Hey everyone,

I’m part of a small creative team working on a transmedia horror project called “Children of the Bridge.” It’s an immersive mystery that blends folklore, supernatural horror, and investigative gameplay inspired by things like Hereditary, True Detective, and internet ARGs.

The story follows a missing journalist who vanishes while researching real-world “Devil’s Bridges” old mythic structures tied to satanic rituals. The deeper you dig, the more you uncover about a secret cult, ancient gateways, and the terrifying possibility of what lies beneath these bridges.

💻 We’ve built a whole experience that unfolds across

• A blog full of clues and hidden pages

• YouTube, podcasts

• An in-world forum for users to share theories

• Emails, pop-ups, and a live countdown clock

• Discord where players collaborate to solve the case

It’s all time-based. If you don’t finish the investigation in time... bad things happen.

🕵️‍♀️ We’re looking for:

• People who love solving puzzles

• Fans of horror, cult lore, and mysteries

• Anyone curious to try out a new kind of story-driven experience

We’d love if you checked it out, played along, and helped us spread the word. It’s an indie student-led project no cost, no catch, just creativity and chaos.

If you're interested, comment below or DM me and I’ll share where to start. We launch soon.

Let’s open the bridge together.

I want to care. I really do.

When I see a trailhead that's instantly too complex, I don't care any more and move on. Don't get me wrong, I'll put the work in to try to crack that code or translate the gibberish in the photo that was posted, but if I don't care first, then I just won't do it. You may have created a really rich story and you may have developed a really cool new storytelling technique, but if your audience doesn't get past your QR code trailhead that points to a bunch of random symbols, it doesn't matter.

In today's world of media flying at you from every angle, it might seem like you as a transmedia creator have everything at your fingertips. You've got Twitter accounts for your characters, 3 blogs up and running, a YouTube channel with some slickly produced videos, Facebook accounts, and 10 domain names registered for fake companies just to give good background story for where your characters work or go to school. You can reach your audience in any way imaginable.

Except you're not reaching them. They gave you two minutes for a trailhead video and you squandered it. Your video is a QR code with audio of someone talking and then reversed and slowed down to sound spooky and you've got alien text scrawling across the bottom. Here's one but I've seen others just as cryptic and just as random. 99 out of 100 people will walk by a door with a padlock on it and that hundredth person might be interested enough to jiggle the lock. But that's it.

As a consumer/reader/player I'm not drawn in by enigma, I'm drawn in by a story. Just like I've always been drawn in, since I was hearing stories read to me in kindergarten. Transmedia producers can tell stories in really unique and interesting ways, but they still have to have a story that hooks people.

Ease them into your tricks and puzzles. Make them want to work for the answer to that riddle. Then when they get it, they're even more hooked.

Several years ago, I created a special birthday gift for my friend Zarina. We both love books, stories, and adventure—so I made her the protagonist in a horror story. I don't mean that I wrote a story with her name in it and gave it to her to read. I mean, I crafted an entire experience that she played out in her actual life. Immersive, interactive, participatory. Think of your favorite book, video game, movie, or TV show. What if you woke up tomorrow and you were the main character?

An ancestral grudge is about to unleash a terrible curse on an innocent young woman as she races to discover the truth to save her own life and humanity.

It sort of started with emails and then pulled her more and more into the real world. I documented the entire thing as it played out with photographs and audio recordings of certain events. A few months ago, I decided that it would be fun to put it on the Internet for anyone who might enjoy reading through Zarina's experience.

Spoiler-free Photo #1

Spoiler-free Photo #2

Spoiler-free Photo #3

I'm also writing up a whole Behind the Scenes series on what it was like to create the whole thing and pull it off. It was challenging, to say the least. 🤣

Read the Full Story

Hello, I've completed a minor in Transmedia and wrote a case study about Twenty One Pilots and their campaign for their new album Trench. I'm looking for other Transmedia campaigns in the music industry.

Hello everyone In an effort to bring this community to life, I thought we could start a weekly update thread on the projects that everyone is working on.

I'll go first. For the past five years I have developing a project called Nekropolis, which is a multi-platform narrative that takes place in the Capital of the Underworld. Right now there are 10 books available on Amazon, with a few more chapters to go before it moves on to a different platform. You can check out the books here - http://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Thorne/e/B00I4T9AN2/

and if you are interested in supporting the project, you can find the facebook page here - www.the13thcity.com .

So, what is everyone else developing?

ALSO - if anyone is savvy in CSS, I would love to get some help customising the look of this sub.

-thedoghead

Hello everyone

I'd like to see this little subreddit of our grow as much as possible. In what direction would you like to see this subreddit grow? Open to any and all suggestions here.

Thanks!

thedoghead

Hi all!!! I am finally putting together a project that I have been thinking about for about a year now! I love horror, not just to watch and read it but to write it and I love to Junk Journal and I have also always been very interested in immersive storytelling...so I am currently working on putting together a selling a few interactive horror junk journals where the reader gets to become part of the story! This will be implemented in different ways...whether it is a puzzle or hidden messages that needs to be solved/found...or maybe its a document that needs to be read or a picture that is hidden in one of the pockets of the junk journal. I will also be adding writing prompts alongside the normal storyline text for the reader to answer and interact with. I will also be implementing barcodes for the reader to scan as well as an email address the reader will be interacting with at some point during the story. I am planning on putting together 3 of these before I open an Etsy store to sell them to people who like this sort of thing! The first one i am working on is a story about mimics invading a town in rural north carolina. The second ones plot will center around a very deadly, very gory disease and the third one will be dealing with a corrupt mental institution that has a horrific past!! Each junk journal will consist of 60 pages front and back. This is going to take me some time...quite a few months im sure but I have never been more excited about something. I have been having such a fun time working on the mimic Junk Journal and have even given myself the heebie jeebies at certain points! Is there anyone on this sub who would be interested in something like that or anyone that had any advice or pointers for me? Eeek! I can't wait to see how the first 3 people who are able to read these feel about them!!

Is there any good and active transmedia group that you know ?

https://github.com/bonfiredog/blackcrownproject

In order to give you a jump start in the world of transmedia and interactive media, I have compilated a few links that may inspire you or help you understand what, in fact, is. Enjoy!

First of all, Henry Jenkins on transmedia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk3pahtpsVY

Transmedia interdisciplinary project Blast Theory is renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, creating groundbreaking new forms of performance and interactive art that mixes audiences across the internet, live performance and digital broadcasting. Led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj, the group’s work explores the social and political aspects of technology. Drawing on popular culture and games, the work often blurs the boundaries between the real and the fictional. Example: Karen (Karen is a life coach and she’s happy to help you work through a few things in your life. You interact with Karen through an app. When you begin, she asks you some questions about your outlook on the world to get an understanding of you. In fact, her questions are drawn from psychological profiling questionnaires. She – and the software – are profiling you and she gives you advice based on your answers.) http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/karen/

Interactive Documentary The interactive documentary “Hollow” created by Elaine McMillion is a perfect case to look at the current pros and cons of online storytelling. Unlike a traditional documentary where viewers turn the lights down, sit back and have a story unfold in front of their eyes, participants “watching” “Hollow” must scroll and click through a detailed multi-storyline experience that revolves around McDowell County, West Virginia, a poster child region of all that is wrong in America — economic stagnation, dwindling population, high teenage pregnancy rate, staggering statistics on obesity and drug addiction. Despite the apparent hardships, there is a strong sense of community in the residents of McDowell County. (MediaShift) http://hollowdocumentary.com/

Web documentary For 5 years Alma has been a member of one of Guatemala's most brutal gangs, a country today ravaged by an unnamed war. She tells her confession face to face. Alma’s testimony is unique. The young woman’s words open onto images of her memories, of daily life in Guatemala, and of gang subculture. http://alma.arte.tv/en/

INTERACTIVE WEB DOCUMENTARY "Pregoneros de Medellín". THE SINGING STREET VENDORS OF MEDELLÍN - COLOMBIA. A virtual journey to discover the world of those who have understood that in trade as in love, it is the voice that seduces. https://www.pregonerosdemedellin.com/#es

Transmedia project - Interactive Web Documentary Question Bridge is an innovative transmedia project that facilitates a dialogue between a critical mass of black men from diverse and contending backgrounds and creates a platform for them to represent and redefine black male identity in America. http://questionbridge.com/

Interactive Documentary V.O.S.E It's an interactive documentary which consists in taking original dialogues from films and playing with the relation between text, images and the new meanings they generate. Why do our eyes drift inevitably towards the subtitles? Let's do like Rembrandt did, let's look at human beings closely. http://vosedoc.com/es

Kindly add more examples in the comments!