Can you imagine controlling the direction of an audio story by voice? What about by movement?

(Giphy, 2019)

This is a reality for Earplay, a revolutionary interactive narrative company (Earplay, n.d., para 1.). Earplay specialises in writing and developing interactive audio story games for their iOS and Android applications (apps); these interactive narratives serve both educational and entertainment purposes (Green & Jenkins, 2014, p. 280) and have effectively bulldozed the boundaries of traditional narratives. In Earplay narratives, you are a character in the story and by utilising the microphone built into your device, you direct the narrative through verbal responses to simple questions; this interactivity through digital affordances is expanding our understanding of what narratives are (Unsworth, 2008, p. 71).

When opening the app for the first time, the stories appear on the home screen with a thumbnail badge above their associated title. The home screen or ‘library’ is simple, clutter-free and easy to navigate. The symbol for Bose AR (augmented reality) is in the top left-hand corner. This button directs you to a new page where you can connect and calibrate your Bose AR-enabled device. It is important to note that Bose AR was discontinued in June 2020, however, as Earplay became a registered ‘Enhanced with Bose AR’ app before this, the feature continues (for the present) to work.

The iOS app features ten free stories; this review will focus on the iOS app using the interactive story You and the Beanstalk. To play, the user selects a story by clicking on the thumbnail picture or title. The app prompts the user, indicating that speech recognition may be slower in noisy environments. The story begins with an explanatory tutorial that introduces you to the concept of responding to prompts at each juncture and verbally choosing the direction of the story.

Functionality & interactivity ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

On-screen, the iOS app continues with its clutter-free design. A stop button replaces the Bose AR symbol in the top left-hand corner, whilst the thumbnail badge and title of the story dominate the centre of the screen. Across the bottom of the screen are three buttons, back, play/pause and next.

As the story plays the narrator outlines a juncture in the story, prompting you to decide the direction. At this point a black screen appears with the possible choices along with repeat, stop, resume and start over. These selections can be made verbally or by clicking on the word. If the voice recognition does not register a response, the prompt is repeated. The stories, being directed orally, support vision-impaired users. While the stories are not currently appropriate for, they do support pre-reading age children.

Immersion: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The stories are incredibly immersive through their design. They combine the voice recordings of several voice actors alongside multiple layers of sound elements and relevant music to add to the digital narrative. When combined with noise-cancelling headphones and closed eyes, or in a distraction-free environment, it becomes fully immersive and consuming, allowing the user to develop a picture in their head. The app, while immersive and content-rich, does have limitations.

Limitations: 😟😟

Listening to a traditional audiobook is a passive act (Geronazzo et al., 2019, p. 1) which provides a linear experience. Earplay has done well to produce something more in line with twenty-first-century education; interactive stories require the user to be an active participant in the story, not passive consumers (Lisenbee et al., 2020, p. 3). Yet it falls short of being considered an educational app. The limited stories available and lack of dictionary integration for users to search definitions affects the app’s usability in a twenty-first-century classroom.

The functionality of the back button is limited and not as user-friendly as it could be. When listening to a story, the back button allows the user to replay from the last juncture, however, after being prompted to choose a direction for the story, the back button will only replay the decision prompt for the current juncture. For example, when prompted with, “Will you climb the stalk fast or slow?”, pressing the back button only repeats this prompt. This can be particularly difficult to interact with if you have not been paying attention to the story, been distracted by the ‘real world’, or are resuming an incomplete story after several days.

Longevity: ⭐️⭐️

An exciting function of the app is the Bose AR-enhanced story, Head Games. The app tracks head movement through the inbuilt accelerometer in Bose AR devices. The story prompts the user to move their head (shake, nod, tilt, turn, etc.) at story junctures, thus progressing the story through movement. Yet, as Bose AR was discontinued in 2020 and Bose AR apps are difficult to find, it’s safe to say this function will not stand the test of time.

The app provides an interesting and viable alternative to the passive media of podcasts, radio, iOS games and audiobooks. Its interactivity is appealing and engaging; however, the iOS app has not received any updates since June 2019. As only ten stories have been developed, it seems that Earplay has already begun its slide into the obscurity of 2019 fads.

References:

Earplay. (n.d.). About Earplay. https://www.earplay.com/about/

Geronazzo, M., Rosenkvist, A., Eriksen, D. S., Markmann-Hansen, C. K., Køhlert, J., Valimaa, M., Vittrup, M. B., & Serafin, S. (2019). Creating an Audio Story with Interactive Binaural Rendering in Virtual Reality. Wireless communications and mobile computing, 2019, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/1463204

Giphy. (2019). Season 10 seriously GIF [Photograph]. Giphy. https://giphy.com/gifs/Friends-friends-episode-6-tv-VzvwjPT555R0mseZSH?utm_source=iframe&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=Embeds&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fthinkspace.csu.edu.au%2F

Green, M. C., & Jenkins, K. M. (2014). Interactive Narratives: Processes and Outcomes in User-Directed Stories: Interactive Narratives. Journal of communication, 64(3), 479-500. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12093

Lisenbee, P. S., Pilgrim, J., & Vasinda, S. (2020). Integrating technology in literacy instruction: models and frameworks for all learners. Routledge.

Unsworth, L. (2008). Multiliteracies, E-literature and English Teaching. Language and education, 22(1), 62-75. https://doi.org/10.2167/le726.0