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By Shane Richmond, Head of Technology (Editorial)7:30AM BST 18 Sep 2011
Excerpt:
"There have been many attempts to experiment with storytelling on the iPad, from enhanced ebooks to book apps and stories reimagined as games. Last week, London-based developer Ustwo launched Papercut which combines sound, video and text to tell its stories.
In partnership with publisher Shortfire Press, Ustwo has interpreted stories by Richard Beard, Nadifa Mohamed and Laura Dockrill. Further stories are planned as in-app purchases. The app, which costs £3.99, quickly climbed to number one in the charts for the Books section of the App Store.
Matt Mills, co-founder of Ustwo, said: “We initially came up with the Papercut concept in early 2011. The idea was to create a subtle, simple and easy to use reading experience that took full advantage of the iPad's capabilities. Simplicity was key to whole project as we didn't want anything too interactive to detract from the primary purpose of the product, which was to enjoy the selection of stories.”
Beard’s story, ‘James Joyce, EFL Teacher’, is partly read by the author and partly told with snippets of text. It scrolls in a quarter of the screen while a video unfolds across the rest. Swiping through the story with a finger slowly reveals the video, while street noise plays in the background.
“Papercut transforms simple prose into an interactive, multi-sensory reading experience. Written content is presented in short passages and relevant video, animation, image sequences and sound are triggered in relation to the narrative,” Mills says. “It moves away from the text heavy, standard page turn functionality, the reader can simply and elegantly scroll through a truly interactive experience with seamless swipes.”
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