‘Morty and the Magic Bananas’ is a 360 immersive narrative based on the series Rick and Morty. It is very important to argue why this experience is best depicted in VR. A good way of doing that is by comparing it with other mediums in which it could be reproduced. Since it is just an immersive narrative with no gameplay it can only be compared with a tv/film episode/movie.
A first distinction of the experience as a 360 narrative is that the viewer can teleport themselves around each current scene and therefore get to explore the scene and become more familiar with it. This limited interaction is a fine line between having the viewer not paying attention to the actual narrative and paying too much attention in interacting with objects within the experience and not having interaction at all where the user is only a passive viewer.
This concept of limited interaction is important for this experience because a big part of it is a dream, the protagonist’s dream. I wanted the user to feel it as real as the protagonist feels it in the story (without needing to embody the protagonist to the user). This is something that cannot happen in a normal tv episode.
Another reason why this narrative works better in VR is that as a designer I am able to change the proportion and sizes of the scene not only to match the tone of the story but also to add symbolic meaning to the proportions and to add contrast between dream and reality. For example in the non-dream scenes, the sizes of Rick and Morty are realistic sizes. On the other hand in the first dream scene, Rick is depicted as super large and Morty tiny to emphasize how Morty perceives Rick subconsciously. Rick’s big size also symbolizes that he is a big antagonist in the story. In the final dream scene where Morty has become immune to the virus, Morty is depicted as quite large as well. That is to symbolize that he grew/matured and is now more psychologically stable and strong than he was before.
Apart from the size modifications and the concept of living in a dream, the narrative has additional Sci-fi tropes that help in differentiating this narrative in VR from an average tv video. Wormholes, for example, are widely used in the VR experience (the green portals) and are not only used to travel literally from one location to the other fast but also signify a change of scene and a change of act. Wormhole/portal use in such a way (functional use + part of the sci-fi story) is only possible in VR. Faster-Than-Light-Travel is another Sci-fi trope, closely linked with the concept of using wormholes, that has practical use in the experience. More specifically, the green portals in my story not only signify a change of location and scene but also a fast forward in the case where Morty has been eating bananas for two weeks after he met with the friendly alien.
If I were to change something to make it more VR suitable I would maybe do my character a Morty clone (like Rick and Morty in Virtual Rickality) and have the player feel “embodiment”.