Inanimate Alice

Inanimate Alice is a great example of transmedia storytelling, and it’s been getting notable attention from new media experts and publishers.

Alice is a 21^st century girl, growing up with aspirations of becoming a computer game designer one day. She has had a lonely, unsettled, childhood travelling the world with her itinerant parents. Homeschooled by her mother in a yurt in Northern China, in the deserts of Arabia and in a Soviet era tenement in Moscow, she goes to school for the first time at the age of 14.

This is Alice’s story, told by her when she is in her mid-twenties looking back over her life and reflecting on the circumstances that brought her to the momentous occasion when her world and ours changed forever. Over a series of 10 increasingly interactive and complex episodes, Alice demonstrates her improving skills in writing, art and design. The words selected, the typefaces, music and imagery changing from episode to episode, are all age appropriate.

Right now, we are at episode 4. Join Alice when she goes to school for the first time. She thrives while her parents’ circumstances are on the wane. Those four episodes provide a unique interactive literary experience. The simulated multi-tasking environment is suggestive of a computer game so be prepared to solve puzzles, play little games and immerse yourself in modern art as you read of Alice’s adventures here at the Inanimate Alice website.

— Ian Harper, Intimate Alice producer

The series is written and directed by novelist Kate Pullinger (The Mistress of Nothing/Simon & Schuster) and digital artist Chris Joseph.

(via Inanimate Alice, DBW)