Hi everyone! My name is Stefano and I’m new to this forum. I’m very happy to join this community, I don’t know if this is the right section, I’d like to introduce myself very quickly
I recently founded PlayNook, a platform dedicated to AudioGames: interactive stories that blend narrative choices with immersive sound, something in between a cyoa and an audiobook, where you can interact by listening and choosing with voice commands. The goal is to create an accessible and inclusive alternative to standard gaming options.
We built a catalog with several AudioGames, available on PlayNook mobile app (iOS and Android). This week we’re also releasing a Christmas AudioGame in collaboration with the Canadian brand “The Raccoons”.
Since it’s very hard to combine writing and audio production, we also created a tool for writing interactive fiction with integrated audio. I’m planning to make it available to everyone next year, and I’d be glad to share more details if anyone’s interested.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions!
I haven’t had a chance to actually try any of the games yet; it looks like most of them have a free introductory chapter and then you have to pay per chapter to unlock the rest. There are 4 “rebranded chapters” that look like they might be standalone stories but might also be … something else?
@ste-playnook : a lot of the games produced by/of interest to this community are published for free - which isn’t to say that no-one will be interested in your commercial offering, but if you want to get the maximum number of eyes on it you might want to spell out what is freely available.
Fair warning, that community isn’t as friendly as this forum, but they are generally more receptive of commercial games and most of the user base there is blind, so the concept might get more traction there than it would in mainstream gaming circles… and if you are using TTS or AI voices, that community is a bit more neutral to positive on AI than this place… they’re still largely negative on replacing human writers with AI slop, but plenty of interest in things like AI image descriptions, AI-enhanced OCR, AI voices, and other things with accessibility applications.
Hello @smwhr ! Main narrators are recorded by real voice actors. We still have some lines generated by TTS (for testing purposes), but we’re replacing everything right now. The next games will always be narrated by humans.
@jwalrus thanks for your comment! There are both standalone stories and complete Seasons (as Blood’s Bane or After the Light). In general, we like to keep the first chapter of each Season for free, so everyone can have access to it. We’re trying to strike a balance by keeping a meaningful portion of each title available at no cost, so players can decide whether the experience is worth supporting.
Thanks also for the feedback regarding the community’s focus on free content. It occurs to me that I could add clearer labels on the app and website to show what’s free. In any case, I’m more than happy to send a promo code via message so anyone interested can play everything for free.
@Mewtamer thank you very much for your feedback! I posted a couple of times on the Audio Games Forum, they helped me quite a lot understanding how to improve the games, especially for accessibility. Really appreciate the guidance!
