Computer students create game for the London Games Festival

BSc Computer Visualisation and Games students took part in this year’s London Games Festival, a week-long cultural celebration of games and interactive entertainment that took place across the capital from 22 October.

On 27 and 28 October, with the help of course leader for BSc Computer Visualisation and Games, Fiona French, a team of students designed a live-in-London public interactive treasure hunt for the London Games Festival, where participants received clues on their mobile phones via SMS.

The game used mobile phone technology previously developed with Gamelab London, an interactive media initiative set up by Martin Wright in the Department of Computing, Communications Technology and Mathematics at London Met, and Genius Telecom.

The treasure hunt started at Embankment Tube Station and went on a rambling route that included the National Gallery and Chinatown, up into Soho, and ended in Marshall Street at Phonica Records' basement venue, the XBox Base Camp for the London Games Festival.

The contestants searched for clues across London, which included statues, plaques, paintings, inscriptions and roads. Players were sent a clue, which they had one chance to answer. When the players solved the clue they were sent the next clue, which included directions, and so the game progressed.

Created by the London Development Agency, and with the full support of the industry, trade bodies (ELSPA and Tiga) and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the London Games Festival provided an exciting week of consumer and trade events in the capital.


12 November 2007