Interactive Documentary
- Role
- Story edit, interaction design and development
- Platform
- Web
- Footage
- OceanX expedition films; AI-generated for Chapter X
- Length
- About 5 minutes per chapter
A series of short interactive documentaries, each cut from OceanX's own footage of a real expedition by the research ship OceanXplorer. The scientists tell the story in their own words, and at key moments the film hands over the controls, so the viewer does the crew's work instead of watching it.
The chapters sit on an expedition map that traces the ship's real route. Pick a pin and the map dissolves into that place. Each chapter ends on a page about the real expedition: the team, the mission and what they found.
The chapters
- 01The Bite, Timor-Leste
Pygmy blue whales in the Wetar Strait are covered in cookiecutter shark bites. Spot a whale through binoculars, fly the SnotBot drone through its blow, then guess whether the bites are hot or cold and check with a thermal camera.
- 02Lights Out, Seychelles
On the deepest dive ever made in the Seychelles, sweep the ROV's lights across the trench floor, follow the sonar to a Dana octopus squid, then switch the lights off to see its own.
- 03Twelve Colours, One Punch
The bonus chapter, in AI-generated footage: see the reef through a mantis shrimp's eyes, then throw its punch.
Design process
- 01Spot the moments
Watch the OceanX films and find where an interaction could sit, like a drone flown into a whale's blow.
- 02Choose the point of view
Decide who the player is. In Timor-Leste they join the science crew; in the Seychelles they pilot the ROV.
- 03One mechanic per story
Each chapter gets one simple interaction that fits its theme. Timor-Leste is about deduction, so you scan with a thermal camera. The Seychelles is about discovery, so light is how you explore.
- 04Stitch it together
Every chapter is a real expedition, at a real place, on the ship's real route, joined up by the expedition map.