1st Edition
Storytelling for Spatial Computing and Mixed Reality The Art of Augmenting Imagination
This is a clear, accessible manual of storytelling techniques and learning activities for spatial computing and mixed reality. It covers the key skills that the next generation of digital storytellers will need, providing readers with practical tools for creating digital stories and adventures out in the real world.
Drawing on more than a decade of experience, veteran immersive storyteller Rob Morgan provides strategies and techniques for augmenting players and places with digital narrative. Through a range of learning activities, readers will try out key ideas through their own storytelling, building their own portfolio of augmented/spatial narrative designs.
Storytelling for Spatial Computing and Mixed Reality provides insight on everything from narrative pacing to conditional and emergent storytelling for augmented/spatial technology. Each chapter addresses key questions about the affordances - and ethics - of augmenting players' realities, helping students and practitioners explore this new storytelling frontier.
This book will be invaluable to students of game design, experience design and interactive narrative. It provides theories, best-practices and case-studies also relevant to creative professionals in games, XR, immersive theatre, theme parks and brand experience.
Preface: Play along
INTRODUCTION
Section 1: LEARNING FROM VR
1.0 - Getting Started
1.1 - SEEING in VR
1.2 - BEING in VR
1.3 - BEING SEEN in VR
1.4 - JUXTAPOSITIONS: Virtual Realities vs. Augmented/Spatial Realities
Section 2: AUGMENTING PLAYERS
2.0 - Getting Started
2.1 - IMAGINING
2.1.1: Plausibility
2.1.2: Desirability
2.1.3: Faits accomplis
2.2 - IDENTITY
2.2.1: Discovering IDENTITY: Anagnorisis
2.2.2: Asserting IDENTITY: Mise-en-self
2.2.3: Blending IDENTITIES & building complicity
SECTION 3: AUGMENTING PLACES
3.0 - Getting Started
3.0.1 - Location-agnostic experiences
3.0.2 - Location-specific experiences
3.0.3 - Generic places
3.0.4 - Location-portable design
3.0.5 - Roomscale/At-home
3.0.6 - Table-scale
3.1 - STAGING
3.1.1 - General augmented STAGING
- Layout
- Pacing
- Boundaries
3.1.2 - Location-specific STAGING
- Layout
- Pacing
- Boundaries
3.2 - BEING THERE
3.3 - OCCUPYING SPACE
Section 4: DIVERGENT REALITIES
Biography
Rob Morgan is a writer, experience designer, digital dramaturg, and founder and Creative Director of London-based AR design studio Playlines. Rob writes and narrative-designs award-winning VR, AR and spatial computing narratives, and has helped create story worlds and immersive experiences for some of the world's largest licences, attractions and cultural institutions. He is a pioneer of AR theatre, and has collaborated on some of the most acclaimed games in VR and interactive narrative. He is a Visiting Fellow at King's College London and lectures widely on immersive design, storytelling and ethics.
A crucial exploration of how augmented reality can redefine storytelling through the blending the digital with the physical. The book is an essential guide for understanding AR and for navigating and shaping the future of immersive experiences.
Leighton Evans, Associate Professor in Media Theory, Swansea University
A vision for storytelling in the coming age of spatial computing. Offering a mix of practical guidance and speculative theory, Morgan equips readers for the narrative possibilities ahead. A primer and a gateway to next-gen storytelling in virtual worlds of all kinds.
Jay Springett - Researcher & Worldrunner
