This article is based on some of the theses and reflections that have been recorded by the authors of the Hyperbook project over the past year and a half. I apologize in advance for a somewhat academic and slightly "instructing" tone of the article. The author of illustrations is Boris Semenov .

1. Introduction. Talk to the hat

Speak though you are with me, the seven-string guitar ...
V. Vysotsky

Of course, Vladimir Semenovich expressed himself figuratively, referring to his favorite instrument, however, the current generation in the near future will be able to perceive this appeal almost literally. And there are objective reasons for this.

Now the desire to hear the voice of their favorite things looks almost normal among residents of large cities, and it arises not only in a state of “expanded” consciousness.

Otherwise, how to explain the appearance of various voice assistants in our daily helpers - smartphones and tablets. It's not just the convenience and benefits of the voice interface, but also its naturalness. In addition, many people, especially young people, just enjoy the possibility of "live" communication with computers in a modern urban environment.

Speech-to- speech and speech-to-speech technologies have penetrated mobile devices, modern PCs, and even cars. Soon TVs, refrigerators, watches, rings, bracelets, as well as other consumer electronics and household items will be added to them. Existing technical limitations will be overcome and talking things will shower on us like a horn of plenty.
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However, these technologies are now mainly used to control smart devices and get voice prompts from them, but games in which voice is the main way of interaction are still rare. Their authors face certain difficulties related primarily to the lack of tools for developing, voicing and distributing such games. That's what we'll talk about next.

2. Definition of interactive audiobooks

The question arises: Do we really need such audio games? Will they be in demand? To answer it, let's turn to the topic of conventional audiobooks. And their popularity is growing rapidly. Here is a short quote from the article "Michael Kozlowski:" Do not underestimate audiobooks. "

In 2007, the world's leading publishers released 3073 audiobook titles. By 2011, this figure increased to 12,000, and by 2014 it exceeded 35,000 per year.

Consider the main reasons for the growing popularity of audio books.

• audio books in digital format (not on CD / DVD) are, as a rule, cheaper than their paper counterparts;
• do not occupy valuable space on the shelf or in the bag, mobile devices for listening to audio books are usually quite compact;
• provide deep immersion into the plot due to its personalization by the speaker and music;
• do not hold your hands and allow you to listen to yourself even "on the run";
• they do not strain eyesight and are indispensable for visually impaired and blind people, as well as young children (audio fairy tales).

That is, we see that the popularity of audiobooks is based on their natural advantages, and is not a simple tribute to fashion.

Interactive audio books are, of course, relatives of regular audio books, but with a mandatory gaming component, and have, so to speak, feedback. Explain what we mean.

The interactivity of such books is the ability to choose a storyline and the ability to interact with objects (characters and objects). Such audio books can also have multiple endings.

Now we will try to formulate the definition of interactive audiobooks.

Interactive audiobook is a literary gaming computer program, the main interface of which is natural human speech.

In other words, this is a voiced text game with voice control.

Thus, interactive audiobooks are one of the forms of the genre of interactive literature known to us for a long time. But this is exactly the case when the form defines the content. The lack of visual means of expression leads us to the need for extremely careful manipulation of audio information. About this we will talk in detail in the chapter devoted to the development of interactive audio books.

In the meantime, let us try to list some obvious advantages of interactive audiobooks over ordinary interactive literature.

So, interactive audiobooks, compared with the usual interactive literature ...

• provide a deeper immersion into the plot due to its personalization by the speaker, music and sound effects, as well as the absence of distracting design elements;
• they do not strain eyesight and are irreplaceable for visually impaired and blind people, as well as those who cannot read;
• develop imagination in children;
• have a serious study because of the need to fully listen to the current description;
• due to the greater multimedia appeal of people not familiar with the genre of interactive literature.

And now let's move on to the question of what interactive audiobooks should actually look like (no matter how strange this may sound).

3. Interactive audiobook interface

Interactive audiobooks should have a visual interface. Even with advanced voice control technologies, it is necessary to have a spare, “classic” version. And if traditional audiobooks have enough of an audio player interface, in our case you need to add text links or number buttons to it to select actions.

Links are more informative than buttons, but take up much more screen space. You can, of course, be limited to a drop-down list, but in the case of small screens of mobile devices, this list will also be inconvenient to use. Therefore, the idea with the numeric buttons tied to the numbers of available actions seems more successful. With this solution, we also simplify the algorithm for recognizing the player’s commands — it is much easier to distinguish the numbers named out loud than text commands, which, moreover, can be quite long and similar to each other.

The location of the numeric buttons can be borrowed from consoles and phones. It is familiar and compact, and allows you to leave the interface unchanged in case of game control from devices that already have a numeric keypad.

For the convenience of the player, buttons to repeat the list of teams and return to the previous place can be added to the action selection buttons. In this case, it is important to find the optimal number of controls in order to make the interface comfortable without overloading it.

Although the graphic component of interactive audiobooks is not an important part of the interface, it will not be superfluous to add background illustrations to it to enhance the effect of immersion in the plot. This is especially important for devices with large screens, on which the digital interface in its pure form will look somewhat "lean".

But absolutely necessary for interactive audiobooks is the presence of a system for saving and restoring the game state. Since the player is dealing with an extensive plot, the ability to "roll back" to a certain place will be very useful. Also, the presence of autosave when exiting the game and continuing from the current location immediately after launch does not hurt.

4. Development of interactive audio books

The process of developing interactive audiobooks consists of several stages: designing an interface, writing an interactive storyline (the game itself) and testing it, adding media components (music, sounds, illustrations) and voicing text fragments. Consider each of these stages.

Interface Design

The interface can be developed separately for each game or use the unified interface offered by the game engine.

In our opinion, the second option is more convenient both for the player, providing the opportunity to use the previous user experience, and for the author, greatly simplifying his work.

We gave a rather detailed analysis of the interface elements of interactive audiobooks in the previous chapter, here we can only note that all of the above are only recommendations and time will assess their relevance.

Writing an interactive storyline

The toolkit that can be used to develop audio games is currently very wide. Virtually any engine for writing interactive literature or CYOA (menu) text games can be adapted to create audio games.

However, it is worth warning the authors of existing text games from literally transferring their works to a new audio form. And there are several reasons for this.

First, the location, number and text of links (buttons) for selecting actions is important.

If the number of links is too large, then the player will be hard on their ears to remember, and also complicate the game interface. Therefore, we have limited the number of links to nine, which corresponds to the number of digits greater than zero. This seems quite sufficient for modeling a variety of situations. Zero we used to repeat the list of actions (commands).

It is also necessary to limit the length of the links themselves in order to make the player comfortable listening to their full list.

Secondly, the description of the current place itself must be capacious and compact, so as not to make the listener bored. It's one thing to run a very long text through your eyes, and another thing to listen to it.

Thirdly, it is the presence of unjustified plot deadlocks, unexpected finals and looped transitions. In audio games, this problem is particularly acute. On the rules of good tone for the authors we will talk in detail in the chapter devoted to the recommendations for authors of interactive audio books.

In the process of writing an interactive audiobook, special attention should be paid to testing it. The quality of the final work depends on how carefully the author checked all the transitions and forks in the plot. Since the sounding process is better left for later, the only way to test an audiobook while writing it is to test it in plain text form.

Adding Media Components

The use of music and sound effects can significantly increase the "atmospheric" of the book, and this should not be neglected. For an audiobook, this is a really important point. Balance is needed when sound effects are really necessary, but one should avoid using them too often. And it should be remembered that the volume of background music should be reduced before being added to the project to make listening to an audiobook comfortable.

Authors who do not have musical talents do not need to be upset: there are a sufficient number of websites with free music and sounds on the Internet. They are easy to find through search engines. But it is necessary to comply with the license, which is often indicated for individual tracks and their fragments, so as not to violate the law.

If you decide to use illustrations in your book, you will be asked where to get them. There are three possible solutions.

The first - you can download pictures or photos from the Internet. This is the easiest way, but also the worst. Illustrations should be in the same style, otherwise the book will look sloppy. In any case, pay attention to the license on which the image is distributed. If the license is not specified, then, most likely, you will violate someone's rights by including such an image in the book.

The second is to use photos taken directly by you. This is a very good option, as the illustrations of the book will be truly unique. We recommend to process all photos with the help of special programs with the same photo filters and effects. After such processing, the photos will find a uniform style.

The third option is to draw illustrations by hand. A great option, but if your artistic abilities are not great, there is a risk of spoiling the impression of the book. Of course, the best solution is to seek the help of a professional artist or illustrator, if there is such an opportunity.

Even if you do not want to add illustrations to a book, make a cover for it. It will give your book individuality and set the player the right mood.

Sound process

The author can voice his work independently or with the help of relatives and acquaintances, or he can entrust it to a company that specializes in this kind of work. The list of such companies can be easily found in the search engines for the requests “dubbing audio books” and “announcer dubbing”.

The main difficulty in dubbing interactive audiobooks lies in a significant number of text fragments (their score can go into hundreds) with a relatively small length of each of them. Therefore, speakers need a special tool for easy navigation through the list of fragments.

We have developed a special program that organizes the process of recording a book and allows digital processing of sound files (noise reduction, normalization and compression) automatically, right during their recording.

Currently, they are preparing to release a version of this program for Windows and OS X. OS X version provides for a quick automatic voice acting of all texts using Text to Speech technology, in other words, a robot. This mode greatly simplifies the testing of the finished product.

We also recommend that announcers pay attention to the fact that many short fragments that they are voicing will then form part of a single sentence or paragraph, therefore their volume should be the same, and the intonation neutral.

Recommendations to the authors of interactive audiobooks

Check out this short list of recommendations. They will help you write a book that people will enjoy.

• Add a list of available actions (commands) only after the description of the current place, do not insert them into the description text.
• Make sure that any team responds to the phrase “Your Choice”, for example: look around, take the key, talk to Alice, go back, call out inventory.
• Use no more than nine possible teams anywhere in the game.
• Avoid unnecessarily detailed descriptions of the surrounding world and its objects, formulate them compactly and to the point.
• Constantly maintain the interest of the player, do not let him get bored and close the book.
• If you use music or sound effects, do not make them loud, they should not interfere with the speaker’s speech.
• Allow the player to undo his last action. Remember that interactive audiobook is first and foremost entertainment.
• Do not allow the appearance of unexpected finals and unjustified deaths of the hero, irretrievable dead ends and looped actions.
• Stick to the neutral tone of the story, do not "poke" the player and do not insult him. Do not use obscene language. Such a text will be unpleasant and listen and voice.
• Always respect the player. We recommend that you read and stick to Graham Nelson’s "Bill of Rights to the Player."

These tips are quite versatile and can be used for any audio engine.

5. Distribution of interactive audio books

Any author would like to bring his work to the widest audience, get feedback on it, and, perhaps, earn. The ideal channel to start promoting is the Internet, so the easiest way is to put the book on your website, send a link to it to friends and acquaintances, share the good news in social networks. But in this case, the author faces some difficulties.

Not every author has his own website, and it’s not enough just to put an archive with a book on it; you need to add an annotation of the book, its cover and screenshots, as well as a feedback form to the site’s page. Promotion of attendance at such a site is also not a simple matter, it is a separate technology.

You should also keep in mind that interactive audio books can be of a considerable size. Therefore, even if the audiobook engine is based on web technologies (HTML / CSS / Javascript or Flash), putting it on the site as a web application will not work - due to delays in downloading audio files, unwanted pauses will occur during playback, which will ruin much impression of the book. Imagine the compound phrase "You took ... the key." Before pronouncing the word "key" there will be a delay. You can, of course, download all the audio files immediately when you start the book, but it will take considerable time. For this reason, you can lose most of the potential audience - Internet users are now too impatient.

In the case of the sale of an interactive audiobook, the free demo version will not be superfluous, so that people can play an accessible part of the book and make a purchase decision. Link to the demo version may be located next to the payment button.

In general, taking orders on the Internet is a separate story. For the convenience of the buyer, it is necessary to provide the maximum number of payment forms and ensure quick delivery of the order. To do this, you need to connect payment systems to the site and configure two-way interaction with them, which requires a certain qualification.

The ideal environment for launching interactive audiobooks are mobile devices: smartphones and tablets. Their compactness does not tie us to the workplace, allowing us to play in many everyday situations: on the go or in the car, in line or on the beach. For example, on the Android platform, you can organize the process of speech recognition even on a locked device, which will allow you to play on the go, and without touching the screen.

But adapting your program to different platforms is a difficult and expensive job. Any program that claims to be popular should be available for all common operating systems: Windows, Linux, OS X, iOS, Android, Windows Phone.

And let's not forget that each audiobook requires high-quality text reading and testing.

Therefore, aware of all these difficulties, we decided to create a separate project "Interactive Audiobooks" to support the new genre and provide all possible assistance to its authors. For the distribution of audiobooks developed a special software shell for various platforms. It will be implemented easy navigation through the catalog of audio books, the ability to download, purchase and comment.

In the near future, the official website of the project will be launched. The site will contain a catalog of interactive audio books, and educational materials and software tools for authors will also be available.

Now we are preparing to publish several demonstration audiobooks in order to "live" demonstrate the capabilities of the new genre.

6. Prospects for interactive audiobooks

In conclusion, we want to say a few words about the prospects of the new genre and try to draw the attention of individual developers to it.

Right now, in the era of the reactive development of computer technology, the demand for entertainment related to artificial intelligence is emerging. Interactive audio books, as a first step in this direction, are just beginning their journey. If they become popular, then the undeservedly forgotten genre of interactive literature, which flourished in the 70s and 80s of the last century, will be able to get a second wind and acquire a new form.

At the same time, interactive audiobooks are now one of the most accessible gaming destinations for novice indie authors. Literacy combined with a developed imagination and basic programming skills enable anyone who wants to create modern entertainment applications at the junction of several genres. Investments in such applications are minimal, the main thing is enthusiasm and desire to make a quality product.