Just played BBC History’s new online game, ‘CDX‘, via the promo curently on the BBC homepage. It’s a really slick piece of work – an interactive 3D environment in Flash, with the ‘point and click’ style gameplay of old adventure games (which I used to enjoy).
The game is a tie-in to the tv programme ‘Ancient Rome’ (Thursday at 9PM, BBC1), but whilst the cross-promotion in the game works well, the BBC Romans site, which promos the game, doesn’t seem to make the connection – so it took me a while to figure it out. Hopefully, though, the TV show will bear some significance on the game, but I’m not yet quite sure whether this is full ‘360 degree commissioning‘ yet.
The game is episodic, with four episodes promised (I guess a new one will get unlocked each week as a new episode of the tv series gets transmitted). Saving progress works via a unique code, generated and sent to your e-mail address. You make a few binary choices within the game (mostly to decide the sarky-ness of the main character, which is amusing), but I’m not sure how much of an effect these have on the game.
Without giving too much away, it starts with a character, in a room, in a wheelchair, having suffered memory loss (a bit hackneyed, but it’s explained well, and I can see how it aids the story development). There’s some nice touches within the game, including a working(ish) radio, a macbook loaded with web and email clients, and a couple of books full of text-heavy content.
It’s some way off from an alternative reality game, although there is a secret, password-protected blog as part of the story, but works really well as a fairly immersive game and tv tie-in. Am looking forward to episode 2, and will probably watch the tv programme too (which I guess is the aim).
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