Tuesday, March 27, 2001

Otto is a dear - even if he is a little goofy. But I haven't quite made up my mind about Iris. She's a bit coquettish, but she's smart and she's nice to Otto. Well, most of the time. And she'll play tag with Otto and me. But I really like playing ball with Otto because he's so funny when he misses and crashes into the wall.

I spent a memorable afternoon with Otto and Iris several weeks ago. I was at Zoesis, the Newton interactive entertainment company where Otto and Iris were brought to life, but you can meet the pair at www.ottoandiris.com. (Warning: Mac users can't yet use the site.) Under the guidance of Zoesis' director, I ran through some of the site's seven activities with Otto and Iris.

This might not sound much different than a hundred other Web sites. But Zoesis is not a dotcom, it's a pioneer in interactive storytelling.

Interactive. Now, there's an overused word. But that's the kind of storytelling/entertainment Zoesis aims to create. Otto and Iris are, foremost, characters. They react to you in multiple ways - Otto gets miffed, for example, if you miss your turn. If you try to take their picture (another activity) Iris always jockeys to get in front. Unlike other computer games, you're there to play, not necessarily to win.

If you think cartoon characters can't inspire passion, you haven't talked to Joseph Bates, a former MIT research scientist and professor of computer science and drama at Carnegie Mellon University. He spun off Zoesis in 1996.

For the past 15 years, he has been working on perfecting algorithms that create characters ``so well, you think they're alive. That you wonder, `What happens to them when I turn off the computer?' We want you to feel something for them as friends.''

Bates clearly sees Otto and Iris as buddies. When I'm slow to respond while playing with Otto, Bates nudges me: ``He's mad at you, that's his irritated jump.''

Later Bates and Oliver Strimpel, former director of Boston's Computer Museum and Zoesis' director of development, show me a prototype of a project still early in development. It's an interactive story, ``The Penguin Who Wouldn't Swim,'' in which actions and decisions by the ``reader'' drive the plot forward. There is, however, only one ending. The program is not meant to be a multiple-ending trick, it's a way of creating a narrative in which author and reader work together.

Zoesis uses a highly specialized computer language to create its characters; Bates compares its complexity to DNA or robotics technology. It's more Holodeck than Hollywood. Bates insists, ``The hard part is character; the easy part is 3-D.''

However mind-blowing this sounds, the real question is how to make such interactivity profitable. The short-term answer is market branding. Zoesis is negotiating with a major cereal company that wants to create product characters for promotional Web sites. Otto could be turned into a peanut butter cup or another kind of candy. Think of Coke's popular polar bears.

Commercial work like that could put the 15-employee company on the path to solvency. But it's not, however, where Bates' heart lies. (Strimpel brings up Pixar, a company that animated a Listerine bottle before going on to ``Toy Story.'') Bates envisions an entirely new kind of entertainment media.

In fact, true interactive entertainment is looming. Some weeks ago, Paul Cha of Enroute Imaging came by the Herald to demonstrate his California-based company's technology for 360-degree viewing; the device is compatible with a Sony Playstation. Unlike theatrical ``circle vision,'' you control the camera angle. You could, for example, pan the stage at the Oscars, or turn to the audience to watch Danny DeVito munching a snack. Cha envisions applications for music videos, concerts, sports and theater. ``It's a new way of telling a story,'' he said.

Even if Zoesis' commercial work pans out, it will be years before stories such as ``The Penguin Who Wouldn't Swim'' are produced. Nonetheless, Bates already is dreaming about letting readers enter a mystery as Hercule Poirot, or visit another planet in a science fiction tale.

And that's what makes Bates' vision different from the latest computer game. He wants us to care about the characters after the computer is turned off.

  Talk back to Stephanie Schorow.