Introducing two projects funded through our Strategic XR call

We’re excited to be able to share the details of two projects which received significant funding as part of our Strategic XR call.

The first of these projects is the new interactive podcast series, Box in the Attic, which is aimed at the next generation of narrative podcast consumers. The team at Storypunk will be working with University of York academics and Bellyfeel Media to develop the series. At the core of Box in the Attic is a simple premise, that the story of someone’s life can be spun from memories of objects kept in a real memory box, or – in this instance – a virtual ‘box in the attic’.

The Box in the Attic podcast will begin with one person’s story, which can be experienced in traditional serial podcast form, but listeners will also be able to access the story interactively, via an app. The story will be connected to a series of digitised, in-app objects that can be found in ‘a box in the attic’. These could include photos, writings, memorabilia such as childhood toys, clothes, books, videos and audio recordings. The artefacts will represent the things that create memories and that allow us to piece the person’s life together.

We’re also supporting Live by the Sword: Tactics. Live by the Sword is a video game which utilises artificial intelligence. The game is being developed by the team at Labrador Studios, and will be informed by research from academics at the University of York.

The XR Stories funding for this project will be used to explore the deployment of a Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) agent. DDA is a process by which a game presents a constant level of challenge to the player regardless of their individual skill level, which ensures that a game is at the right level of difficulty for each individual player.

Live by the Sword and Box in the Attic are both undertaking fresh and exciting new work as a result of receiving funding from XR Stories. We will bring you more updates as the projects progress so check back soon for more information.

Published on 13 August 2020