaneously (rather than proceed in a linear path from start to finish like videotape) meant that games with branching plotlines could be constructed from out-of-order video chapters in much the same way as Choose Your Own Adventure books could be constructed from out-of-order pages, or the way an interactive film is constructed by choosing from a web of linked narratives.

Thus, interactive movies were animated or filmed with real actors like movies (or in some later cases, rendered with 3D models), and followed a main storyline. Alternative scenes were filmed to be triggered after wrong (or alternate allowable) actions of the player (such as 'Game Over' scenes).

An early attempt to combine random access video with computer games was "Rollercoaster," written in BASIC for the Apple II by David Lubar for David H. Ahl, editor of Creative Computing. This was a text adventure that could trigger a laserdisc player to play portions of the feature film Rollercoaster (1977). The program was conceived and written in 1981, and published in the January 1982 issue of Creative Computing, along with an article by Lubar detailing its creation, an article by Ahl claiming that Rollercoaster is the first video/computer game hybrid and proposing a theory of video/computer interactivity, and other articles reviewing hardware necessary to run the game and do further experiments.

The first commercial interactive movie game to be released was the 1983 arcade game Dragon's Lair, featuring a full-motion (FMV) cartoon by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth, where the player controlled some of the moves of the main character. When in danger, the player was to decide which move or action, or combination to choose. If they chose the wrong move, they would see a 'lose a life' scene, until they found the correct one which would allow them to see the rest of the story. There was only one possible successful storyline in Dragon's Lair; the only activity the user had was to choose or guess the move the designers intended them to make. Despite the lack of interactivity, Dragon's Lair was very popular and addictive, and has since received a remake on modern day gaming consoles (except with a complete genre change).

The hardware for these games consisted of a laserdisc player linked to a processor configured with interface software that assigned a jump-to-chapter function to each of the controller buttons at each decision point. Much as a Choose Your Own Adventure book might say "If you turn left, go to page 7. If you turn right, go to page 8," the controller for Dragon's Lair or Cliff Hanger would be programmed to go to the next chapter in the successful story if a player pressed the right button, or to go to the death chapter if he pressed the wrong one. Because laserdisc players of the day were not robust enough to handle the constant wear placed on them by constant arcade use, they required frequent replacement. The laserdiscs that contained the footage were ordinary laserdiscs with nothing special about them save for the order of their chapters, and if removed from the arcade console would readily display their video on standard, non-interactive laserdisc players; to this day they are still much sought-after by laserdisc collectors.