We have teamed up with Gingersnap Studios to give you a sneak peak of their brand new interactive story app for kids – all about a crisis at the court of King Henry VIII.
Developed in association with Historic Royal Palaces, Gingersnap Studios have devised a unique way for families to share interactive stories, no matter where they live, using the latest touch-screen technologies, and they’ve decided to launch with a Tudor story aimed at children aged 5-9 – Yay!
But this is a Tudor tale with a twist – as you, the grown-up relative -mum, dad, grandma, grandpa, godparent, uncle or auntie, get to personalise the story before passing it on, and then appear on screen, in character, as part of the animated adventure that unfolds in the royal kitchens. Gingersnap are hoping this new format of interactive story app will help us share our passion for all things Tudor with our digitally savvy youngsters and inspire their creativity.
The other beauty of the app is that once you’ve customised it, you can send it on to your young relatives anywhere in the world – by email or by selecting the snail-mail option that generates a real physical postcard, with you on the front, that gets delivered directly to their door.
The children then unlock the story on their own device and move the story on through a series of interactive games and challenges.
In this launch app, Henry VIII – ‘Chaos in the Kitchen’, you get to enlist your child or grandchild’s help to prepare a banquet fit for the King, serve drinks from the cellars at Hampton Court, and even accompany the Henry during one of his lute performances!
And at the end, the children are then prompted to create a digital picture of the King’s top table to send as an e-thank you.
Gingersnap already has partnerships in place with 14 UK institutions (from National Trust to Tate Britain, the V&A and the RAF Museum to name but a few!) and plans to release a portfolio of 12 stories across the year, loosely aligned to what British children are learning at primary school (Tudors, Romans, Victorians, Shakespeare, Mary Anning etc). But if there’s demand, they’ve said they will consider doing an Anne Boleyn story too! They’ve promised to let me know if they do.
In the meantime, Gingersnap have given us access to the ‘pre-release’ iPad version which is in the app store now – click here – and it’s free to download, so please give it a go.
They would love to get some Tudor afficionados to try it out and give some valuable feedback. (There is a small in-app purchase required to send the story, which helps them cover their production and postage costs but you don’t have to send it to have fun with the app).
And if you like it, we’ve arranged for 5 of Anne Boleyn Files readers to get a voucher so they can try the postcard version free of charge. For your chance to WIN a free postcard code, download the Henry VIII story-app for FREE and then add your feedback on it in the comments section below this post. Comment by midnight 11th March 2016.
Here the link again to the app on the app store – https://itunes.apple.com/app/henry-viii-chaos-in-kitchen/id1049850745.
To find out more about Gingersnap, and their upcoming projects, visit them at www.gingersnap.tv or follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
