“Tell a Tail”: the design of an AR comic book for an animal welfare transmedia

Tell a Tail: Caminho Incerto is an Augmented Reality comic book, part of a larger transmedia project, about animal welfare in Madeira island. The goal of this project is to educate, raise awareness and spread the love for animals. The comic book was designed for children, more precisely targeting children between 10 and 12 years of age. Caminho Incerto is a “choose your own adventure type” comic book, where readers face various choices in a branching narrative that will lead to one of the four different endings. In addition to the comic book, an Augmented Reality application unlocks content upon scanning special markers disseminated in the comic book where users can watch augmented 3D scenes depicting scenes from the comic book, from the character’s point of view. Our project shows that augmenting traditional media (such as a comic printed book) with cutting edge technologies (like AR) can be efficient in delivering engaging content and have a positive impact to younger audiences, in particular, digital natives by creating immersive experiences.

Thesis