Raghava KK: Shake up your story

LINK

In this Ted talk Artist Raghava KK shows his new children's book for iPad with a fun feature: when you shake it, the story (and your perspective) changes.
His reason to do so, is because he feels that people and kids have propaganda all around them, but especially in books. Raghava got the brilliant idea to make a history book that you can read from one perspective (for instance the Brittisch), but when you shake it, the perspective changes to an Indian perspective or an American perspective. That way people get aware that the 'facts' they read might just be propaganda and that they should have an open mind to other perspectives.



I really like the idea of using different perspectives. It makes the story interactive, but you will still be following the same story line. Which is a great solution if you want to make an interactive story, but you're stuck to an existing story.
I think the Swan Children of Lir is a great story to use different perspectives!

Navigation in an interactive book

So after doing a lot of research, I thought I should put some thoughts on paper, so that I can verbalize what I'm thinking:

As I already told before, I don't want to create an interactive book with an old book format (like Peter Rabbit). It's okay to use analogue books as a theme, but don't simulate it.

I like Hobolobo, where you can scroll through a story, and where actions (like text or animations) are triggered at sudden points.

I love how Ghibly and Level 5 worked together to create a game. It's beautifully made, but to me the gameplay doesn't seem that innovative, it's just another pokemon. But non the less it is a good example of combining story with gameplay.

(Alice in Wonderland) for the Ipad is nice, but to my opinion still too much based on an analogue childrens book. Every page has an interaction and when you're done with it, you flip to the next page. Do these interactions really add something to the story? I don't think so. (It does add something to the book itself though).

The Fantastic Books of mr. Morris Lessmore is good. The story is still devided into 'pages', but every page has an interaction that is based on actions in the story itself.

I think Machinarium is a great example of how an interactive book should be. It's not an interactive book, Machinarium is approached as a game. But there is a story in Machinarium, which is told without words, but still understandable, because you experience the story through the 'interactions' you do.
It is funny to see that the way this game is devided into levels, a story is devided into chapters. I think that chapters are more important than pages for interactive books.
The way you can navigate through this game is a littlebit like Hobolobo, a sidescroller. But instead of scrolling with your mouse, you're walking with your character!


SO what I actually wanted to post is the following:

There are several ways to navigate through a story:
1: Pages.
Every page has an illustration and you can interact with this illustration (Alice in Wonderland).
2: Scrolling.
You can scroll through one big illustration and the illustration reacts on you when you get to sudden points (Hobolobo).
3:
Control a character. You walk around with your character, let him interact with the illustration for instance.
This could be 2D (like Machinarium) or 3D (Hogworld)

I think these are the main ways of navigating through an interactive book, but ofcourse there are a lot of variations between it.



My aim is probably a bit between Hobolobo and Machinarium. 2D, not devided into pages but in chapters, using main character(s) and interactions are based on actions in the story.

Fieldresearch: analogue interactive books

I've been to 'De Slegte', a big book store in The Hague, where they have over 3000 different books, and a lot of second hand books.
I really wanted to choose my target audience this week. So I wanted to get an impression of what age prevers what kind of books. And I wanted to see how the way of playing diverses between age groups.


Piaget stages of cognitive development (Bee and Boyd, 2000)
Sensory-motor period (0–18 months) – the child engages in sensory play and play
that involves moving objects to produce reactions.
Preoperational stage (18 months–6 years) – The child engages in symbolic play.
Rules are not developed (4–7 years) – the child can perceive and imagine.
Period of concrete operations (6–12) – the child engages in more problem solving
play. Play involves classification and rules.
Period of formal operations (12–15) – thought and play become more abstract. Play
becomes more social and refined.

A list of books for children of the age of 11-12
A list of books for children of the age of 7-8
A list of books for older teens
The books in this list give me an indication of the depth of narrative and the seriousness of the story children of that age can handle. It turns out that books for children of the age of 11+ (also teens) are for me the most interesting. But I still want to create a childrens book, so I prefer 11-12. Also because of the stage of piaget (like discribed earlier).




In De Slegte, especially the teenage category got different kind of books suggested, which are way more focused on teenstories. I asked a girl, who turned out to be 14, what book she would like to read. Se wanted to read Kikkers en Tongzoenen (Frogs and French Kisses). When I asked her if she ever read fantasy or old fairytales, she said she read Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling), but not all of them and she still likes to read Mathilda (Roald Dalh) sometimes. Which are stories that are nice to make an interactive story of, but these stories she reads more out of nostalgy, or because the books were already bought and/or suggested by others.



Conclusion:
After some research (reading articles about age and gender) and fieldresearch (going to De Slegte), I've decided I want to make an Interactive Book for boys and girls of the age of 10 to 12. Children of the age of 10 to 12 still play, they like to play with rule-sets, classifications and they like to solve problems. Kids of younger age (6-10) also have these elements, but I want to design a book for a bit older audience, so that narrativity can be more in-depth. I don't want to choose an older target audience (13+), because this audience prefers to play in a more abstract way, play is more social and refined. They are also more interested in stories that are more about children of their own age, experiencing things they are curious about (like drugs, sex, growing up, boy/girl friends, fame, or 'bad' scenarios).

Numberlys

http://numberlys.com/#

A new interactive book made also by Moonbot!
There's a lot of video's on their site, about how they made it!
Very handy!

AND another interactive book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J-4Fj9pvpq8#at=106

Fieldresearch

A list of interesting articles, books and examples of interactive books


Articles about designing an Interactive Book
very good article by the designer of the Interactive Book: Alice in Wonderland
The article itself is not that intesting, but I like how people create their own augmented reality, combining analogue books with the ipad or iphone
An interactive book cover.


Good examples of interactive books
Alice in Wonderland, by Chris Stevens - Demibooks
Digital book, Mike Matas
note: I'm more focused on designing a childrens book, but this is still a good talk about the possibilities of Interaction in books)
The fantastic flying books of mr. Morris Lessmore, Moonbot
note: I love the visuals in this book, it's almost an animation (which is not that strange, since this is made by (ex) Pixar animators.
The wizard of Oz (Ozbook) There are a lot of different interactions in this interactive book, using a lot of the possibilities of the Ipad. These interactions are related to the story. It is a very playful book.
Slice of Bread goes to the Beach This is a very playful interactive book, with all the different interactions. I also like the beginning, where you can see the breadroaster car drive away. This is nicely animated and modeled. I like the combination between 2-d and 3-d. I'm not a good modeller myself, but I don't animate that quickly. But this way of animating is much more do-able than The Fantastic Flying Books of mr. Morris Lessmore.


Other examples of interactive books (both good and bad)
Peter Rabbit What is good about this book is the way they allow children to read along, which makes this book also a learning experience. I like the authentic feel of the book, it's beautifully visualised. But (with some exeptions, like the falling leaves) the interactions that are used can be used in normal pop-out books as well. Ofcourse, this is clearly a designchoice, but I think it's more interesting to explore more possibilities in interaction.


Bad examples of interactive books
20 thinks I learned about browsers and the web, Google
note: this is not an interesting interactive book, this is just a simulation of a book
Changing a story I like the idea of having an interactive story, but in this 'interactive book' changing a subject doesn't have any effect in the rest of the story. And again, no further interesting interactions.
ePub3 make your own interactive book again, just another book simulator. You can make your own book, but it is very limited to ePub3's idea of what an interactive book is.
Ebook Well, at least they don't call this an interactive book. But I would like to test this on my targetaudience, see what they think of this, is this really fun?




Books I want to buy for research
The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution
Celia Pearce

Inspiration
pop up book animation
living canvas
watercolor
another watercolor