Ernas Unheil

Ernas Unheil ingeniously combines a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book with an augmented reality app, offering the reader/player a eerily beautiful adventure with plenty of opportunities for discovery and creativity. It is only by skilfully linking the book and the app that the player can fully grasp the true scope of Erna’s misfortune.

Erna is the owner of an old, haunted house with a sinister reputation. Whilst searching for her runaway dog, readers/players find themselves venturing ever deeper into the house and, in doing so, uncovering the mystery behind Erna’s misfortune. Every page of the book features AR elements that offer real added value through clues, riddles and puzzles. Players are presented with a richly detailed and elaborately designed world that combines suspense with humour. The different media are skilfully interwoven, creating a completely new hybrid narrative form. The five female students on the Game Design course at HTW Berlin have produced a compelling, well-developed concept that aims to provide a fresh, contemporary approach to the supreme discipline of reading. In doing so, they boldly venture down new paths, which they nevertheless present with a sense of reality and an understanding of what is required.

The DCP Jury 2018