Today was the official launch of our Fortnite island, Storytelling with Music. Our island was created for a project called ‘Textbooks for the metaverse‘ that was funded by Innovate UK. The purpose of the project was to reimagine traditional textbook learning in a 3D immersive world. Investigating the opportunties that the publishing industry has to incorporate their high quality learning content into an exciting and innovating new format.

At the beginning of the project we experimented with a variety of learning content that would appear in a traditional textbook, investigating how it might be implemented in a 3D world. We settled on the concept of a leitmotif. A leitmotif is a recurrent theme in a musical, show, play, film or book that is associated with a particular character, situation or location. The classic example that most people will recognise is the Jaws theme. When you hear just two notes of music, you are instantly reminded of a shark in the water. If you are a fan of musicals then Les Misérables is packed full of leitmotifs that relate to characters and situations throughout the performance, culminating in a harmonious overlay during ‘one day more‘.

Learning about a leitmotif in a textbook will give you the theoretical knowledge you need to define the term and potentially create your own. However, learning about a leitmotif in a 3D world where you can hear different sounds and compose your own live music gives the learner a deeper experience with the content. 

The game Fortnite is PEGI 12. However, the Fortnite platform allows content creators to upload their own islands that can be played by anyone around the world. Each island has its own individual PEGI rating. Storytelling with music is rated PEGI 3.

The learning content in the game is suited to a wide age range of learners depending on the courses that they are studying. It might be something that a year 7 class studying leitmotif’s in English literature would find engaging or Year 10’s studying film, drama, music or game design. Any hobbyist interested in leitmotif’s or Fortnite creative’s music tools (Patchwork devices) would enjoy playing in this island.

To get started we suggest you visit our ‘Storytelling with Music‘ page. This gives you access to the educator pack and all of the information that you need to try this yourself with the young people in your setting.

If you are an educator who has tried the island with a group of young people then please get in touch and let us know how it went. You can also leave a comment in the space below. If you are a publisher who would like to innovate in this space with your own textbook content then do get in touch for a chat about how we can work together.