Page 139 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

Coliloquy, the idea was to work with the authors to develop the interactivity of the stories and en- courage customised reading without undermin- ing the author’s authority. In other words, they did not want technology to be an excuse for erasing the author’s identity. It was hoped that, with the collaboration of the readers and their different viewpoints, the author would create stories establishing real communication between author and reader. Unfortunately, the project was taken over and it has not been possible to carry on enjoying this innovative attempt at interactive storytelling.
The videogame manufacturer Joe Stand (Micro- soft, Ubisoft) started up an interactive project for children’s and teens’ literature by means of crowdfunding through the Kickstarter platform.83 In this case, more than to secure funding, the aim was to gain feedback and learn about the environment for which it was intended and at least create a prototype (unquestionably a very interesting approach). Even so, in the first four days they secured 168 sponsors for the project.
The result was called Vidya Books, and it was based both on classic adventure books and on the most modern action games. The combination gave rise to books with which readers could interact while reading a story. They could also interact with the words of the text and use their mobile and tactile devices to play while they read.
In this case the advantage was that the book adapted to different reading levels depending on the ages. This feature was taken from videogame design, in which there is no need to purchase different levels of the same game because the game itself incorporates various levels. Each
level to which the reader progresses leads to a different version of the story, a story that has un- dergone an editing process that is also different. They are interactive stories that are built top down instead of being linear.
One of the earliest examples of interactive storytelling to have materialised is Chopsticks84
by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo del Corral, a novel for teenagers published in 2012 by Penguin USA on paper and as an app. Readers must piece together the story of the main character – a 17-year-old pianist who has gone missing from the psychiatric hospital in which her father interned her – from a large amount of multime- dia materials including photos, letters and other documents, videos and text messages.
Another example of this type of storytelling, which has been widely discussed on account of its interest and quality, is Device6,85 a novel for playing, or a game which is actually an interac- tive mystery novel, designed by the videogame developers Simogo. This game-novel or nov- el-game uses the various iPad functions to allow readers and players to develop the story through movements such as turning or moving the device or zooming into the text to find clues or secret messages concealed in the static, linear text.
Figure 15. Screenshot of the app Device6. Source: http://simogo.com/work/device-6/
Through a 3D map, the story basically unfolds through texts and images accompanied by a soundtrack – with a 1960s James Bond-type style and presentation – that adds suspense to the plot (indeed, before you begin the application warns you that sound and music are essential to be able to follow the game and the reading).
In fact, it also resembles the classic “choose
your own adventure” model, as the discoveries made and clues followed during reading and the action, as well as the various decisions made accordingly, lead to different outcomes: the main
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Readers in the digital age