Sarah's Scribbles creator Sarah Andersen has partnered with An Infinite Story for a mobile game called "After Owning a Cat," which uses vector art inspired by the popular webcomic to allow you to pinch and zoom to discover hidden details in tiny portions of the canvas.
It's hard to visualize without seeing it for yourself, so I've embedded an IG post from Andersen narrating just one of many potential paths into the depths of the interactive comic. You can also check out the comic for yourself at that link, and start exploring.
An Infinite Story, the team behind the infinite storytelling platform, has shown off demos with Disney art and real-life sports superstars like LeBron James and Tom Brady, but it's looking to partner closely with artists like Andersen to create interactive worlds that go beyond the usual comic-panel format you see with webcomics.
Essentially, any tiny dot or line on the canvas may hold entire art pieces and worlds, so you're encouraged to pinch-and-zoom onto every area to catch all the Easter eggs. For this demo, you must count every single hidden cat, and those that score closest to the correct number are entered into a contest to win prizes like signed books or original art drawn by Andersen.
I had the chance to sit down with Andersen and Infinite Story co-founder Bobby Chiu, an Emmy-winning artist who designed characters for Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland and works on other Hollywood animated movies like Super Mario Bros.
I confirmed that "After Owning a Cat" had no generative AI elements; instead, it takes preexisting art from Sarah's Scribbles with its "original aesthetic and style," then places them in the wider canvas, while adding new art with the same aesthetic style made in collaboration by Andersen, Chiu, and other team members. It's an "expansion on a creative process" that "feels new and innovative,” says Andersen.
Long-time Sarah's Scribbles fans will recognize strips and "characters" like her pets and various body parts, as this experience pays homage to them. But it has an Inception-like theme where the deeper you go, the more the world of Sarah's Scribbles takes on a bizarre feline spin you've never seen before in the comic.
The "cat takeover" theme offers a unique twist to the usual hidden-art-game formula, and it allowed Andersen to try a different kind of storytelling with a "unifying narrative" than she can normally accomplish with a few comic panels.
Andersen is excited to use this same format for future comic tie-ins. I asked if she might bring in other Sarah's Scribbles themes like cryptids or uterus woes for a hidden-art comic; she laughed at the idea of a whole anatomy-themed experience, but mentioned that she's working on other new comics — including one with a fantasy theme — that could use this format to build backstory and character ideas that'll make their way into the comic.
As for how the Infinite Story platform works, Chiu and fellow engineer Josh Tyler didn't share too many details, except that it's WebGL platform agnostic and is best suited for mobile pinch-and-zoom (though you can experience it with a computer trackpad too).
This Sarah's Scribbles demo is essentially a trial run for them, and they designed it to be "easy" for users to find every hidden nook and cranny, with shining icons that appear if you're stuck. Eventually, they intend to add "new game modes" like "puzzlers, time trials, web comics, and cooperative treasure hunts" that provide more challenge and encourage more free exploration.
Hidden object game companies and webcomic apps like Webtoons would probably jump at the chance to incorporate this tech, so I wouldn't be surprised if An Infinite Story tech ends up in the best Android games of the future, if not hosted on their own app for unique experiences.
Either way, it's an intriguing new gaming/ storytelling format that puts more emphasis on lovingly recreating art instead of "borrowing" it via genAI, and I think that's pretty neat. I'm excited to see what other artists end up using this format.
