Intrinsink

Intrinsink - software for online theatre, inspired by narrative games

Intrapology is a new project in interactive online theatre and performance. Our innovative custom-made web app, Intrinsink, allows the audience to influence what the performers say and do.

👀 Curious? See more in the Github repository.

Intrinsink allows us to carry out interactive performances over video call, and can be used for online-only or hybrid shows. Zoyander Street and D. Squinkifer first developed this tool in a 2021 collaboration funded by New Conversations programme (British Council, Canadian Council for the Arts), and it builds on Squinky’s 2014 IndieCade-nominated MFA thesis project Coffee: A Misunderstanding.

Our approach integrates narrative design patterns from IF into live theatre, using Inkle Studios’s open-source narrative scripting language Ink.

• A dynamic script is shown live to actors
• Audience members vote on a menu of choices
• The winning choice leads to automatic changes in the script

In addition to this core loop, we’ve also developed features such as receiving improv prompts from the audience through short free-written messages.

Recordings from our October 2024 {~ scratch | game jam | hackathon} event

We want to support other artists to create their own original works in the accessible and fluid format of online interactive theatre that our software facilitates. In our October 2024 game jam scratch night, 5 artists showed short test pieces created in response to the possibilities offered by our software: Meghna Jayanth, Siobhán O’Loughlin, Chloe Mashiter, CJ Simon, and Erin Marsh. This was part of a project funded by Innovate UK.

Our work so far

In 2023 Zoyander added more features, such as:

• Extended, colour-coded view of the script for actors
• Audience members can send improv prompts to the actors through a tweet-like interface
• The current line of dialogue is shown to all users as integrated subtitles
• A video calling window is integrated into this webpage, allowing actors and the audience to access the interaction app and video stream in the same place
• Said webpage is designed for a high level of aesthetic customisation, as part of the digital scenery of the play

Our 2024 Innovate UK New Innovators in Communication Networks project aimed to:

• Improve our conformity with open internet standards
• Eliminate reliance on proprietary software by designing for Open Broadcasting Software.
• Facilitate interoperability with a variety of streaming and video calling solutions through adoption of open standards
• Support other artists to create work using our software, by creating clear documentation, an open-source repository, and organising a game jam / hackathon / residency for rapid prototyping of new works.

Our plans

We are currently engaged in another R&D project, this one funded through the Creative Catalyst programme, funded by Innovate UK and Creative UK. In addition to commissioning further new works from a new group of artists, it is allowing us to carry out research into the environmental sustainability of online performances, with a particular focus on green servers and frugal computing.

Possible directions for future R&D projects:

• Accessibility - carry out audience research to identify the needs of disabled users
• Voice acting use case - work with a games studio or agency to develop features required by voiceover artists and directors
• ActivityPub and microformats - e.g. carry out further experiments with Peertube
• Finally, we have identified a need to separate the brand identity of the software from our original series of performances. We are working with our partners to develop this, and hope to launch the separate brand later this year.