Pervasive Media Studio alumni SlingShot have a long-running and tumultuous love affair with technology. From the early iglabs played in the Studio with Mscapes (ask your gran), to the super-sensor-driven Tweeture, the Slingshot team have fine pedigree in playing with gadgets and gizmos. In the last few years, they have achieved immense success with their street games. 2.8 Hours Later has become a huge breakaway hit and yet uses very little integrated technology. A game world in which you run for your life, pursued by marauding zombies doesn’t necessary lend itself to tapping away at your phone or being alert to the triggering of sensors.

In September last year Simon Johnson joined us ahead of Igfest to talk about 2.8 and ‘ the difficult second album.’ Following on from this Simon Evans joined us last Friday to talk about some new and recent projects that reach deep into the pervasive media toolkit, from bio-sensing to robot spider cars, as they develop the next generation of their games.

2.8 Hours Later

Simon started by giving an overview of 2.8 Hours Later, their mass zombie chase game. He explained that as a company they looked at adding a technological element to 2.8 Hours Later, but after a lot of discussion they decided that it wouldn’t enhance the game. He said that although 2.8 Hours Later doesn’t include any technological aspects within it, the success and popularity of the game is due largely to digital platform. He said that a huge proportion of players find out about 2.8 Hours Later though social media channels and word of mouth. The digital platforms are so valuable because when most people that hear about a ‘zombie chase game’ they might not think it was for them, but by having the game personally recommended to them, they are more willing to give it a go. With 2.8 Hours now successfully touring, they’ve been able to spend some time working on new and exciting projects:

Cargo - the orchid remix

Simon introduced their game; Cargo – the orchid remix, a collaboration between SlingShot and The Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham University, part of the EPSRC funded ORCHID project.  Cargo - the orchid remix pitches you against a system controlled by artificial intelligence that will either help or hinder your progress across the city. You receive instructions, offers and threats through your phone as you try to escape the city, pick up the cargo and make it to the boat. Along the way you have to barter for fake ID and outsmart the crooked cops.

The partnership formed between SlingShot and the Orchid, because the Orchid were working on a wide ranging research program, looking at human/agent partnerships, with a focus on disaster relief. Nottingham University asked SlingShot to create a new game, using some of the technology they have been working on and looking at the philosophical and practical implications of teaming up with robots. As a first step they backed some RFID technology and imported some ideas into Cargo.

Simon explained that it was an incredibly exciting project for SlingShot. Aside from their fascination with thinking machines and artificial intelligence, they had some very practical problems they needed help to solve. They were looking at developing their next 2.8 Hours Later scale game and we had two challenges they had set themselves: they wanted to create a totally new, captivating experience for their fans and push the boundaries of what a street game could be, both in scale and in content.

The Orchid partnership gave SlingShot access to the expertise and technology they required to achieve these two goals. In return, the consortium got access to a test-bed of thousands of players, each in a heightened state, pursuing unusual goals in an unfamiliar environment. Cargo – the orchid remix premiered at Igfest 2012, alongside 2.8 Hours Later and Incitement, developed by Studio Residents Splash and Ripple.

Time Winders

Commissioned by Animated Exeter, Time Winders was SlingShot’s new street game debuting at Animated Exeter's excellent festival during February half-term 2013. Inspired by Philip Reeve's stunning short story, the Exeter Riddles, the game is an engrossing race against the clock to stabilize time and save Exeter from the malevolent forces that are bubbling up through leaks in time and space.

Using a Time Stream Stabilizer, an everyday object augmented by a strange technologist from the future known only to you as ‘Ralph’, you close each time leak through a series of thrilling challenges and immersive games. From racing giant desert vehicles across sun blistered sand dunes to trapping nightmarish monsters in clockwork computers, closing portals in time to firing a laser cannon at bombs spilling over from World War Two, Time Winders is an uncompromising blend of action, adventure and storytelling.

Simon explained that Time Winders was a series of challenges set around multiple locations in Exeter. Using the same RFID technology they developed during Cargo – the orchid remix they were able to massively scale down the amount of staff they needed to be on site during the project, in comparison to say 2.8 Hours Later. Simon explained that it was a really welcome development and something they hope to develop and explore further in the future.  

Jekyll 2.0

The final project that Simon spoke about is their REACT Books&Print Sandbox commission. REACT is supporting eight ground-breaking collaborations between creative economy partners and academic researchers to explore Books and Print as historical, contemporary or future phenomena.

When gothic novels were first written, their pace and content were designed to raise heart beats and send shivers down the spine. SlingShot and Anthony Mandal of Cardiff University are setting out to find the contemporary equivalent to the phantasmagoric form.

Using participants' bio-data to shape the experience, Jekyll 2.0 is a pervasive media adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde – a reclamation of the novel's transgressive power and a reframing of its central themes for the age of the bio-hacker. Simon spoke about challenges of working with this type of technology, and the importance of being flexible when working with new technology.
Simon and Anthony have been blogging throughout Jekyll 2.0 – you can read about their journey here.

You can also find out more about all of these projects and more on SlingShot’s website here.