This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Danish transmedia filmmaker Christian Fonnesbech wanted to create a new storytelling world -- one in which users can immerse themselves without interrupting the flow of the story. As an experiment, he created Cloud Chamber, an online social mystery that is part game, part found footage, and is inspired by space and electronic music. "Users enter a haunted database as 'detectives', exploring and discussing fictional films, diaries, diagrams, photographs and documentary clips," he explains. Players collaborate to uncover what really happened when a young physicist, Kathleen, finds a signal from another world. Launched in Denmark last October, the game has three free levels and then players have to pay £8 for the last seven. Fonnesbech worked with the European Space Agency to use sounds from its recordings and write a scientifically accurate plot line.
He plans to launch in other English-speaking countries. "The Voyager 1 has left the solar system. A new habitable planet is discovered every day. Of course, I already have an idea for series two."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
