New interactive reading app Crowded Fiction hopes to bridge the gap between reading and gaming, to get kids more excited and motivated to get into reading. The app was designed by dyslexic video game maker Joe Booth, who utilized both his expertise making games like FIFA and Need for Speed, as well as his personal experiences, to make an app that will engage children aged 9 and above towards reading as much as they are about gaming.
I know some of you may still be eyeing this with some skepticism, but in a sense, these cross media experiments are nothing new. Choose Your Own Adventure and many similar books took the idea of branching paths from text adventure games and brought them to print. Board games begat video games begat board games. On another end, children’s books have also struggled with different levels of interactivity, from coloring books, pop-ups, and button sound books. In a sense, this is some pioneering work on what is possible with a new form, which in this case is smartphones and tablets.
Developer Joe Booth thought about his struggles learning to read and write as a child, and seeing his own son relive some of these struggles, he asked himself, what if ebooks and fiction were more like video games? Crowded Fiction is his answer to the question.
In Crowded Fiction’s 1st interactive ebook, Jackson’s Choice, co-written with multipublished author Queenie Moffat (a pseudonym), the player gets agency in several ways. They can punch with a swipe of the screen, or steer their vehicle in a car chase. Furthermore, each chapter sees them facing a dilemma head-on and forcing them to make a choice.
Interested in checking out Jackson’s Choice for your kid, or maybe for yourself? Download the Crowded Fiction app for free to read a sample and buy this and other upcoming ebooks. Crowded Fiction is now available on the App Store.
