The treatment of interactive narratives in film, much like the aforementioned representations of the analogue gaming mode of classic role-playing games can be split into the same three frames of performance; real world, game rules and mechanics and game-diegesis.
At this point a couple of films that made MacKay’s fantasy film list prove useful as the list he established is chronologically located around the early days of computers and videogames alike. As with many new technologies in the past, the rise in popularity of arcade games, Luna parks, the advent of personal computers and videogame consoles in the home, have given rise to warnings about these new, often incomprehensible machines.
Tron, The Last Starfighter and Explorers all deal with the potentials and dangers of computer technology, especially of the interactively entertaining kind. One of the masters of the Japanese Animation business has taken on this problem recently.
Mamoru Oshii’s Avalon portrays a future in which a very popular worldwide interactive game allows its players to earn their keep by playing. Following Ash, an elite player on a quest to discover a legendary playing level called “Class real” the film transgresses many levels of reality to the point where, in the resolution, the audience is left unsure what is reality and what is not. As with the example of analogue gaming,
Avalon depicts the three frames of performance, even though, through the above mentioned confusion one cannot be sure as to where exactly they apply. Considering that the fabled class real coincides with the player being released from his trappings inside the game, we see the real world for only a short while.
The game’s rules are represented by the elderly game-master that appears on-screen before and after Ash’s forays into the game, additionally we see Ash’s game character statistics on screen as she modifies them and is being paid for her efforts. Oshii deal with the recent phenomenon of Mass Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) and warns that too complete an immersion in them can lead to loss of reality.
Ash’s “awakening” into the real world and her discovery of a coloured, populates world pulsing with life, opposed to the sepia-toned and empty world she was trapped in before parallels the exploration that a young child goes through.