Technical Implementation Guide for iQIYI Interactive Drama

Interactive drama enables viewers to intervene in a video’s storyline, offering multiple branches and endings. In June, iQIYI launched China’s first domestic interactive drama “His Smile,” sparking a technical deep‑dive into how interactive video is built.

The medium follows two main design directions: (1) branching narratives with many possible endings, where viewers choose plot nodes via on‑screen controls; (2) immersive narrative experiences that let viewers solve puzzles or manipulate mechanisms while watching.

iQIYI’s interactive drama emphasizes three keywords: immersion, exploration, and empathy. The goal is to let audiences feel they are part of the story, actively explore plot twists, and emotionally connect with characters.

Design Elements

1. Bridge : A large story segment (often a scene or act) that contains multiple interactive scenes.

2. Scene : The smallest unit that provides a complete interactive experience, including visual elements, input, and output.

3. Interaction : Consists of input (how the audience participates) and output (feedback shown to the audience). Interactions must be paired with elements to form a scene.

4. Element : A control or behavior that carries the interaction; audiences trigger input on an element and receive an output.

Core Modules

• Initialization Management Module : Calls interfaces of other modules to complete the full workflow from interactive data acquisition to video playback.

• Interaction Management Module : Core business module that handles interaction display logic, command processing, and linked‑playback of interactive segments.

• Interactive Component Management Module : Uses a scripting language and platform‑specific rules to bridge protocols, dynamically create components, and listen to audience actions.

• Storyline Management Module : Draws and displays linear or tree‑shaped storylines and manages audience operations on them.

Additional supporting modules include version control, data statistics, script management, and playback records, ensuring stability and smooth operation.

Workflow Overview

1. When an entry point launches the interactive player, it passes video ID, album ID, and three fields that indicate interactive capabilities.

2. The player receives this information, starts initialization, and checks whether the interactive switch and cloud control are enabled.

3. The player downloads, decrypts, and parses the script addressed by the version‑control system.

4. For branching narratives, the player queries the backend for playback history to decide whether to start from the entry segment or resume from a saved point.

5. The Interaction Management Module continuously queries the script manager for the next interaction interval, the next video segment after the current one, and passes the relevant assets to the component manager.

6. When an interactive component appears, the Interaction Management Module listens for audience actions (clicks, time‑outs, etc.) and forwards events such as video‑switch commands or component removal.

7. If a storyline is displayed, the system determines whether the storyline is linear or tree‑shaped, requests the appropriate data, renders the storyline, and handles user actions like closing the storyline or jumping to a specific node, which may trigger a video‑segment switch.

Technical Architecture

The overall interactive video platform (IVP) consists of three layers: the front‑end editing and script authoring tool (IVT), the back‑end interactive video service (IVS), and the interactive video engine (IVE). IVT is tightly integrated with iQIYI’s video ingestion system, while IVS provides APIs for script management, version control, and data storage. IVE executes the scripts on iOS and Android platforms, handling player control, custom events, and a communication bridge.

The framework separates UI from interaction logic, encapsulates business logic, script handling, network requests, and data storage into independent modules, and uses a DSL to describe layouts and combine basic protocols (player control, custom events, communication bridge).

Current Status and Outlook

iQIYI’s interactive video framework has been applied to several popular titles such as “His Smile,” “Life Is My Hand 2,” “The Band’s Summer,” “Limited Memory,” “Youth With You,” and “The Rap of China.” It supports branching narratives, information‑exploration interactions, and multi‑view experiences, with both linear and tree‑shaped storylines.

Future development will focus on two dimensions:

1. Platformization : Providing a self‑service Interactive Video Platform (IVP) that lets content creators add interactive components, debug, and preview effects.

2. Standardization : Publishing the Interactive Video Guideline (IVG) to define production, publishing, and platform usage standards, reducing creation cost and improving efficiency.

iQIYI plans to continue expanding the platform’s capabilities, standardizing interactive video technology, and integrating interactive elements deeper into the video production pipeline.