West Seattle based Monster Costume, a software development company the West Seattle Herald first told you about last August is living up to it's name by growing larger, gaining prominent clients and launching products that they believe will change the way stories are told.

Headed by Kyle Kinkade, this highly unconventional company had early success with a children's offering for the iPad called Bartleby's Book of Buttons Vol. 1 The Faraway Island which offered a puzzle laden, interactive story, that utilized much of the functionality an iPad can offer. It became the top seller in its category and to date is the highest grossing children's "book" title for the platform according to Kinkade. "We've had a lot of accolades for that title," Kinkade continued, " We've been talked about on USA Today, AOL, and Children's Technology Review," winning the Editor's Choice award for iPad.

At the time of that launch the company was five people and announced that they were looking for people to meet their primary qualification for employment. To be a genius.

They found them. Monster Costume has doubled in size to ten full time employees plus two interns and are still looking for more.

This rocket propelled growth is driven by their skills and success of course but also by the phenomenal sales record of the iPad itself. Apple announced on March, 2, that more than 15 million have been sold, during the presentation of the next generation of the revolutionary device.

They have also drawn the attention of some very well known entertainment companies, seeking to tap their skill set in creating tablet based versions of well known characters in stories. They are looking at "bringing old family classics back."

But before those deals get off the ground the firm is launching Bartleby's Book of Buttons Vol. 2 -The button at the bottom of the sea. which Kinkade describes as "substantially longer, more action oriented, with villains and supporting characters. It has a real narrative."

They took a long look at their first effort and instead of doing a similar version they chose to attempt something much more audacious. "We want to run a business that revolutionizes the way people and children read," Kinkade said.

To that end Kinkade and company chose to abandon the conventional linear story telling format based on the idea of "pages" which he likens to "putting wooden landing gear on an airplane (...) You can still scrub through the storyline in the regular way but it's more movie like in a way (...) what we're focusing on is, 'How can we take the best of story presentation from media like movies and interactive video games and present it in an otherwise static format?"
They believe they have achieved it. "The storyline is linear, parallel and arcing back," said Kinkade," We have the concept of parallel timelines and were able to let the user view those timelines now."

That product will be available on the iTunes store by mid-May.

Monster Costume is also working on another product that's less reader and more creator oriented. The process of creating this latest chapter in the Bartleby story forced them to go about programming in new ways. It became clear that what they were building was what they call a "story engine", a software architecture that would permit other story tellers and developers to license the tool to create their own interactive tablet computer based stories.

But remarkably enough, the company wants to keep it very local at first, and is literally restricting initial distribution of the 'beta' or first version of the engine to people in West Seattle and sometime thereafter greater Seattle. That version will be available in April with a public version available by the "end of summer."

"We're going to offer content creators the option of going with conventional publishers who move very slowly, or to publish with us and do it faster, cheaper and better," Kinkade said.

You can contact Monster Costume via email at jobs@monstercostu.me