Backtalk is an interactive text game, simulating the experience of the protagonist in SundanceTV's miniseries One Child, by thrusting viewers/players into the action via a text conversation that parallels the story that unfolded on-air.
Accessed by way of your phone, Backtalk isn't an exact replication of the series' story. On-air the catalyst in One Child is an email received on the protagonist's computer that informs the young woman (who was adopted as a baby) that she has a brother in China who has been wrongly accused of a crime and is about to be put to death.
In Backtalk, the stakes are also high. This time around, you're not just a viewer, you're the center of the story. The Backtalk player is pulled into a political maelstrom where they're asked a series of questions that test how far they'd go to facilitate a life-saving kidney transplant for a relative they've only just met. Every choice you make reveals just how far you'd go to save someone's life.
The script, expertly penned by American Book Award winner Julie Chibbaro, possesses a youthful character that feels authentic, even desperate. In your exchanges with the long lost brother, you're constantly forced to confront the blurry lines of morality and political correctness that can come up when the matter at hand is someone's life. Are you willing to go to the black market? Will you take on the establishment? Like the heroine of One Child, you are not presented with easy answers. The resultant experience both drove to the on-air broadcast and permitted fans of the miniseries to continue the experience online once the show had broadcast.
The endeavour also managed to garner a bit of press including this piece in FWx: http://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/secrets/sundance-tv-unveils-choose-your-own-adventure-texting-demands-your-kidney
SundanceTV's website is following in the footsteps of the festival that spawned its parent network by creating innovative, ground-breaking experiences online around its series. Backtalk, a text game that reinterpreted the narrative of its miniseries One Child, turned the on-air viewer into an online player who is the center of the story.
For this project, the site enlisted acclaimed Young Adult author Julie Chibbaro (American Book Award for Redemption; National Jewish Book Award for Deadly) to create an authentic mobile experience that allowed players to assume the role of a protagonist much like that in One Child. The player's decisions influenced the text game's outcome and the results were high-stakes drama:
After texting "Hello" to a specific number, you are greeted by a long lost brother, who is affable, innocent, desperate. After a few niceties that suggest a shared family history (broken by chance), he confesses that he needs an organ transplant. You are his only hope. Chibbaro's poignant conversation, told in texted short-hand, carefully but quickly conveys urgency while maintaining a certain naivete.
Using technology developed by Brian Fountain, Backtalk guided players down one of two storylines, both of them fraught with tough choices and political corruption. While the keywords embedded in your long-lost brother's response drive the story, you still feel as though he has a response for every reply you send in turn.
Similar to One Child's on-air protagonist, the text game player is constantly presented with an option to bow out yet stays enticed to go deeper into the experience, problematic as it is.
Coyly driving to tune-in before the premiere (ex: "I'll always be a good brother to you. Family means everything to me. Let's watch ONE CHILD together on SundanceTV. This Friday 9/8c."), Backtalk nevertheless stood independently of the series as much as it complemented it.