40

¢ INTERACTIVITY

CURRENT

Exploring

the Verso Engine

A 2D PHYSICS DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM
FOR MOBILE INTERACTIVE CONTENT

Celeste Martin
Adam Cristobal

INTERACTIVE EBOOK APPLICATIONS continue to rapidly grow
not only in sales but also into a sophisticated design discourse that
has begun to establish best-practices of user experience design.
These practices, however, are always in flux. As early as 2002,
researchers defined “Electronic Textbook Design Guidelines” and
suitable gestural affordances for an ebook learning environment
[7]. Yet publishing processes since then have radically shifted not
only in production methods and tools, but also in the relationship
between authors, designers, editors, and developers. Froma
traditional linear model of authorship, editorial, and design, the
publishing process continues to shift to a “seamless intersection of
the written word, visual design, cinematic storytelling, educational
multimedia, and game mechanics” [5]. This shift is still in process,
and has enabled designers to define a textual artifact beyond form
and into the very parameters of engagement to such an extent that
the designer might be considered a co-author of the text [8].
Within the confines of this project, designers were the prime
originators and instigators of the artifacts, and worked either with
existing texts or primarily visual material. The key collaboration
in this process between is designers and developers. In this partic-
ular scenario, designers embraced authoring and editing roles,
in a process that shares similarities with video game design and
development.

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

The objective of this project was to further refine and expand
Loud Crow’s mobile and tablet application development engine,
Verso. Loud Crow Interactive is a leading agency in the creation of
children’s content for mobile platforms. Their 2D physics engine
allows readers to manipulate objects on the screen with highly
realistic physical effects. Although they have eschewed the ebook
term in reference to their work, and have only just abandoned
codex metaphors in their design language within the last three
years, Loud Crow’s products can be understood as enhanced