Apple patent turns in-game choices into a customized comic book
In 2009, Apple filed a patent to transfer players' unique video game story paths, choices and customized characters to book form, available automatically after the game was finished as an e-book, book or graphic novel. The USPTO granted Apple that patent today and made it public, complete with scores of Mass Effect-themed mock-ups demonstrating how the system would work.
Today, we can see this program working well with a narrative-driven game such as Telltale's The Walking Dead: At the end of each episode, Apple's system would spit out a single-issue comic populated with each player's individual choices, dialogue trees and screenshots, shown directly on the console or PC and transferrable to tablets or other mobile devices. It's the circle of undead life, according to The Walking Dead – comic to game and back to comic, with some other lucrative multimedia stops along the way.
Of course there's no telling if Apple is still interested in its patent, or how it would implement the system if it were. It could, however, prove a nice fit for those iPads people seem so fond of.
