Sarah’s Scribbles and An Infinite Story have teamed up to create a “hidden art game” that is a new kind of interactive storytelling game.
The cartoon-like game, or gamified experience, is called Sarah Andersen Comics “After Owning a Cat,” in partnership with An Infinite Story. It’s based on the art of Sarah Andersen, whose work is called Sarah’s Scribbles.
The Sarah Andersen Comics “After Owning a Cat,” in partnership with An Infinite Story hidden art game launches on web platforms everywhere for free today.
Gameplay. Or Catplay.
In the After Owning a Cat game, you can pinch the screen to zoom in on any given part of a comic image of the Sarah’s Scribbles web app. When I saw the zooming happen in a demo, I chuckled. The game may ask you to find six cats in a black-and-white picture.
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It looks like there is just one, but if you zoom in on a spot — including a spot that is highlighted with a subtle green speck — you’ll see a new image appear. I found about 26 cats in an image that looked like it had just one. It reminded me of that old Powers of Ten video, except in reverse.
As you can see in the video in this post, if you look out the window and zoom in on a spot, you’ll see another cat. This is the way you’ll find more “hidden art” in the picture.
When you start playing on the website, you click play and it loads the experience in the browser. Then you start a five-step tutorial that walks you through the pinch-and-zoom mechanics. There’s a plus or minus sign where you can input numbers at the bottom. This is the cat counter. When you see a cat, you turn it up.
One of the tricks is that it doesn’t tell you what exactly is a cat. It might be a real cat walking on the sidewalk or a cat face on a keychain or T-shirt. As you zoom in, it’s like going through a tunnel into a spot far in the distance. Once you find all the cats, it gives you a visual indicator and then you zoom back to the main picture. Then you can focus in on a different part of the picture.
It’s like a hidden object game, but you have to really work hard to find what’s hidden.
“We are elevating the hidden objects category by bringing more depth at the experience,” Chiu said.
How it works
In the game, players will navigate worlds within worlds alongside Sarah’s Scribbles messy-haired protagonist to seek and discover every cat hiding in layers of custom art and narrative — with Andersen’s trademark self-deprecating humor. The game adds a new dimension to the Sarah’s Scribbles world that includes comics and an upcoming book (launching October 1) for her millions of fans across Instagram and other platforms.
I wondered if it took a lot of technical power to make this zooming in and out happen. But Chiu said that it uses WebGL technology, which makes it possible to see 3D graphics in a simple web page. That means it’s platform agnostic and you can play it on a PC, laptop, Mac, or smartphone. They wanted it to be low friction.
It’s like building an image with layer after layer after layer. You could automate this, but both Chiu and Andersen are not in favor of AI. They prefer to see humans create things. And this could be applied over and over again to different kinds of art.
Back story
Chiu previously designed characters for Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” and co-created the Emmy Award-winning animated TV show “Niko and the Sword of Light.” He also co-founded Imaginism Studios, LightBox Expo, and Schoolism.com.
Chiu serves at the creative director and cofounder of An Infinite story. He has worked on Ghostbusters, Smurfs, The Super Mario Brothers Movie. And he worked on Tom Brady’s retirement video.
“I moved away from movies and games to develop this wonderful company An Infinite Story with my buddy Josh Tyler.”
How it came together
The game is a result of an interesting collaboration. Sarah Andersen, owner of Sarah Andersen Comics, has created comics for years such as “Adulthood Is A Gift” under the Sarah’s Scribbles collection. She has a unique take on modern life with cats and a zany art style. She has millions of followers on social media.
She teamed up with Emmy-winning artist Bobby Chiu, a cofounder of An Infinite Story. Chiu got in touch after he had the idea of using the concept of zooming in on hidden objects. I interviewed them both about how this came together.
“When I was approached by Bobby Chiu and An Infinite Story about this potential collaboration, I was immediately inspired by the innovation and creativity of this infinite storytelling platform, which would allow me to present my art in a new way but retain its original aesthetic and style,” Andersen said. “It is exciting to share Sarah’s Scribbles with my fans in this completely new, gamified experience and I expect this infinite story concept will draw them in and captivate their attention just as it did me.”
When Chiu came up with the idea, he was sitting in meetings and doodling. He kept extending a single drawing. And then it was had this scoping effect where you had to keep zooming in. So he made an experience where you could keep zooming in or zooming out. He uploaded it and it go 70 million views.
“It was incredible. That’s really crazy. I did another. And again, it was eight figure views and another and another and another. And then I just thought, you know, I need to go in this direction and see where it’s going to take me,” Chiu said. “Because the amount of engagement and everything was absolutely incredible. And so many people kept saying I want to explore that drawing. I want to experience that myself. This should be a game.”
Chiu created a series of videos. He got together with Tyler, and they joined forces on an idea for a game. Then he approached Andersen, whose work he admired for a while. In the resulting drawing, the smallest image is maybe one ten millionth the size of the biggest image.
“We wanted to bring a different medium and a different experience to Sarah’s Scribbles fans,” Chiu said. “Everyone loves the characters in the world that she’s built. But now we wanted to kind of bring a bit more depth to that.”
Upon hearing it, Andersen said, “I just liked the concept because I felt like it took the four-panel format that I’m always working in and really expanded it. And I feel like it allows the characters and the world I’ve kind of built to step into a new medium and a more interactive one. And I think it was a great fit because I already have a preexisting world and a set of characters and tone to Sarah’s Scribbles. So it lends itself well to other artists coming in and kind of expanding it. There’s a shared language. I think it just really took Sarah’s Scribbles to the next step, and I’m really, really thrilled with the result.”
Chiu came from the film industry and he always liked the camera shots where they zoomed in from afar, like at the start of The Rescuers Down Under.
The end result for the Sarah’s Scribbles project is you can zoom on just about any part of a comic panel and find things. Chiu says it’s hard to describe how it works. He says it is one gigantic drawing in each frame. There are multiple frames and this is akin to having a multiverse behind each 2D frame. Tyler said he was always fascinated by the film, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, where humans shrink down to the size of bugs.
Where it could go
The team is going to analyze the feedback and figure out where to go next. Meanwhile, Chiu said this is really about paying homage to a work of art and her fans wanting to see something new.
“We just wanted to build a toolkit that was able to create a variety of different immersive experiences in the casual space that allow for artists to thrive,” said Tyler, cofounder.
An Infinite Story is a new gamified storytelling platform where consumers will be able to engage with stories from some of their favorite IPs, brands, celebrities and artists in new ways, as well as artists being able to transform their art form into compelling and revenue-generating experiences.
The Sarah’s Scribbles hidden art game represents the first iteration of this platform and new game experiences are coming soon like immersive web comics, PVP, and cooperative treasure hunts. An Infinite Story has collaborated with celebrities like NFL future Hall of Famer Tom Brady to create experiences that have amassed more than a billion organic views.
An Infinite Story is a new gamified storytelling platform where consumers will be able to engage with stories from some of their favorite IPs, brands, celebrities and artists in new ways, as well as artists being able to transform their art form into compelling and revenue-generating experiences.
The Sarah’s Scribbles hidden art game represents the first iteration of this platform and new game experiences are coming soon like immersive web comics, PVP, and cooperative treasure hunts.
“We’re very excited about the game, and we can’t wait to release it,” Andersen said.
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