VHS Story is an interactive story generator where the user is the protagonist: you upload your photo, make choices, and your avatar transforms based on where the plot goes. I entered it in the Cloudinary CloudCreate: Spooky AI Hackathon and it placed among the top 10 finalists out of 140+ projects.
The idea
Most interactive stories change the text based on your choices. I wanted it to change the image: for you, inside the story, to visually transform based on what you pick. That twist — the user turned into a character who mutates with the narrative — was the heart of the project.
What I built
- Branching narrative where each decision affects both the events and the protagonist's appearance.
- Real-time visual transformation with Cloudinary, applying effects and AI to the user's photo per scene.
- A VHS/retro aesthetic that evokes the visual stories of the '80s and '90s and reinforces immersion.
- Built with React and Next.js.
The technical challenge
The trick was manipulating the user's image dynamically and believably in every scene, without friction. Leaning on Cloudinary's transformations let me generate those variations on the fly, instead of preparing images by hand, and kept the experience smooth.
Results
- Finalist (top 10) in the Cloudinary Hackathon among 140+ projects.
- A proof of concept for combining AI and image transformation to create personalized, memorable experiences.
Project link: vhs-story.vercel.app