THE ASHEN CROWN (2024-2027)

Developing an original epic fantasy storyworld

Epic fantasy relies on more than plot alone - it requires the creation of a fully realised world, complete with mythology, political tensions, geography and characters whose journeys unfold across a larger narrative landscape.

The Ashen Crown is an original fantasy storyworld created by Elli J. Morrigan, the writing collaboration between Alison Norrington and Jenny Kleine. The series follows a young woman navigating a fractured realm shaped by elemental powers, rival kingdoms and ancient forces beginning to stir beneath the surface of the world.

SAGUACHE COUNTY, COLORADO : Designing Interactive Tourism Through Story (2019–2026)

From A Single Treasure Hunt to A Multi-Year Portfolio of Immersive Tourism Experiences

When the Saguache County Tourism Council first approached storycentral, their challenge wasn't simply to attract more visitors. It was to create experiences that would encourage people to slow down, explore longer, discover lesser-known places and leave feeling they had uncovered something unique about Colorado's mysterious San Luis Valley. Rather than creating traditional heritage guides, we designed an interconnected narrative universe where visitors became active participants inside the stories themselves.

Over seven years, that vision evolved into a portfolio of immersive driving tours, walking experiences, fictional audio dramas and interactive storytelling - transforming tourism into narrative adventure.

The Journey

2019 : The Search for the Saguache Treasure

The project began as an ambitious transmedia treasure hunt stretching across Saguache County.

Visitors downloaded an audio driving experience before searching for hidden clues, physical artefacts and story fragments scattered throughout historic towns, museums, spiritual communities and forgotten landscapes. Real-world exploration became part of the narrative itself.

Although many of the physical artefacts were eventually stolen (an occupational hazard of immersive experiences!), the project proved that visitors wanted to experience destinations through story rather than simply consume information.

That insight became the foundation for everything that followed.

Expanding the Storyworld

As technology evolved, so did the experiences.

Working initially with Conducttr, and later with TravelStorys, we transformed the original concept into a collection of standalone narrative experiences, each exploring a completely different storytelling format while collectively promoting the county's identity as The Mystic San Luis Valley.

The Portfolio

❄️ The Frozen Divide

A true-crime historical audio drama

A cinematic driving experience following an investigative journalist retracing one of America's most infamous survival stories - the legend of Alferd Packer. Blending fictitious documentary interviews, fictional investigation and historical research, the experience transforms Highway 285 into a living crime narrative.

👽 UFO RADIO

A fictional UFO radio drama

Presented as a live radio call-in show, visitors travel Colorado's famous UFO corridor while listening to fictional broadcasts, eyewitness reports and mysterious encounters inspired by the area's extraordinary folklore.

🌀 The Vortex Within

A meditative walking experience

Designed around Crestone's internationally recognised spiritual community, this contemplative GPS-guided walk combines mindfulness, storytelling and environmental interpretation into a reflective journey through one of Colorado's most unique destinations.

🚶 Saguache Stroll

A community history walk

Written in collaboration with local historians and community members, this GPS walking tour brings Saguache's architecture, art, Indigenous heritage and local stories to life through documentary narration and dramatised historical voices.

Design Philosophy

Every experience was deliberately different.

Rather than repeating a single format, each project explored a new narrative structure - from investigative journalism and fictional radio broadcasts to meditation, documentary storytelling and interactive treasure hunting.

Together they demonstrate how place can become intellectual property, allowing destinations to offer visitors multiple ways to experience the same landscape through story.

We conceived, designed and creatively directed the programme from initial concept to delivery, combining narrative strategy, worldbuilding, interactive design, scriptwriting and production leadership to transform Saguache County into an interconnected storytelling destination. The experiences were developed in close collaboration with Steve Peters on technical implementation and production, alongside local historians, tourism partners and community contributors.

Results

Five interconnected narrative experiences

Seven-year creative partnership

Four commissioned tourism experiences

One evolving storyworld promoting Colorado's Mystic San Luis Valley

An approach to destination storytelling that moves beyond information delivery and instead invites visitors to become participants inside the story itself.

https://travelstorys.com/tours/the-frozen-divide

VISIBLE REALMS (2024-2025)

Developing storyworld IP for Roblox-first audiences

As younger audiences increasingly discover and inhabit story through interactive platforms, the boundaries between games, social spaces and narrative worlds continue to blur. Platforms such as Roblox have evolved into complex ecosystems where storytelling unfolds not just through plot, but through participation, play and shared community experience.

In 2024 & 2025, storycentral collaborated with Visible Realms to explore the development of original storyworld IP designed specifically for Roblox-first audiences. The work focused on creating narrative frameworks capable of supporting interactive gameplay, character-driven experiences and expanding digital environments.

Rather than adapting traditional storytelling structures, the development process centred on designing worlds that could grow organically within a player-led environment. This included establishing the mythology, character dynamics, environmental storytelling and thematic foundations required for worlds that players could enter, explore and influence.

The aim was to create narrative ecosystems that feel native to the platform while retaining the depth and coherence required for long-form storytelling. By approaching Roblox not simply as a game environment but as a social narrative space, the project explored how storyworld IP can evolve alongside the communities that inhabit it.

The result was a set of foundational narrative frameworks designed to support future interactive experiences and audience-led storytelling within emerging digital worlds.

PEEL SPEAKERS & ENRICHMENT

Designing narrative-led enrichment programmes for global cruise audiences

Cruise voyages offer a unique storytelling environment: extended journeys where audiences gather not only for destinations, but for discovery, learning and shared cultural experience.

Working alongside Peel Entertainment’s Speakers & Enrichment division, storycentral supported the development of a clearer narrative identity for their enrichment programming across international cruise itineraries. The work focused on shaping the brand story behind the division while designing themed intellectual journeys that unfold across the course of a voyage.

Rather than treating guest speakers as standalone events, the approach reframed enrichment as a cohesive narrative experience. Themed programming packages were developed to align with specific routes and audience interests, bringing together experts, storytellers and cultural voices around shared themes.

The result was a framework for enrichment programming that places storytelling, curiosity and intellectual discovery at the centre of the cruise experience — transforming time at sea into an evolving cultural journey.

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON : STORY & EXPERIENCE DESIGN (2023)

Storytelling & Experience Design for the new Children’s Gallery (opening 2027)

In 2023, storycentralLABS was invited to work with the Natural History Museum’s internal teams at a pivotal moment: the transformation of one of Alfred Waterhouse’s historic galleries into a new object-rich, immersive Children’s Gallery designed for 4–7 year olds and the adults in their lives.

With the largest family audience of any UK museum, the Museum holds a rare responsibility - to nurture the next generation of advocates for the planet. The forthcoming gallery (opening 2027) will replace the existing Creepy Crawlies space and reimagine how children encounter the natural world through play, curiosity and emotional connection.

storycentralLABS designed and led Storytelling & Experience Design, bringing together cross-disciplinary internal teams to explore how narrative structure and audience psychology can shape physical space.

They focused on three core areas:

• Story fundamentals
• Archetypes & universal desires
• Emotional & experience arcs

Through round-table discussions and breakout prototyping, the team explored how interactives and real objects could work in harmony: from helping children design a menu for a hungry dinosaur, to learning “hello” in seven animal languages, to encouraging kindness toward creatures often misunderstood.

The ambition of Wild Lives is not simply education. It is reconnection - inviting children to see animals not as exhibits, but as relatives within a shared ecosystem.

Our role was to help ensure that the storytelling spine of the gallery supports its strategic aim: creating emotional engagement strong enough to inspire lasting advocacy.

ANNA AND THE BELL : DEVELOPING A MODERN FAMILY FANTASY (2021)

Script consultancy for live-action feature (in development)

Anna and the Bell is a live-action family fantasy feature following twelve-year-old Anna, who discovers a magical bell capable of opening a doorway to a hidden world of fading Christmas folk. What begins as wonder quickly becomes urgency, as Anna - alongside the last true believer - must protect this fragile realm from a force that steals memory itself, while searching for her mother, lost between realities.

Created and written by Thomas Barthelmeus and produced by Henning Windelband and Tim Levy (Resonant Blue Studios), the project balances classic seasonal magic with deeper emotional stakes - grief, belief, and the power of memory.

storycentral joined the development process as script consultant, focusing on narrative structure, character arcs and tonal consistency across the two intertwined worlds. Particular attention was given to ensuring the emotional spine of the story - Anna’s search for her mother - grounded the fantastical elements, allowing spectacle and heart to move in step.

Family fantasy occupies a delicate space: it must honour tradition while offering something culturally fresh. Our work centred on clarifying the mythology, strengthening narrative propulsion and ensuring the magical world felt both cinematic and thematically resonant.

Anna and the Bell remains in development. https://www.youngfilms.de/anna-saves-christmas/

The Adept : Reimagining Wuxia for a New Generation (2022)

The first of 5 interconnected comic/graphic novel franchises.

For many outside Asia, wuxia might conjure images of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: lyrical martial arts, gravity-defying movement, honour-bound warriors. But at its heart, wuxia is far richer - steeped in the traditions of jiānghú 江湖 and wǔlín 武林, the cultural and moral universe in which martial heroes live, fight and define themselves.

The first issue follows a young Chinese-American woman who embarks on a journey to master a lost Shaolin martial tradition. What begins as physical training unfolds into something deeper - a story of identity, homecoming and personal redemption. Action and transformation drive the narrative, but at its core lies a universal question: what does it mean to reclaim a legacy that history — and perhaps family — has left behind?

In 2022, storycentral worked alongside Immortal Studios as story and development consultants on The Adept, exploring how this ancient genre could travel across cultures without losing its integrity. Our focus was on narrative structure, character depth and the foundations required for an interconnected wuxia content universe designed to extend beyond a single title.

Reimagining a genre with centuries of history requires both reverence and boldness. The Adept seeks to do both - honouring tradition while building a modern, expansive mythology fit for a new generation of readers.

THE SMURFS : NEW TV SERIES (2021)

Blue and small, and standing only three apples tall - 52 episode animated TV series

When the show was announced by Peyo Productions in 2017, it took a year before its European broadcasters were announced: Ketnet (Flanders), TF1 (France), KiKA (Germany and La Trois (Wallonia). In 2020 broadcast rights were picked up by the American entertainment brand Nickelodeon but the airing agreement does not extend to the original 1980s Smurfs series (which continues to be distributed by Warner Bros in North America).

The original series marks the return of the globally renowned characters to television for the first time in nearly 40 years and follows Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Brainy, Hefty, Clumsy and the other inhabitants of Smurf Village on all-new adventures, packed with humor, heart and high-stakes action. In the premiere episode, “Smurf-Fu,” when Smurfette rescues Brainy from a giant snake, the other Smurfs ask her to teach them “Smurf-Fu.” Next in, “Diaper Daddy,” when everyone is tired of changing Baby’s diapers, Handy decides to invent a robot that will do the job. So when KiKA asked us to run an animation workshop using The Smurfs, we worked with them on a deep-dive to look at the tribe of fabulous new female characters and how to reboot our old favourites, Papa Smurf, Brainy, Clumsy and the others, for a 2021 audience who are used to finding and consuming content online and in more agile, speedy ways.

Sea of Thieves: The Quest for the Golden Bananas

Global Treasure Hunt : London & Berlin production

To launch the new multiplayer game "Sea Of Thieves," we worked with No Mimes Media and their client Microsoft, XBox, Rare Studios and Edelman UK to create "The Quest For The Golden Bananas."
A globe-spanning treasure hunt, "The Quest" challenged pirate crews to solve a series of fiendish riddles and uncover the hidden location of a valuable treasure. To do so, players were sent to hidden sites online and real-world locations to dig up the answers. In the end, one victorious crew snared the ultimate prize — $100,000 in real, gold-plated bananas. We produced the London and Berlin elements which placed clues at Piccadilly Circus and on the Oberbaum Bridge in Berlin. We also produced and directed the ‘making of the golden bananas’ films at Hatton Garden goldsmiths, Smith & Harris.

Dark Detour

Multi-platform Horror Anthology

Dark Detour is a storycentral (Alison Norrington) and NoMimes Media (Steve Peters) Halloween horror anthology series told in real-time through social media and more. Happening every year in the days leading up to Halloween night, you’ll virtually travel in real-time with our hapless victims as they descend deeper and deeper into a place from which there seems no escape.

• For more info on the experience, check out the site.

FINDHER : Swipe left to find the right match

Web Series in partnership with BigChild, Traumhaus Studios and MDR Sputnik

On his 29th birthday, TIM (François Goeske) is left by his long-time girlfriend ANNA (Lucie Hollmann) and, prompted by his brother, BEN joins an online dating site to try and find the love of his life.

But will he find her? Will Tim find the love of his life?

A 26 episode YouTube series, with ancillary stories on Instagram (@findherdiewebserie), storycentral wrote the 'stories behind the stories' and the entire social media strategy and narrative..

A co-production of bigchild https://www.bigchild.de/ and Traumhaus Studios GmbH http://traumhaus-studios.de together with MDR Sputnik https://www.instagram.com/mdrsputnik/....

The project was developed with the support of Fernsehen aus Thüringen http://www.fat-tv.de/ 2016, a production initiative of the Thüringer Staatskanzlei and the Stiftung für Technologie, Innovation und Forschung Thüringen, carried out by the Förderverein Deutscher Kinderfilm e.V. (Association for the Promotion of German Children's Film).

The Launch : Finding Your Voice

Communications & Oracy Educational Experience

Like us, do you believe it’s time to rethink the way students learn in our out-of-date education system? Are you frustrated by the lack of soft skills focus in our national curriculum? Is oracy a priority in your school development plan? At Finding your Voice, we are very excited to be introducing our state-of-the-art, cutting-edge verbal communications programme - one which seeks to revolutionise the way schools think about how their students learn best.

Our school package gives schools and colleges a low-cost, high-quality way of bringing oracy teaching and learning back to the forefront of their English or PSHE curriculum. Delivered over twelve chapters, students are taught everything from the art of a handshake to how to deliver presentations to large audiences under pressure. Finding your Voice is non-selective and ensures that every young person who journeys through the programme will become more confident, articulate and ultimately, employable. This is about giving every young person in the country the very best chances of success for the future, and when it matters most. Coming across well in the most pressurised of situations can be the difference between success and not, in some cases drastically shifting the trajectory of their career path.

Learn more at https://www.findingyourvoice.co.uk