Oakley Branches Off

Oakley Branches Off is an interactive digital narrative (IDN) of an acorn who gets separated from their family and in trying to find their way back they have many experiences and encounters with nature and animals. The protagonist, Oakley, learns through those experiences the value of adventure, family, and relationships. The audience for the IDN is children ages 7 and up.

Zoey Hunsinger: Lead Writer, Designer, and Developer 
Tammy Todd: Assistant Writer, Assistant Designer, and Project Manager 

As the IDN came together the importance of agency and immersion led to the concept and design of the IDN. Meaningful action and player choice remained a constant in our conversations as dialogue and interactions were designed. We were influenced by the rhizome and creating a feeling of being lost but also the opportunity of exploration. Transformational experiences became part of the narrative and the choices for the protagonist. These included adding rude comment options, learning to or considering accepting help, and also growing in independence.

Feedback guided some of the development of the IDN including functionality in the control of movement and the cursor, access to wandering more of the forest, and adding more items to the world – some interactive and some not. The usability testers proved helpful with ideas and suggestions for interactions and added an idea that is now one of the endings available in the play-through of the IDN. There are multiple endings to the IDN providing replayability and agency to the user choices.