Boston Dev Attempts to Bring the Radio Drama to iPhone with Codename Cygnus

A recently launched Kickstarter campaign is aiming to create an interactive radio drama for iPhone users and it sounds terrific – thanks to Polygon for bringing this to our attention.

Boston developer Reactive Studios is hoping to raise $11,000 in the next 24 days. Currently, they are close to $2,000 and with the more modest amount they’re looking for, all things are looking good for the independent developer.

Codename Cygnus lets players become spies in a world that not dissimilar to old radio dramas that entertained many around the wireless. At this time, over 25 actors have signed up to lend their talents to the project including; Logan Cunningham (of Bastion narrator fame) and Sarah Elmaleh who appeared in Skulls of the Shogun.

The game’s rollout will assume the form of weekly episodic content, with mission one expected to launch in August – this will include a prologue and three episodes that will complete one story arc. On the team’s Kickstarter page, they describe the story as such:

“We’re keeping our UI super simple. The experience is entirely sound and story: Writing + Voiceover + SFX + Music. With either a spoken word or a simple tap on the screen you can listen to the drama unfold in a progression similar to the multiple choice dialogue moments that you find in adventure or RPG games. You get to make decisions about what to do and what kind of agent to be in a world of espionage. Your iPhone/iPad recognizes your speech (or accepts the tap of a button) to trigger and play the next sound file so that the characters react to you as the events and story continue.”

A clear example of using the advantages of the platform rather than trying to implement something that doesn’t work on a mobile phone.