Hail The Villain Show How A True Interactive Website Has To Look Like

TThe Canadian band Hail The Villain have unleashed what they call “the most creative and technologically advanced website ever built for a band.” Big statement without a doubt, but how justified? Let’s have a look at hailthevillain.com.

Designed and built by RUNE Entertainment and GRAND Creative Studios, the website opens with the story of family man and steel factory worker Drake Carter ending his affair with seductive co-worker Thea Landa. This sparks a chain of events that leads to Drake’s murder at the hands of his former lover and secret Villain as she moves to claim his soul.

Hail The Villain website

Freezing time in that savage moment, the website allows you to navigate through the scene to unlock character back-stories, clues, downloads, to participate in the story by becoming “Villain-ized” and to share messages with the band.

According to the press release, the concept for the website grew out of a series of sketches the band had created as a rough draft for a comic book inspired by the sounds of their new album, Population: Declining which will be released via Roadrunner Records on June 8, 2010.

HailTheVillain.com includes a series of illustrated environments to explore, with clues and hints, character bios and Easter eggs hidden here and there. Numbers scrawled in matchbooks unlock audio content when punched into a phone booth, while a map hidden in the glove compartment foreshadows a darker plot twist that will be revealed in one of the upcoming comics.

You are also invited to activate your webcam at the beginning to “uncover various opportunities to upload and modify pictures of yourselves,” (FYS look pretty modest with their simple flash app) record and share videos with the band and other users.

I haven’t had a chance to test the game with a webcam, but the experience was impressing enough even without it – now I just can’t call this game a website anymore. Great job.

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