Interactive soapie hits Facebook screens

Die hard soapie fans are now able to watch a soap-opera on Facebook. However, the new show, entitled ‚Spirit of Adventure’ is not just a normal soap opera. The designers have made it as interactive as possible, allowing viewers to follow the characters via Twitter and interact with the story by solving puzzles and challenges.

nDreams has announced the launch of ‚Spirit of Adventure’, the first ever soap opera on Facebook. Spirit of Adventure features a rich, twisting story that will be revealed week-by-week, written by Christian Wheeler (writer of Bramwell, a period drama for ITV, and PlayStation Home’s cult cross-media game, Xi). It combines a compelling tale and strong characters with a variety of puzzles to create a unique narrative-driven Facebook experience.

“This is the first time social storytelling in this form has been delivered on Facebook,”” said Patrick O’Luanaigh, CEO of nDreams. “”It allows people to actively follow and interact with a fascinating story as a community, as opposed to passively watching on television. I’m extremely excited about the launch of Spirit of Adventure, which is one of the first Facebook games/apps that’s narrative-lead.””

Spirit of Adventure follows the extraordinary tale of Helen Hobbes, a housewife who lives a happy life until she makes a discovery that leads her to abandon everything: her family, her home and her loving husband to go on a quest for a mysterious man who she doesn’t even know yet.

“”One of the things I love about Spirit of Adventure is that we’ve taken the traditional concept of story-telling and said, ‚Let’s see what we can do if…’ So it’s not just text – there are drawings, photos, letters that you can open and read: you can follow and help Helen via Twitter…”” said Christian Wheeler, writer. “”What we are talking about is interactive and participatory storytelling, even the puzzles are a part of the story, Helen might meet a waitress in a caf√© and we’ll suddenly have a puzzle based on the waitress’s life, a tiny vignette into somebody else’s life. This is storytelling for the Facebook generation.””

Spirit of Adventure also opens up a host of other content such as puzzles, with new challenges linked into the story every week and a fan page with an active discussion forum where players can chat about what is going on and interact with the development team. There are also 70 unique keepsakes that players collect by completing puzzles, interacting with the game, and sharing with each other on Facebook. Users can join at any time and there are lots of surprises that will be revealed.

A new episode will be released every Thursday. Spirit of Adventure is free to experience, and you can play it now by searching for ‚Spirit of Adventure’ on Facebook or going to apps.facebook.com/spiritofadventure.

To see writer Christian Wheeler talk about the project in more depth, visit ‚Unlimited’ now (search for ‚Unlimited’ on Facebook) or go to the nDreamers YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/ndreamers.

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