We have been working on a beautiful interactive book application for over a year now, before we ever knew of Disney’s new Oz the Great and Powerful. You can imagine what a terrific coincidence this was for us when we did learn of the new movie’s release though.
Developed by our brilliant, Ben Roberts, who brought you the interactive book apps Alice for the iPad, Jungle Book and Pat the Bunny, and beautifully illustrated by artist ShaunPendergast, we are excited to share the new The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for iPad app.
The standalone app is based on one of the best-known original fairy tales in American pop culture, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, published in 1900. We created a new world of storytelling by taking this classic and re-imagining it as an immersive interactive journey with Dorothy Gale, her dog, Toto, and her faithful friends making their way through the land of Oz.
While there are interactions, sound effects, animation and real-time physics throughout the app, we didn’t want to kill the experience with interactivity and take away from the beautiful illustrations. The overarching goal was to make this the most beautiful illustrated book yet made for the iPad.
Shaun’s illustrations can be found in both the Random House Children’s eBook and this interactive app. For him, this project was a personal dream come true. When he was very young, his father gave him his grandmother’s set of L. Frank Baum’s original Oz novels. He was instantly enthralled with the world of Oz and ecstatic to team up with Smashing Ideas and Random House to bring his version of the classic tale to life.
The app boasts two separate ways to experience the adventure, the Original Novel mode and Picture Book mode, both creating a rich new world of storytelling with vivid illustrations throughout.
The Picture Book mode offers readers a brand-new abridgement of the classic tale, designed for younger readers and fully narrated. In this mode almost every page is illustrated and many have real-time physics, animation, touch and swipe interactions and sound effects.
The Original Novel mode offers readers the full original text interspersed with the interactive illustrations from the Picture Book.
The app is available in iTunes now for $3.99 and is already ranked #100 in paid entertainment apps for the iPad. Check it out now.
