2011
Title: Fortunes.
Project: Mobile app. game.
Client: mshed.
Role: Game design, copy writing, graphics.
Team: Simon Johnson, Tom Melamed (Calvium)
Role: Game design, copy writing, graphics.
Team: Simon Johnson, Tom Melamed (Calvium)
Slingshot were approached to design and produce an app game to accompany the re-opening of Bristol's Mshed museum after a multi-million pound refurbishment. The brief was to deliver an experience that began at the museum and that used items from of the museum's extensive collection in the presentation of a fun, informative experience. Mshed, like most museums, had identified the demographic gulf in their visitors. People come as children with their parents but as soon as they become independent stop visiting, to return only when they have children of their own. The app was to engage with young adults.
This was the first time the musem had comissioned mobile content and they were cautious. Our firm belief was that the project needed to use the idiom of social media and have an irreverent humour to engage the target demographic - that age group is a tough crowd. The client was concerned about the sensitivities of addressing teenagers with in this way and the demographic re-specified to a 18 to 24 age range.
The Museum is a fabulous celebration of the social and economic life of Bristol through the ages. Working with the museum curators and academics from The University of the West of England we developed a game world set in the period 1833 to 1885. Starting out as a a young and poor journeyman just arrived in Bristol, players explored Bristol's harbourside and adjacent areas to 'collect' items and attributes, whilst avoiding the many pitfalls of a 19th century port city. Their objective: become mayor of Bristol. To do this they needed to cheat and steal, educate themselves, marry well and get elected to the council.
The game interface was a map from 1845, which players moved around as they would a familiar Google map on their phones and fun finding out how the layout of Bristol had changed (not much as it turns out). Items appeared as green or red dots: green for things to collect like abandoned loot, property and an education; red for things to avoid like muggers, drink and prostitutes. Each of these were illustrated by items from the musuem collection. Green items drove the players Respectometer upwards, red down. As their respectability level crossed key thresholds, from Common to Small Time, then to Ambition, new areas of the map opened up for the players to explore and in which to pursue their ambition to be mayor of Bristol.
The app was built using Calvium's authoring platform Appfurnace, then in pre-beta. I am particularly proud of creating a fun, irreverent experience that had young people engage with some of the more obscure items from the museum's collection. Clicking 'more info' took player behind the cheeky interface to a more serious engagement with the history of 19th century Bristol.
