Bookwander

Bookwander is a VR experience focused on exploring, designing and implementing four different approaches for reading written fiction in VR. These approaches contain passages from the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne.

This VR experience was a product of my master's thesis practical part, and became a basis for my PhD topic. The research and prototype were described and published as a conference article in ICIDS 2023 Conference Proceedings - Interactive Storytelling.

Approach (1): Power of the Text

The first approach uses the technique of kinetic typography to enhance the text representation. The story is presented in lines that are displayed in front of the reader. Based on the events in the story, some of the lines are aptly animated. The reader is located in an abstract environment accompanied by ambient music.

Approach (2): Selective Imagery

The second approach uses a panel with scrollable paragraphs for the text representation. The panel with paragraphs floats in an abstract environment in front of the reader. Some paragraphs are paired with illustrations, which the reader can manually display. The colour palette of the environment changes automatically when the reader passes some specific paragraphs.

Approach (3): Scenic Reading

The third approach aims to create the highest level of visual absorption across all approaches in this prototype. The environment is designed based on the events in the story. The challenge was to create visuals that give the reader the most plausible feeling of presence, but they should not restrict the subjective imagination of the reader. In this approach the readers interact only with the text.

Approach (4): Interactive Reading

The fourth approach combines reading and digital games. The main concept is to read while solving an easy puzzle game, in which the readers can complete a scene on a table by placing objects there. These objects are paired with some of the paragraphs; this puzzle aims to make the reader think about the paragraph and associate the described situation with one of the available objects. If the paragraph and object are connected, and the object is placed on the table, they become highlighted by the same colour. The reader can then teleport into the created scene on the table and continue in the story. The reader can interact with the placed objects to display the paragraph they were connected to, which allows the reader to remind themselves of the previous events.