For ‘the Loop’ we worked with young people of Alt Valley in Liverpool, asking them to reexamine their relationship with the Loop Line cycle track, that runs above and through their area.
We asked young people “If the Loop Line cycle track was a computer game, how would it play?”
Here is a preview of the game they developed.
Click on the buttons below to download the game..
Instructions to install the game
Young people at Norris Green Detached Youth Project worked with Designer Anthony Bennet to design the textures for the computer game characters, taking classic characters like the hulk and Krusty the clown and turning them into sted’ heads, talking dogs, angry teenagers and scary clowns.
Tom and other friends at Rice Lane City Farm, developed the game mechanics and programmed the system. Tom received an award for best computer game at the Liverpool Design Stars Awards in 2009 for his work on ‘The Loop’ game.
When we asked Tom..
How can we make a game that was about encouraging people to make better use of the cycle track?
His response was.
Why not collect an arsenal of stories? Instead of an arsenal of weapons, so you collect peoples stories of the Loop Line and then shoot them back out at other people.
From here we could show Tom and the other young people how to program simulations of peoples behavior on the Loop Line using StarLogo TNG, and created the game around that.
To bring the game to life we collected spoken word narration, which was provided by the people of Alt Valley, many of whom contributed to our short Hula Cam videos of local points of interest.
To find out more abut the research process behind the game, go to the main project blog at..
http://liverpoolloopline.blogspot.com
The Loop was commissioned by The Bluecoat and the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse.
