Rival Peak on Facebook is a survival TV show crossed with a video game where viewers get to influence the AI characters’ actions
- Rival Peak is a scripted animation series with a plot that will change to reflect audience input, and will run for 12 weeks on Facebook
- The show will be live for eight hours a day and the main plot is scripted, but viewers can affect actions and dialogue
Part video game, part reality show and part animated series, a new project airing on Facebook wants to shift the thinking on interactive television. Rival Peak, which will run daily for 12 weeks, allows for different levels of user engagement, unfolding as a scripted series that will change, depending on audience input.
At first glance, Rival Peak, which started on December 2, might remind you of The Sims. Only we’re not controlling characters so much as prodding them along. It also deviates from the “choose your own adventure” inspired feel of many live-action attempts to meld games and television.
Rather than emphasise big life-or-death choices, Rival Peak seeks participation in a more continuous, playful manner, hoping to forge emotional connections between viewers and players by encouraging the artificially intelligent characters to, say, read a book or pitch a tent. If it works, it will be a seamless merging of games and television by pulling on the strength of the former: regular feedback and communal involvement, rather than asking how a TV show can be more game like.
It’s an experiment, says Facebook’s vice-president of content planning and strategy, Matthew Henick, noting whether it feels more like a show or more game-inspired will depend on how actively audiences lean in.
“There will be familiar presentation styles to reality shows, whether Survivor or Big Brother, with gaming elements alongside it,” Henick says. “They’ll opt into the gaming part. On the top level, this is an interactive reality show that uses elements of gaming and uses a game engine.”