| 019If you could only choose to save one life,
who’s would you choose? That’s one of the
first dilemmas Amy, protagonist of the new
interactive sci-fi film The Complex, faces. But
it’s not Amy who has to make that decision.
That’s you dear viewer, because this is an
interactive film and you’re the one holding
the reins.
Set in London, The Complex focuses
on scientist Dr Amy Tenant (played by
Michelle Mylett) who has become a leader
in the advancement of Nanocell technology.
However, news has broken of a terrorist
attack involving a blood-vomiting civilian
whose identity is far from coincidental.
Reunited with old friend, Rees (Al
Weaver), Amy is soon at the centre of this
attack and trapped in an impenetrable
HQ of laboratories – a womb of scientific
advancement with a perilous secret.
“This was an original idea of mine, I had
written it as just a straightforward feature
script and had been thinking a lot on
the ideas of what it looks like to sacrifice
yourself,” says Lynn Renee Maxcy, when we
ask her how The Complex came about. “Then
Wales Interactive asked if we could turn it
into a choose-your-own adventure and it just
seemed to fit really well.”
Available to download on a variety
of platforms from PC to PlayStation, the
viewer (or player) is involved from the very
beginning, choosing the path of the narrative
from not just who lives or dies, but whether
to crack a joke or answer questions from a
boardroom full of people. So is this a game
or a film?
“That’s the thing, that’s the toss up,”
laughs Paul Raschid when we ask him that
very question. “I say both. I think technically
playing because of the action of clicking it.
But I’m a film maker so I want to say watch.
“There is that line between film and game
on both sides of the fence that is totally
blurring and we’re going to see more and
more crossover between the two of them. I
feel like interactive films are something that
are very timely at the moment.”
Maxcy agrees: “It’s like technology and
soul meeting in this really interesting way.
It’s a brand-new way of telling stories. This
level of interactivity within a feature is
completely new so we kind of knew we were
out on a tightrope without a net!”
The interactive technology in The Complex
W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K
What would you do when faced with an impossible decision? We speak to director Paul Raschid and writer Lynn
Renee Maxcy about The Complex, the first live action interactive sci-fi film that lets you make all the hard choices
WORDS RACHAEL HARPERCHO ICES CHOICES...
goes well beyond forming the narrative, it
also affects the personality of Amy and the
way the characters around her treat her.
“One of the things that was really interesting
beyond just ‘what direction do I have my
character go?’ was this idea that we actually
pay attention to the choices we make and
they matter later. If you choose early on to be
kind to another character, that can actually
come back later in the story,” explains
Maxcy. “That character then remembers and
says ‘hey you were kind to me earlier, I’m
going to help you out now’ in the same way
that life can work like that. If you’re kind to
people, they’re generally kind back.”
Indeed, a unique element to The Complex
is its characters, who take different paths
every time you view the film. Maxcy, who
is part of the Emmy award-winning writing
team from The Handmaid’s Tale, certainly
knows how to create complicated characters,
but what was it like to write characters
whose outcomes can change with the click of
a mouse?
“For me, as a writer, I felt like I was
letting the viewers into my own creative
process. Normally when writing a script,
I’ve made all the choices for my characters.
But with something like this I had so much
fun because I got to write all of the different
possibilities. It wasn’t just me standing at
my giant board of Post-it notes saying ‘which
one?’ – I could do both. Actually, I could
write all the different endings I thought of.HOT NEWS
The ComplexWhich is in equal parts overwhelming,
because you’re suddenly staring at a 190-
page script like ‘dear God!’, but in a lot of
ways it was so freeing and fun to be able to
actually say ‘yeah, I am gonna write that.
They are going to have both conversations’
and in a really cool way it allowed me to get
to know the characters even better because
I really made sure they stayed as the same
core human the whole way through.”
Another unique aspect of The Complex is
that you can go back to it a number of times
and have different outcomes each time.
“There are eight different endings,” confirms
Lynn. “And there are definite branching
points, so that once you make THIS decision
you can only get to these four endings. There
are a lot of different storylines – some loop
back on each other, where you’re given a
choice of ‘do you talk to this person first or
that person first?’ you’re going to talk to both
people eventually. There are some smaller,
less intense choices but then there are MUCH
larger ones, too. I’m hoping there will be
people who play to find all eight endings
and find all the different pieces. You get
to spend a lot of time with the characters
in lots of different movies. In fact, you get
eight different movies in one!” Well that’s a
bargain if we’ve ever heard one!The Complex will be released worldwide
through PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo
Switch on 31 March 2020.There’s been a terrorist
attack on London...