Steven Spielberg’s Director’s Chair, a simulation video game developed by Knowledge Adventure for Windows and Macintosh, was released in 1996. The game, which guides players through the moviemaking process, featured Spielberg as a guide as well as Quentin Tarantino as a man on death row, and Aniston as his girlfriend who is trying to clear his name.
Originally developed to help aspiring directors understand the filmmaking process, the game has been redesigned by Paolo Pedercini and is now available online under the title Director’s Choices. In the game, players can navigate their favorite Tarantino scenes and make changes with help from Spielberg, as well as, writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, cinematographer Dean Cundey, and editor Michael Kahn.
Pedercini, 39, is a game developer, artist and educator who teaches experimental game design, creative coding, and animation at Carnegie Mellon University. Born in Italy, he moved to the US in 2007 to study integrated media arts at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
According to the developer, “The original game was an awkward but ambitious film-making simulation. It was meant to inspire a new generation of directors, unfortunately, it tried to be a bit too realistic when simulating all the logistical challenges of movie production and left very little room for creativity. The player had very limited agency when writing and shooting the film.”
Although in 1997 Computer Gaming World stated in its review that the game was “so limited and linear that it ultimately fails as both game and multimedia,” Pedercini has updated Director’s Chair as a choose-your-own-adventure style game that resembles Netflix’s Black Mirror film Bandersnatch. Given that the initial premise is pretty bare-bones, players can choose to make either a serious drama or a slapstick comedy.
The reimagined game allows players to develop their own narrative and decide how to use Tarantino in the film. Not particularly celebrated for his acting skills, the director of Pulp Fiction can either stay calm or go crazy in Director’s Choices. Given the bizarre nature of the premise, players shouldn’t expect the game to be anything other than an interesting exploration of 90s gaming. Director’s Chair can be played online here.
Source: HappyMag
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