Five transmedia projects to follow - spring 2012

I’ll be heading to the frenzy that is MIPTV (and MIPCube and MIPFormats) in a couple of days, so whatever reports there will be will probably be centered around those events. MIPCube in particular is looking tasty, with some people present there who are doing some really interesting stuff. If you feel like it, you are more than welcome to keep your fingers crossed on Saturday – I’m up against four others in the final of the MIPFormats Pitch Competition with our cross media game show ”Which One Out”.

In the meanwhile I thought I’d write a brief post to highlight five transmedia projects that I believe might rock 2012 quite splendidly, in slightly different ways. I will admit I’m into some of these because I’m invested in one way or another, but on the other hand I would not invest unless I saw something interesting in them. In no particular order, and without snubbing any other projects out there that I’m either ignorant of or have simply forgotten due to mushy-brain-syndrome; here are five projects you might do well to put in your bookmarks:

Clockwork Watch is a steampunk adventure crossing over two graphic novels, interactive promenade theatre, live action role-play, online adventures, an interactive book and a feature film, all over the course of three years. The first novel – “The Arrival” – is out any minute now and looking good. Yomi and the Clockwork crew are doing an impressive and dedicated job of bringing this to life, steaming and billowing. Definitely one to keep an eye on – participate in the live event in London in May if you get the chance!  And yes, for full disclosure, I backed this on IndieGoGo.

The Karada is a project by some really creative people, James Martin, Tom Liljeholm and Carrie Cuthforth-Young, amongst others. ” A young woman struggles to save the multiverse as realities collapse around her.” as the tagline reads.

I really like the tone of the project, and spanning over televison and graphic novels and live interaction, it promises to be great fun. Development phase one was reportedly wrapped up just some days ago, and it all looks pretty fab. Keep an eye out for this one!

Balance of Powers is a project I backed on Kickstarter the second I laid eyes on it. The people behind it virtually guarantee it must be something good, as Andrea Phillips, Adrian Hon, David Varela and Naomi Alderman are all involved and have been for some time. An alternate history tale set in the Cold War, Balance of Powers will be a free-to-read online episodic story with lots of special content for subscribers, where you receive letters from the characters, take part in live story events online, and even get newspapers from the world through the post! Looking forward to seeing this one run!

Miracle Mile Paradox is brought to you, me and everyone else through the Transmedia LA meetup group and April Arrglington. An ARG, playable live IRL and online later this year. Help the hero, Rex, to solve a paradox and save the world from evildoers. Pretty straightforward, pretty interesting… but that which struck me was a sentence on the first page: ”…we are doing this in hopes to be educational for the local and global Transmedia community. We plan to document the progress of the project in our main site and have the free game up and running and available to all this summer.”

Yup, it’s only by doing you learn, and if there is one sphere that could use more teaching material, it’s transmedia.

We Dream Of Nothing – full disclosure; I’m consulting on this project – comes at it from a slightly other angle. As Paul Burke, the main creator behind the project, writes: ”We Dream of Nothing is an original, science fiction fantasy story that connects two characters at opposite ends of the universe. The story is hidden inside the female lead’s dream research website. From there the Audience can explore the story through 28 episodes – combinations of video, comics, audio, collaboration, data swapping, and, well… all sorts of other fun things to see and do.”

I can tell you, it’s shaping up to  be pretty darn interesting, and well worth to keep informed about.

There are, of course, a lot of other projects as well.  For instance; from the humongous and commercial side, I’m very curious on what the teams behind Game of Thrones, Hunger Games and Prometheus might cook up for us, while I am quite convinced there will be a number of other transmedia projects I've never heard about that will blow me off my feet.


A honorable mention too, to Andrea Phillips' project Felicity, something that was an abandoned 20.000 word novel but now is re-emerging as a transmedia project. Generously enough, Andrea has decided to share development process and decisions in a series of blog posts. For me as a developer, this is simply great. Thanks!

To sum it all up, there are plenty of things to look ahead to and get excited about. And the more successful transmedia there is, the easier everyone else has when it comes to getting new transmedia projects commissioned. Here's to creating more and better!