Contrary to popular belief, we [most likely] will never do ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ type stories at Spellbound. I think about it a lot and my big concern is that most people conflate immersion with interaction. We don’t aim for a highly interactive story, we aim for an immersive story. I am sure I will go into more detail about this in the coming months, especially on the exec channel, but I believe immersion is much more than a sensory experience. True immersion comes about as a result of permanence and influence. It’s a cyclical. In other words the reason why our world feels so real isnt necessarily because of our senses, though those help. It’s is because the impact we make on this world is lasting.

When I chop a tree down in my back yard, there is no going back, I have changed this world forever. When I make a choice in my life, the choice is made. There is permanence to this world. Choices matter. Think about it, if you play a game, every choice you make can be reset. Even if the game doesn’t allow you to reset, in the back of your mind, you still know, all you have to do is re-install. The choices don’t matter when you can reset, restart, re-install, and reboot.

I don’t want that type of unsettling ephemeral feeling to be at the subconscious core of our stories. I think the reason why our stories will feel real is because they will be real. They will have a life cycle, the choices will be permanent, the audience will directly impact the journey. When the story is done, it’s done. There is no do over.

There is a risk there, that after the story has been played out, it won’t attract a new audience. I’m sure there is some truth there because the draw is that our story is ‘happening’. It’s much less immersive after it’s ‘happened’. However just because that story is over doesn’t mean the _ story world_ is over. A world must have multiple simultaneous stories to be considered a true word in the context of how we will build them. This is what is great, we won’t be focused on trying to ensure our story is re-watchable for some demographic that might passively come in later, we need to be focused on making our current stories incredible for the audience we have right now.

I believe there is a key in here for our business in the future. It’s much less about the commodity than it is about the experience. It’s much less about the building assets than it is about building relationships. It’s much less about what has happened, or even what will happen, then it is about what is happening.

I had a really interesting idea yesterday that hasn’t shaken. I started listening to some sleep stories to help me go to bed. One reason in particular is because novels are usually always full of conflict which isn’t conducive to sleep. Sleep stories seem to be designed to be relaxing and voice of anything that might cause any stress or anxiety. One of the fascinating things about Headspace was that it’s sleep stories were ‘ever changing’. This must be because on the back end of every recording unbeknownst to the user, there is a playlist of 2 minute recordings that get switched around over a bed of soundscape. Pretty interesting idea, though not effective for actual storytelling per se. While listening it also gave me a bunch of ideas.

1. What if I were to tell my own stories from my Battle Universe in the form of a sleep story.
2. What if you mixed up guided meditation and sleep stories, so breathing, visualization, and noting were a part of the story. Right now headspace has breathing exercises at the beginning, but what if in the story your 2nd person character sees things and you must inhale at the amazing sight, or the sounds.
3. What if you made the experience of sleep stories more visceral, sights, sounds, smells, touching experiences within the story. Im sure this has been done, I’d like to experience it.
4. Is there a place I can just upload my own if I do this? I haven’t really found a place so part of me thinks there Is space for an app that acts as a meditation store.
5. What if I were to make my own meditation app centered around fantasy meditation, visualization, audible stories. This would allow my fantasy stories, but then for the app to be much more accessible and creative for other creatives. We could also license out other properties to make fantasy meditations like Star Wars or Harry Potter.

Naturally like all my other ideas, this one must sit in my mind for some time before the opportunity presents itself. I don’t want to spend much more time on it if I lose passion in a couple weeks on it. If you are a dev, feel free to steal the idea, would rather it get made then make it myself.

Giving internal feedback at a company shouldn’t be an inclusive participatory practice, but a practice of alignment. Feedback on work should have the goal to get the work to align closer to the vision, mission, or values and not on personal tastes or preference. This also helps us understand when some feedback should be thrown away and furthermore helps people to align themselves before providing feedback, lest it distract collaborators from their goal. If feedback is focused on inclusion rather than alignment, it’s far more difficult to surface what is valuable and what is not.

Alternative to ‘Behind The Scenes’ for our own platform can be ‘Breaking The Spell’. It’s a bit more magical but it means the same thing and even has the same acronym.