Microsoft is bringing Chorion's online interactive storytelling application Time for a Story into the family of services offered to the 17 million-plus U.K. users of Windows Live Messenger. Microsoft has signed a long-term distribution license with Chorion for exclusive use of the application. Chorion owns the rights to characters like Noddy, Mr. Men and Paddington Bear.
Time for a Story is an interactive "virtual storytelling experience" that connects two different PCs through an interactive, animated story featuring familiar, much-loved characters that can be enjoyed in real time in two different locations. The new tool launches today with three classic Noddy stories. Tales featuring other classic characters are expected to follow in the coming months.
The application, which is wholly owned by Chorion, was developed by the company and online creative agency Digital Outlook, which was also responsible for the Revolution-award winning MR. MEN SHOW website.
This Time for a Story application is just one of a number of Chorion initiatives to start of a year of celebrations for Noddy's 60th anniversary. This week, the company announced that Enid Blyton's granddaughter Sophie Smallwood is writing a new contemporary-classic style Noddy picture book called NODDY'S BIRTHDAY SURPRISE (working title).
The book will be in the style of the original Noddy book and will be released in November 2009, Noddy's official 60th birthday. It will be illustrated by Robert Tyndall, a prominent Noddy illustrator since 1953.
Robert Tyndall's classic drawings also feature in a new Noddy exhibition at The Animation Gallery that launched earlier this week.
