Survey closed.
18 responses out of roughly 45+ email requests. Click on the link for final report in PDF: 3604QCA AR2 Survey Response Report_NVs930101
Still, I have a much clearer idea of what users prefer to see in ways of interactivity. While some were confused by the fact they were watching someone interacting, rather than interacting themselves, my verbal feedback along with the qualitative responses in the survey leaned only just towards preferences to interactive rather passive viewing, but surprising to find there was still a considerable number of users that preferred the passive viewing. However, I found it was the amount of interaction that needs to be reviewed, as a few responses did say they found the continuing audio to be rather distracting when they reached the interactive element of the viewing.
Here are a few screen shots of the results from the survey that help support my claims:
During this time, I was utilising some down time by checking out a few apps in the app store on my iPad. Lo and behold, a section actually titled “Choose your own adventure” (CYOA) popped up on my screen, with a number of apps to choose from. One that immediately caught my eye was the Game of Thrones (GoT) app and best of all it was free, so I downloaded it and had a play. Created by Telltale Inc, a games developer who specialises in the CYOA game genre, located in Marin County, CA (near San Francisco), a number of their game apps are extensions from popular games, tv series and movies including Minecraft, The Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, and Back to the Future. It was EXACTLY what I imagined. The story is played out as film, but the visuals are all CG’d, so it definitely retains the game feel about it. You have a choice of being one of the House Forrest members, and by a series of choices choose their destiny in the story/game (I haven’t decided which genre it really sits in yet). You watch for a while, until the dialogue/narrative reaches a point where 4 choices pop up on the screen providing 4 choices to decide the next avenue the story will take. Three of the choices are actions or a response to the current dialogue, the fourth a blank, depicted by “…”, meaning your character will do or say nothing and the story will continue as per the default. I’ve tried a few attempts and have seen a few varied outcomes, but struggle to get past an action scene where my character is getting strangled and I’m not swiping fast enough (as per the highlighted arrows that pop up). 5 times he died by strangulation. I’ll keep trying but at least I know now this narrative still exists and GoT fans can somehow find a little satisfaction in keeping favourites alive (if their reflexes and swiping skills meet the app’s speed).
While googling, I also found countless other CYOA style apps already in existence, a few featured and rated in an article on the Tom’s Guide site in July this year. it’s still a ‘thing’, now more than ever it seems, and looks to be another growing part of the industry.
Reference (all Practitioners):
iTunes. 2016. “Game of Thrones – A Telltale Games Series on the App Store.”Accessed 30 August 2016. https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/game-thrones-telltale-games/id906862658?mt=8.
Tom’s guide. 2016. “10 Best Gamebook Apps for Android and iOS.” Accessed 5 September 2016. http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-gamebook-apps,review-2419.html.
Telltale. 2016. “Home – Telltale.” Accessed 5 September 2016. https://telltale.com/.
Survey conducted using SurveyMonkey:
SurveyMonkey. 2016. “Welcome to SurveyMonkey!.” Accessed 4 May 2016. https://www.surveymonkey.com/.