A young woman grows up wanting to be a games designer
Inanimate Alice is an ongoing digital novel, an interactive multimodal fiction, relating the experiences of Alice and her imaginary digital friend, Brad, in episodes, journals, and other digital media.
There have been six consecutive episodes created to date, with episodes 5 and 6 developed by Dreaming Methods' Andy Campbell from scripts by Kate Pullinger, from a planned story arc embracing a total of 10 episodes spanning Alice’s life from age 8 through to her mid-twenties. The viewer experiences a combination of text, sound and imagery and interacts with the story at key points.
In Episode 5: Hometown 2, Alice is 16 years old and has been living in England for almost three years (“a lifetime record”). She spends time hanging out with friends, roaming the city and going to night clubs. One day some unsavoury types are waiting outside school and so she skates across the city to avoid them.
Inanimate Alice has been used as an example of a digital literacy resource and incorporated into literacy and digital curricula, particularly in the United States and Australia. It has also been widely recognised as an early example of transmedia storytelling.
