Challenge

“How can an interactive story encourage 8 to 12-year-olds to keep reading while making choices feel meaningful rather than distracting?”

Narrative prototype

The story is divided into seven chapters and was prototyped in Twine, a tool for creating branching narratives. I used Twine early in the process because it allowed me to quickly build, share and test different story paths with the target audience, children aged 8 to 12.

This made it possible to experiment with choices and consequences before translating the story into the final interactive experience.

The beautiful illustrations are done by Michelle Avis.

To strengthen the atmosphere of the story, I wanted the soundtrack to feel organic and closely connected to the rainforest. I created a Spotify reference playlist and shared it with HKU composer Amber Veerman.

Testing

Through several rounds of feedback, we developed a soundtrack built around acoustic and atmospheric elements. The final music became an important part of the experience, helping the story feel more immersive and giving the Amazon rainforest its own character.

Narrative

At the centre of the story is Hekura, a young boy growing up in an Amazonian hunter-gatherer community, where survival depends on understanding the forest and living from what it provides.

The name Hekura is inspired by the hekura, spiritual beings associated with the beliefs of the Yanomami people of the Amazon rainforest.

When Hekura's father disappears, he sets out to find him. He is joined by Vaya, the daughter of the chieftain of a neighbouring community.

Their journey takes them deep into the rainforest, where they encounter different animals and gradually uncover clues about Hekura's father. A broken magical staff belonging to his father gives Hekura and Vaya an unusual ability: they can communicate with the animals they meet.

Each of the seven chapters introduces a new part of their journey, a new animal encounter and new decisions for the player to make.

I designed the narrative as a branching story, giving children moments where their choices influence how conversations and events unfold. I prototyped these narrative paths in Twine, which made it easy to test different versions of the story before development.

The story was edited together with my father, Ron Slot of robinmeesterverteller.com, a professional storyteller. His feedback helped refine the pacing, dialogue and overall structure of the adventure.

Interaction design

For the webcomic, I used GSAP, the GreenSock Animation Platform, to bring the illustrations to life.

Rather than treating animation as decoration, I used movement to reinforce the atmosphere and direct attention through the story. Small environmental animations, such as the flickering campfire, help make otherwise static scenes feel alive, while larger image sequences are used for moments such as dancing in the village.

One of the more experimental interactions was the meditation sequence with the shaman. For this scene, I worked with the HTML Canvas element for the first time and created a custom pixel-flow effect inspired by a tutorial from Frank's Laboratory.

The effect analyses the brightness of pixels in the image and uses those values to influence the movement of particles across the canvas. This created an abstract, dreamlike visual that suited the spiritual atmosphere of the scene.