The concept of a future city where you (the user) would be picking up engineers (in your car) and delivering them to where they worked, felt like a simple and understandable game logic (which users would understand very quickly) that would also allow us to indirectly tell multiple real-world stories about who these engineers are and continually enforce (without becoming annoying) that engineers have really exciting jobs and aren’t just men in white coats!

Our original prototype had given us a platform from which we could build upon, but we still had a lot of creative and technical hurdles. We worked closely with the Science Museum to continue our Agile development that included multiple user-testing days with a teen audience, in situ at the museum for public testing and electronic hardware load and balance testing for an environment where it’s audience love to press every button as fast as they can to see what happens! The production process involves design and animation, rapid-prototyping using 3D-printing, game design and logic, motors, electronics, projection mapping, and mobile integration.

The platform for Futureville was designed with learning in mind; it acts on one level as a communal multi-player game, but integrates the profiles of the real-world engineers for visitors to learn about at the exhibition but also at home as the whole experience is played out on their own smartphone. Feedback has been tremendous, it’s the most popular work from an engagement metric at the exhibition and has generated the most intrigue as visually it’s so striking, visitors wander around it trying to work out how the digital and mechanical set is working. Inspiring our young audience was central to the success of this permanent piece and we’re now in discussion to develop a duplicate piece that can be toured around the world which is a great final outcome.