interactive fiction : The Reprover by François Coulon

[zelda_pinwheel]

The thread about Penguin's first "digi-novel" reminded me of The Reprover, multimedia story extravaganza created by François Coulon. it's not an ebook exactly, nor a video really, more like a sort of "choose your own direction" interactive multi-media graphic novel with the occasional live-action video as well. It's hard to describe so i'll just direct you to totonium.com where you can take a look at screen shots, video interviews, and even more. totonium describes the Reprover thusly :

Behavioural problems? A tendency to put off everything for another day? Gildas Noblet, your registered reprover, is here to help you.

Set at the beginning of the 80s, we follow the adventures of a reprover and his patients in this fiction that combines graphic novel and video.

The Reprover is available in french and english for 12€ (to download). there is also a similar interactive story called "Pause" which was more or less the prototype of The Reprover available for free, but only in french.

even if you don't buy The Reprover, take a look around the site, the video interviews and explanations alone are worth the trip.

i can easily imagine that one day in the near future we'll have liseuses capable of handling such "e-books" ; what do you think ? interested ?

[acidzebra]

The colors! The layout! MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!

*ahem*

The whole "digi-novel" hullabaloo reminded me of 217 Babel Street somewhat, a collaboration of Susanna Jones, Alison MacLeod, Jeff Noon, and William Shaw. It's kind of interesting but not quite there yet.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

The colors! The layout! MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!

*ahem*

The whole "digi-novel" hullabaloo reminded me of 217 Babel Street somewhat, a collaboration of Susanna Jones, Alison MacLeod, Jeff Noon, and William Shaw. It's kind of interesting but not quite there yet.

the art in the reprover is much prettier than the site, i reassure you.
see here for instance : http://www.totonium.com/thereprover/gallery.php?lang=1

i'll take a look at 217 babel street. i do highly recomment the various videos etc. on totonium, for their very high entertainment value, even if you're not interested in buying the thing.

[FlorenceArt]

Thanks for the links, both look interesting, I'll follow up later.

I wonder if any of the francophones here remember the defunct site anacoluthe? I really missed it when it disappeared. It had very short stories, almost poems, that were beautifully presented, and also an interactive novel that I later bought in secure pdf format and never finished

The short stories were better suited to the Web in my opinion. I have difficulties following longer texts on the web. That's why I never finished the novel, and also I got lost in the maze of links. I enjoyed it though

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Thanks for the links, both look interesting, I'll follow up later.

please let me know what you think.

I wonder if any of the francophones here remember the defunct site anacoluthe? I really missed it when it disappeared. It had very short stories, almost poems, that were beautifully presented, and also an interactive novel that I later bought in secure pdf format and never finished

i missed that, alas. have you tried the wayback machine to find it again ? it looks like they have quite a lot of archives for it.

The short stories were better suited to the Web in my opinion. I have difficulties following longer texts on the web. That's why I never finished the novel, and also I got lost in the maze of links. I enjoyed it though

now that you have a liseuse, you could download the stories and read them on that instead. more comfortable. i can't read a novel online either, although a short story is usually okay.