Where are you, interactive books?
Once upon a time… there was a dad… and his son… and a story, which dad wanted to tell. It was the fairy tail, which he knew from his own childhood. But he decided to do it in unusual way and asked us to help. So we made illustrations and videos, but most remarkable thing what we did was a possibility to make a moral choice, which can change the plot of the story.
From this one story we got 8 storylines and 2 outcomes! Project didn’t started but at that very moment we touched the idea of interactive storytelling.
Touchscreen revolution resulted in demand of electronic interactive books. Animation, interactivity and other possibilities of touch devices were used. Books moved into the tablets and interactivity becames a part of it.
And if for children’s literature it was good and acceptable, for adult audience such experiments seemed to be something weird.
Why?
Interactive illustration take attention of reader so it can destroy rhythm, composition and atmosphere of book. What kind of author (or reader) would like it? Because of it, almost everyone who tried to work with interactive storytelling are choosing to create stories for the kids and comics where such a thing as atmosphere is not so important, unlike illustrations, video and other interactive stuff.
We had the idea to build a studio and to create interactive books and comics.
We wanted to find optimal solution where interactivity, animation and literature won’t be in a conflict. Solution that we found for the books was a product for tablets, with complex illustrations, limited animation and interactivity, for comics it was animation, sound, interactivity, branching storyline, possibility to vote for the continuation of the story. All placed on the internet portal with community where users decide the fate of every story. And make their own branches and variations.
It might become a big and expensive production: authors which write new stories (only new stories because there are so many interpretations of Cinderella and Alice), illustrators and animators which would create new worlds, modern web-developers… All of this required huge resources but the result wasn’t viable for the market.
Our first research helped us to understand that reader pay more attention on the story and possibility to touch moved illustrations unlike quality of illustration, technique and animation. There were many simple, cheap books at the market so we couldn’t to compete with them. If client don’t see the difference, he won’t pay more.
Now we can see that not only small studio without initial capital can’t become successful, even big companies like NARR8 with excellent team and investments couldn’t do it. It turned out to be difficult to achieve. We realized it without loss of money and years of work. Why is it happening? Maybe wrong approach? Combination of book and technology is a wrong way?
The idea to put the book into the digital world is still there. Examples of good interpretation of children’s book are keep appearing on the app stores. Sole developers can do it, because they don’t afraid to experiment with the story. Like, Markian Moyes, author and coder of Loose Strands, from Darned Sock Productions. But where is the industry?
