Booh!
THE SCARIEST, SWEETEST STORYTELLING APP YOU NEVER GOT TO TRY 👻📖
Before Fauns was even Fauns, before we were an animation powerhouse with render farms and a pipeline that actually worked, there was Booh!—our very first in-house project, back in 2014.
And, like all first projects, it was ambitious, full of heart, and slightly ahead of its time (or maybe just badly timed, but we’ll get to that).
So what was it?
An iPad app for kids and parents that turned bedtime stories into interactive, living experiences. The idea was simple but powerful:
📖 Let kids and parents create their own storytelling moments
🎭 Give them choices—scary story or cozy adventure?
🎨 Immerse them in stunning original illustrations & animations
🎤 Record parents’ voices, so kids could listen to their favorite stories anytime
It was an app built to be beautiful, intuitive, and, most importantly, impossible for a toddler to break.
We knew kids would tap, swipe, and generally do everything they shouldn’t, so we designed a system where no accidental swipes would ruin the flow.
The stories adapted, animations were triggered at just the right moments, and everything felt like a seamless, magical experience. 💅🏼
And we weren’t messing around with the talent either:
🎨 Art direction & illustration by Alexandra Ausenda, who has since gone on to become Senior Art Director at Old Skull Games (SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit anyone?). She crafted the whole visual world, a blend of playful, spooky, and timeless.
🎵 Music composed & orchestrated by Mathieu Alvado, an insanely talented composer whose latest work can be heard in the brand-new Empire of the Ants video game. He brought full orchestration and depth to what could have been “just a kids’ app.” Instead, it felt cinematic, immersive, and genuinely transportive.
✍️ Concept & UX design by yours truly. I designed the storytelling screens, the user flow, and the logic of the interactions—with Alexandra making sure I didn’t break the visual harmony while doing it.
SO, WHERE’S MY BOOH! APP?
Ah. Yes. That part.
Here’s what happened: We built the app. It worked. It was gorgeous, intuitive, and genuinely fun. We had a clear audience—young parents with kids aged 3-6. We had strong tech, elegant UX, and a great team. 🫶🏼
What we didn’t have? A marketing strategy.
We were so focused on making the app great that we forgot the brutal reality of the App Store in 2014. We were up against giant corporations, free-to-play nightmares, and games with entire teams dedicated just to making sure kids clicked on in-app purchases.
We didn’t have that. We had art, music, and a great concept. And, well, that doesn’t always win in the mobile space. 🤷🏽
The hard truth?
We arrived too late to a market already overrun with hyper-commercialized, algorithm-optimized content. And we had no idea how to sell it.
BUT, WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
Oh, so much.
1️⃣ Great ideas aren’t enough. The execution was beautiful, but we underestimated the marketing side completely.
2️⃣ Timing is everything. If we had launched two years earlier, maybe we’d have had a shot. By 2014, the kids’ app space was a bloodbath.
3️⃣ Respect for the craft matters. Despite the commercial failure, we still look at Booh! with pride—because we made something thoughtful, elegant, and meaningful.
WORTH IT?
ABSOLUTELY.
Even though Booh! never became the household name we imagined, it taught us how to build, iterate, and, most importantly, how to recover from a misfire.
It laid the foundation for how we approached storytelling, design, and UX in everything we built afterward.
And for a brief, fleeting moment, some kids got to listen to their parents’ voices telling them bedtime stories, anytime, anywhere.
And honestly?
That’s still pretty damn cool. 👻📖✨
📖 As Creator & UX Designer, I developed this interactive storytelling app for kids, crafting an intuitive UX, a library of spooky & heartwarming tales, and a unique voice-recording feature.
🧹 Archived