Take a look at X.  It’s a graphic novel by Douglas Rushkoff.  You can begin read the first installment online.

The graphic novel works beautifully online.  It’s quite beautiful to look at and navigating through it is a fun and interesting experience. 

You can also order a print version of the installment which includes additional story and   material not found online.  That’s number 4 in Jeff Gomez‘s Eight Principles of Transmedia Narrative which I wrote about a post or two down the page (Content is unique, platform specific and not repurposed).

 There is also an ARG which contains a different part of the narrative.  It begins within the online version of the novel. 

 And that’s not all.  A “cross-platform retail game release, which will include consoles” is planned for later release…which brings us to the three platforms necessary to make a project transmedia, according to Jeff’s principle 3 and also helps this one conform to principle 2, which says rollout to multiple media should be planned early.

The ARG gives us the participatory elements called for in the eighth principle.

The creators promise connection between the stories contained within the different media but also that there will be integration so that the lines between the story elements and the platforms blur.  I think that covers off principle 5, that all the media should be developed within a single vision for the story world.

Down in the comments of that post, Kid Mercury proposes a ninth principle — that monetization for each platform should be unique as it is with X, where the online components appear to be free.  The print and console game portions will each presumably be distributed and sold through separate channels.

For now, go find the ARG inside the graphic novel which charmingly begins with the first words of Zork, one of the very early text-based interactive computer games that you don’t remember because you’re too young.

Or keep reading because SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER, I’m going to tell you how to find it in the next paragraph. 

It’s the next paragraph and I’m telling you, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Go to page 13 of the online graphic novel. Click on a computer screen and start playing.