Meander Books | How the Story Began
The story of three siblings—Wilhelm, Frida, and Betty—who set out to find their missing pet hen Berta and discover a mysterious, makeshift floating house along the way, began in the fourth semester of my bachelor’s degree. I was taking a Production Design course with my professor Susanne Brandhorst. We each had to design a floating vehicle for the protagonist of a 3D adventure, as well as a few other assets and a draft story. At the time, I had no idea it would become a story and a “game” for children.
As the course went on, a little story grew out of those simple silhouettes. The vehicle was always going to be the headquarters of a group of children—a small, wild gang having big adventures of their own. I don’t remember exactly when Berta the hen sneaked into the story or where she came from, but I’m glad she’s part of it now.
Over the next three semesters, I took several courses where I continued developing the story of the ramshackle raft and the siblings. It was all still a little unfocused. I had some illustrations, a few lines of dialogue, rough plot sketches, and the beginnings of the three main characters. But I didn’t know how to put all those puzzle pieces together.
Things really got going when I was about to start my bachelor’s thesis, because I had to define a precise topic before I could be admitted. For a while, I considered making an AR book for children—a so-called “superbook”—but I never really warmed to augmented reality. I had worked with it and was still unconvinced. In particular, I didn’t like how unreliably many features worked, and I didn’t want to spend time on technology that hadn’t been tested enough. I wanted to develop a concept and, ideally, make a product—not research AR. Since I would be doing the whole project on my own anyway, I decided to develop an interactive children’s book app for Android and iOS, a well-established and reliable platform.
The title of my bachelor’s thesis was:
Meander Book: The Concept and Creation of a Digital, Interactive Children’s Book
In theory, I had ten weeks to work on this project full-time. In practice, I was also working 20 hours a week as a student employee at ART+COM. I really enjoyed it, but it was pretty stressful.
During that time, I developed the concept for Meander Books, which I’ll introduce in another post someday.
I also turned one chapter of the hen story (which still doesn’t have a title, unfortunately) into a prototype.
At the same time, I realised that the application deadline for the DCP—the German Computer Game Award—fell during my thesis period, so I decided on impulse to apply. I didn’t expect much, but I had already planned to create a concept document for my thesis submission. Two birds with one stone—just with even more stress. I don’t regret it, though. I made it! That was only possible thanks to the tireless support of my family and professors, who always made time to give me feedback, think things through with me, edit my writing, and encourage me. I definitely couldn’t have done it without them.
I entered Meander Books in the DCP’s newcomer award category with a prototype and came second—one of two runners-up :) Yay! (The gala was awful, but that’s a separate post.)
Now I’m looking for funding and perhaps a publisher who might be interested in my project, because I’m absolutely going to finish and release this book!
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