Reports have confirmed that Google is currently in the process of trying to patent "a method of providing an interactive game based on a digital video" using its popular video portals like Google Video and YouTube.

Filed in February, the patent was released to the public this week and has managed to reveal Google's attempt to build games in addition to digital videos with the help of an "interactive annotation system".

The application for a "Web-Based System For Generation Of Interactive Games Based On Digital Videos" suggests that engineers working with Google have been trying out new collaborative tools with the aim to expand the "collaborative tools of video-sharing services like YouTube".

With the new gaming system, select users, like the creator, a small group of like-minded collaborators or even the internet at large, will be allowed to link videos together and tweak them with interactive annotations, each video that is, which will in turn allow the creation of "interactive video experiences". Some examples of the kind of platform that would thus be created are Dragon's Lair or Mad Dog McCree.

"A video may have associated with it one or more annotations, which modify the appearance and/or behavior of a video as it was originally submitted to an online video hosting site", the description explains.