Common Tales (1999-2000) was a joint research project between the Digital Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), and the National Film and Television School (NFTS). The overall goal of the project was to combine cinematic storytelling with Playstation console-games technology - not to create a new game, but to test visual and narrative elements from cinema and television in the context of the Sony Playstation.
The visualization of the interactive events was a second focus for the project. It investigated various camera techniques and their in games and a number of pre-programmed conditional camera behaviours were tested.
Common Tales was based on the SCEE game environment created for the commercial Playstation game MediEvil 2. It delivered a prototype running on the Playstation development kit that was presented to representatives from Sony, NFTS, and the Digital Studios. Findings are covered in some publications. The project was conducted at the SCEE Cambridge Studios.
