First Glance

I started with The Reagan Library , because I thought it'd be fun to click one of them before the picture loaded. It was wierd, but hard to leave. I actually ended up spending a half-hour on it immediately, and then briefly hit a few others for another half-hour. I'll talk about the others first.

Deviant: The Possesion of Christian Shaw by Donna Leishman, was also pretty wierd. It had no text, until the end where it tells the story of Christian Shaw, a little girl who was "demonically possessed" and had several people put to death for it. I knew nothing of this story (which they posted in text at the end). The whole story had no text, just wierd little graphics and sounds, many of which were kinda cool. Had I read the text part first, it would have made far more sense.

Inanimate Alice, Episode 1: China by Kate Pullinger and babel, was unique in that it was actually linear. It was really interesting how the author incorporated video (low-res so that it loaded quick) and layered sounds to speed up or slow down the tempo of the story. Occasionally the story required the reader to click on things, besides the little arrows. It was a bit like the "living books" that my little brother used to read when he was young (They didn't exist when I was that young...yes, I'm old) They were basically well-illustrated books, where you could click on pictures to get them to do different little animations.

Star Wars, One Letter at a Time   by Brian Kim Stefans is exactly just that, with the addition of type-writer sound effects. If you sit and try for awhile, you can eventually start to make out some of the words, especially those you expect like, "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..." It was interesting, but it loses its novelty after about 45 seconds.

Story Land  by Nanette Wylde was kind of interesting, until you realize that its just a formula that repeats with certain bits changed. Its a lot like a mad-lib with the computer randomly generating the verbs, nouns and adjectives.