RichCast

Philip Oliver on the immersive storytelling app evoking memories of age-old adventures

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RichCast allows anyone to create and share linear interactive stories that are R similar in structure to choose Your Own Adventure games.

Available for multiple platforms and requiring no knowledge of coding, users can play around with an easy-to-learn editor, producing titles that players can interact with verbally or by pressing buttons on the screen. Legendary games developer Philip Oliver tells us how he came to be involved.

How did RichCast come about?

My brother, Andrew, and I sold Radiant Worlds to Rebellion in 2018 and we began giving lectures at universities around the UK about the games industry. We'd talk about the opportunities for new and creative games and apps and ask students to think about something they'd like to see exist. We noted that students learn Unity which is a big undertaking. We wondered if there could be a higher-level solution that was much easier for everyone to use – in the same way Wix and Square-Space let people make websites without learning HTML. We also talked about the problems inherent with cross-platform games development and how the same issues didn’t face people making podcasts or YouTube videos. And we also discussed the pain of installing, updating, offloading or deleting multiple apps. We felt a system like Spotify, Netflix or YouTube for games would work– something allowing creators to develop and instantly update their games that’d give players access to a wide range of interactive titles.When did development begin on this project?