For several years the British video game designer Sam Barlow (Her Story, Telling Lies) has been exploring fresh territory at the border between cinema and interaction. Unlike the cringey full-motion video films of the medium’s formative years, such as Dragon’s Lair or Night Trap – cinematic versions of the Choose Your Own Adventure books – Barlow typically presents the player with a messy trove of film clips that can be accessed in a random but logical order. In time, they form a narrative collage, from which an observant player can trace the outline and eventually detail of a coherent story.
Immortality is where Barlow’s pioneering experiments (here supported by numerous collaborators) find their ideal form. This is an irresistible plunge into a Hollywood mystery, in which you browse through reels of footage from three unreleased films made between 1969 and 1999 that all star the apparently unageing model turned actor Marissa Marcel. This Monroe-like starlet, at once wildly flirtatious and ineffably sad, has disappeared. Can you discover how and why, using only the clues found in and around her work?
