Last Seen Online, for example, gives anybody who desires a real-time story experience narrated with a messenger app the chance to “live” in the story while it is developing. Giving a hyper-realistic feel, the app lets its users experience story-telling like never before, throwing the reader right in the middle of the timeline as it develops.
The premise of the story takes the user through the life story of Amy Morris who went missing on the night of her 26th birthday after a social event. Narrated through a text-message style app by five friends including Amy, the story unwinds in real-time so that users are restricted from reading ahead to find the conclusions. Instead, just like in real life, the reader must wait for messages to come in periodically from the conversation as if really having a discussion with other people. Furthermore, the plot lasts for seven days as a means to keep readers captivated instead of skipping ahead. Through this, readers of Last Seen Online slowly discover the relationships, circumstances, and secrets of that will ultimately lead to the conclusion on the seventh day.
https://www.facebook.com/lastseenonline/videos/2163958893829301/
Designed as a messaging app with social media aspects in order to follow the story better, Last Seen Online is intuitive to use as users it reflects social media outlets that are commonly used while all that is required is to simply follow the story instead of inputting any information. While this makes the app easy to use, it is simultaneously restricting as users have very little interaction with the story. Furthermore, similar apps which follow a story that occurs in real time have also emerged but instead give its users the option to choose various decisions that ultimately alter the outcome. For example, apps such as Lifeline offer this feature which is not available in Last Seen Online in order to give readers more interactions with the story. However, the app does differentiate itself by adding additional images, audio, and video files which increases the realism of the story, something that competing apps lack as they are generally based on only text or various still-images. While the app is $0.99 on the App Store, the price is on par with other similar immersive apps that bring the user into the premise of the plot.
A creepy story to captivate readers over the course of seven days, anticipation will grip the readers of Last Seen Online to know more about how Amy went missing. Instead of traditional story-telling, the app uses a messenger interface in order to bring the user into the story while social media updates further adds to the experience of being in the story as opposed to an outsider who is simply reading about it.
[appbox appstore 1166152961]
