Creating Interactive stories

Creating Interactive Multimedia Stories Using WIX

Project Description:

Create a non-linear visual interactive multimedia story for the web using WIX. The interactive story can be autobiographical, fantasy, realistic, a mystery, humorous, or dramatic.

The work will be developed, produced and submitted in 2 parts:

Part 1 is a project proposal and includes the development and pre-production of all story materials.
Part 2 is the final produced website.

Story Format:

There are different nonlinear and creative formats the story can take. For example it could be a:

Net-art diary with daily decisions that branch off to form different outcomes
Concurrent narratives (more than one story taking place on the same screen)
Interactive comic book / graphic novel
Choose your own adventure-type story

Links to Wikipedia descriptions Choose your own adventure, Interactive storytelling)

Audience:

Consider your audience. Is this a story for children 6 to 12? Horror fans? Who would be interested in this story? As you develop the material ask yourself if the text, images, sounds, video and story appropriate for this group?

Point of View:

Who's point of view will the story be told from? What is the user's relationship to the other character(s) in the narrative? Is the user one of the secondary characters in the story, the main character or an innocent bystander? What sort of choices does the user have throughout the story?

Possible choices a user may have - They might:

Change the setting, time of day, year it takes place (contemporary or ancient), etc.
Change the point of view (navigate to see each person's point of view at any point in the story)
Make a decision to do one thing or another, then progress to another page
Discover more about each of the characters or objects by rolling over them or clicking them (their background information, motives, critical flaws, thoughts, etc)

Project Technical Requirements:

Your final published work must have 15-20 pages. These pages should be linked to each other according to the navigational flow of a non-linear narrative.
You must have multiple clickable choices (at least 2, preferably more) or rollover options on all pages.
All links must be fully functional and bug-free. When the user clicks they will be taken to a new page or something will change on the page.
All pages must be illustrated using photography, drawings, animated GIF's or other means
Incorporating video is encouraged but not necessary – but adding a sound element is required.

Project Artistic Requirements:

The pages must have a well-designed interactive interface - not just story images and text on the page with "next" and "back" buttons.
Be careful about alignment, balance and overall composition of the pages. I suggest that your pages be laid out using a creative grid as opposed to randomly positioned elements.
The pages should reflect a thoughtful choice in use of typography and text. Use a font that matches the feeling of the story.
You should be consistent in the use your chosen font style and font face.
There should be NO spelling errors.
Creative use of font size and color.
Good use of the art and design elements and principles.
Good use of color combinations.
Effective use of texture, shape, line, etc.
Think about symmetry/asymmetry, unity, closure, rhythm, repetition, etc.
Professional drawing or image quality.
Unless the story falls under the terms of the fair use doctrine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use no copyright images will be allowed.
Be consistent in the graphic quality of the images (no jaggies).

Publishing for critique:

Your completed multimedia story should be accessible from our class website. To do this, make sure there is a link between your personal website and your story.

Resources:

Blank WIX website templates

http://www.wix.com/website/templates/html/blank/1

Here’s a brief selection of final Interactive multimedia websites from my web-art students:

Tom Hellmuth’s playful exploration of the brain and its functions (Tom is a is a psychology major) http://thellmuth.wixsite.com/thebrain

Graeme Burke ‘s evocative survey of Jean-Paul Sartre’s 7 central theories of Existentialism.

http://gburke6.wixsite.com/sartre

Connor Surro’s challenging game of escape! Can you fin tout way out? http://csurro.wixsite.com/portfolio/interactive-story

Lucas Schneiderhan takes us along on a selection of travel destinations in New England – and beyond. http://lschneiderha.wixsite.com/discovernewengland

Brendan Couglin’s tense and exhilarating GIF enhanced hypertext thriller! http://b1coughlin.wixsite.com/isolatedterror

Ethan Depaul’s Runeterra is an interactive entrance into an entire other world.

http://edepaula.wixsite.com/runeterra

Will Santiago gives us a lesson on Harley Bikes – and bike culture. http://w1rivera.wixsite.com/ridetolive

More Examples: * = achieves objective

Interactive stories made by students using WIX

*El Maize

http://castillopatinoana.wixsite.com/maiz1

*Chaser

http://alexm19965.wixsite.com/workshoptestsite

HOMOEROTICISM - IN FASHION

http://mathisrivard.wixsite.com/homoeroticismfashion