Mudlark’s strapline, “making life playable”, sums up the philosophy of a business dedicated to bringing digital games off the screen and straight into the real world.
The company, based in Birmingham’s digital quarter of Digbeth, is the result of joint venture between artists, a television company and digital business, bringing the expertise of all three to bear on its output.
Mudlark’s latest project is Chromaroma, an online game for the real world. It allows people to play as they commute and travel around cities, using smart cards and urban mass transit systems as a currency.
Mudlark’s managing director Toby Barnes said: “It’s something we’re developing with Transport for London and Channel 4. Players use mobile devices as they move around London, picking up points for visiting stations and for exploring parts of the city. Although it is still in the development stage, Chromaroma is already attracting interest from mass transit companies in other major cities across the world.”
Chromaroma is a natural stride forward froom other real-life games that Mudlark has developed. For example Heartlands uses GPS tracking and a heart rate monitor to help people keep fit by walking. If a player’s heart rate gets too low or too high the landscape on the mobile phone turns from flowers to an arid desert or wild forest. Heartlanders can view the journeys other players have made on their mobiles and score bonus points by following rival’s paths, stealing territories and by collecting objects and messages left for them in the game.
Meanwhile Love City is another an SMS mobile and web game set simultaneously in the Midlands and virtual world. The game follows movements in the real world and translates them into the virtual world of Love City – so a player in a Midlands station is also represented at a virtual station, and can score points by sending messages to other players nearby.
Toby Barnes added: “We are a true joint venture in a real sense. We’ve brought artistic sensibilities to bear on television’s understanding of how to communicate with mass audiences and the interactivity of artificial intelligence. Our idea has been to bring the idea of play into enjoyment and learning.”
For more information on Mudlark, visit www.wearemudlark.com