Alice for the iPad

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by scottjl

actually i wouldn't mind some "adult" books that had interactive content. imagine reading a "who-dunn-it" mystery and being able to look at the scene of the crime, look around the room, size up the suspects. let you draw your own conclusions before the author finishes the story and see how well your detective skills measure up.

You've just described a graphic adventure game with mystery them.

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by scottjl
actually i wouldn't mind some "adult" books that had interactive content. imagine reading a "who-dunn-it" mystery and being able to look at the scene of the crime, look around the room, size up the suspects. let you draw your own conclusions before the author finishes the story and see how well your detective skills measure up.

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

You've just described a graphic adventure game with mystery them.

Exactly.

I've been playing interactive games on computers for over 20 years. They started as text only adventures that accepted a very limited number of inputs from the keyboard. Now they're massive multi-media experiences that may take years to make and can have similar budgets to big movies.

Something like Bioware's 'Dragon Age' doesn't just have enough on-screen text for a book but enough for many books, all unfolding a little differently depending on the choices the player makes. It also has massive amounts of audio and moving graphics.

Sure, some computer games are crap - just like many books are - but the good ones are well worth playing. They're limited only by the talent of the creative team and the demands of the market.

There's no reason why any particular type of book needs to go that way (and many won't) but the opportunity is there and some are already taking it.

As Terisa de morgan says, it's not a vague possibility for the future, it's been with us for years already.

Alice in Wonderland has already been done, and will be done again. Here's a glimpse of one that's a decade old now:

Alice