PATHS
A transmedia storytelling design project.
In developing this project I created a simple story setting, in which our world and the world of fairytales are being merged together. I used this as a foundation to develop content over multiple media outlets using a transmedia approach. In transmedia, each platform should be delivering unique story content. With this in mind I explored design’s role in telling each story in the most effective way possible, making a point to utilize the benefits of each platform to deliver the content.
The final output included a video game, a board game, and a magazine, as well as two supplemental generative pieces.
THE PATH OF NEEDLES
The Path of Needles is a puzzle game built in Unity and designed for the iPad. It tells the story of how our world and the worlds of fairy tales became mixed together, casting the player in the role of a fairy god-person sent to help make Red Riding Hood’s journey to her grandmother’s house a bit safer.
THE PATH OF PINS
The Path of Pins is a board game component made for this project. The game is played cooperatively with two to four players in an ever-changing, ever-expanding map of a city being mixed up with the world of fairy tales. Players attempt to mitigate the problems that appear during the chaos before time runs out.
THE PATH OF VIRTUE
The Path of Virtue is an in-fiction artifact set in the world of The Paths project. I designed it as a lifestyle magazine crossbred with a hardcover fairy tale book. The articles inside provide depth to the story world and its inhabitants.
GENERATIVE TYPEFACE
The project also includes a generative typeface based on blackletter forms. Each letter is built in p5js out of several smaller shapes that can be altered individually. In the final version, each cube shape rotates, mimicking the "world swapping" rotation of the cube in the Path of Needles video game. This results in the letters and words becoming obfuscated and illegible until they reach their correct orientations.
GENERATIVE MAP
The generative map was made using P5JS. As time passes the world rearranges, mixing buildings from our world up with fairytale buildings. The illustrations used for this were carried over into the board game as well as the magazine to create a continuity between projects.
EXHIBITION
The project was exhibited at MICA in the Spring semester of 2017.
Thank You!
This project was developed with the guidance of Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips, Jason Gottlieb, Lindsay Ballant, Kiel Mutschelknaus, Dae In Chung, Abe Burickson and Isaac Gertman as part of the GDMFA thesis at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Special thanks to Andrew McKenna and Dana Beasley for their help in writing and editing the insane amount of content for this project.
