ivy4evr On The Literary Platform, Tony White (of Piece of Paper Press, which I covered here a couple of weeks ago) writes about an interactive storytelling project he has been working on with renowned artists Blast Theory. The project, Ivy4Evr, is aimed at drawing teens into the drama via messaging on their cell phones.

White writes that over the course of planning the project, it was necessary to “forget about apps and ebooks for a while”, because they made a number of interesting discoveries. Most notably, most young people don’t have smartphones—but the phones they do have are almost always switched on.

Learning from this enabled us to push past current preoccupations with apps and ebooks for this age-group in favour of the familiar and more ubiquitous medium of text messaging. The really exciting thing about Ivy4Evr has come from combining SMS with some amazing new technology so that my script, with its endless permutations and possible pathways, is at the heart of a new kind of interactive and personalised storytelling; one that is created not just by what I have written but also by how participants respond. As it says in the blurb: For a week Ivy will tell you **everything** but can she trust you and what will you tell her?

I must admit I’m curious to know how this is going to be anything other than a bite-sized “choose your own adventure” scenario. How is it going to play out in practice?  (I’d be tempted to register if it weren’t restricted to UK citizens only.) Will it lead to other, similar projects?

It will be interesting to learn how it goes.

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