Majestic
Majestic was an interactive, science fiction game played across multiple devices. The player would receive puzzles or ciphers through automated messages sent through phone, email, AOL instant messenger, and other channels. Deciphering the clues meant advancement in the game.
Majestic was an interactive, science fiction game played across multiple devices. The player would receive puzzles or ciphers through automated messages sent through phone, email, AOL instant messenger, and other channels. Deciphering the clues meant advancement in the game.
“It plays you.”
-from the tagline of Majestic
Majestic video game box.
The Game
In talking about Majestic, I always end up talking about the David Fincher film The Game, where Michael Douglas participates in a game that affects every aspect of his life. It’s not a traditional game in any way, shape or form. That is how Majestic starts.
You begin playing and, unlike a traditional video game, it affects you more than just via the screen and your mouse and your keyboard. It affects you by sending you effects, by instant messaging you, by sending faxes to your home and leaving voicemails on your phone. It is considered an ARG, or an alternate reality game, which mixes in-game and out-of-the-game experiences. It uses the different mediums as a very interesting and interactive approach towards storytelling.
Empathy
Aside from the novelty of dealing with multiple devices and modes of communication in a video game, Majestic creates empathy from the interaction. If you’re interacting with something in a communication channel (like a phone or an instant message) that you’re used to interacting with other human beings, it feels a lot like you’re really interacting with human beings as opposed to the somewhat static nature of interacting with the finite logic of a machine. Even today with consoles like the Xbox hooked up to the internet, you still decide to wire yourself in and you still have this set expectation of how you’re supposed to interact in this world.
The unexpected communication channels really broaden the story-telling and makes it feel more real. The Xbox only provides a window that you can expand by playing around with the features provided. But when a machine begins interacting with you, on channels you traditionally reserve for communication with other human beings, that’s when it gets pretty awesome.
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Acknowledgements & Credits
Electronic Arts (EA), 2001.
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