Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? I do. I loved them! Now Netflix wants to bring the experience to your kid’s tablets and phones. Today they introduced their first interactive show.
It’s an idea they are experimenting with, but if it takes off it could be coming soon to more shows. With Puss In Book: Trapped In An Epic Tale there are more than a dozen decision points, which gives your kids plenty of reasons to come back for another look.
The show begins normally, then begins to give your kids a variety of choices, with 10-15 seconds to make decisions for their characters. If they can’t decide, Netflix will choose for them to continue the story. The team behind it uses a format they call the “string of pearls”: a main spine for the story that branches out to four possible endings.
Photo: Netflix
The interactive shows will be available first on some smart TVs, game consoles, iOS devices, and Roku devices — but not on the web, Apple TV, Chromecast, or Androids devices — at least not yet. I gave it a whirl today on my iPhone. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t fun.
There will be more interactive tales to come. Next month will bring us an interactive Buddy Thunderstruck, arriving on July 14th, and you can look forward to a Stretch Armstrong version next year.
Here’s hoping this really takes off so we may get interactive episodes of House of Cards.
