Author: Matt Ballou

The creators of this podcast brilliantly used sound design to signal changes in their narrative. One instance of this is the sound the aquarium makes in Heidi’s counselling office, where it is used to indicate the change in setting from the restaurant Heidi works at to the counselling office she used to work at. In a audio-visual medium, this transition would be done visually through the use of a cut or a scene jump; however, because the podcast can only use audio as the medium for the narrative, the creators were forced to implement this scene change in a different way without confusing the listeners. This technique can only really be used in a medium that utilises audio.

Furthermore, how the dialogue itself is used is indicative of the setting and context of the scene. For instance, the government investigator asks whether Heidi’s name is Heidi or not, and she replies that that’s what it says on the name tag, thus indicating and validating that the scene takes place at a restaurant. Another instance of this is when Heidi is taking notes while counselling the soldier who just entered the “Homecoming Project:” the facility. Yet another instance, stated by the creator and interviewer in the post-credits interview, is when Heidi’s boss calls her and is on the phone: at an airport in Detroit. All of these auditory cues allow the listeners to truly believe that they are wherever the narrative is taking place. A movie or book could not replicate these subtle cues the same way the podcast does.

These specific approaches to indicating a shift in setting and describing the setting itself are unique to the auditory/”podcast” medium.

Click here to see the project.

For our project, we created an interactive animation with multiple endings.

In order to accomplish this, we utilised arrays and objects in JavaScript to create multiple “slides.” The slideshow itself was an array, wherein each slide was an object that had multiple properties (i.e. dialogue, speaker name, etc.) 

This ‘modular’ approach allowed us to quickly add, change, and remove slides very quickly with very few complications to other slides. Furthermore, this object-oriented approach to the individual slides allows for easy readability and documentation.

One problem we had with the project was not related at all to the programming or design: interactivity. Because we decided to utilise buttons for advancing choices, we lost the opportunity to use more creative means of advancing the story (such as clicking on objects in the background.)

However, I feel that we accomplished what we initially set out to do. We had an idea, executed it, and did the best we could in the time given. If we had more time to complete this project, I would remove the buttons entirely, add more dialogue and story elements, and maybe even add music.

Click here to see the project itself. 

So far, we created the website to display the animation and a framework to effectively and efficiently organise the slides within JavaScript.

We accomplished this through the use of Objects, Arrays, and Conditionals.

All slides are objects of an array, which allows them to be both numerated sequentially and be able to store multiple things within them, such as dialogue, background, etc. This highly “flexible” system of slides will allow us to not only create more content quickly, but also introduce diverging paths within our stories.