Museums at Night can now be accessed 365 days a year thanks to ground breaking project by Red Herring Games and the National Fishing Heritage Centre from Grimsby.
This week saw the culmination of their 2014 May project, which began with a custom written murder mystery at the museum, and has concluded with an interactive on-line murder mystery game produced with the help of 360 degree technology.
The new interactive murder mystery game is free to play, and has been created with the help of two other local companies: Chris Lynn, of Chris Lynn Photography who has been creating virtual tours for Google street view, and Alex McCranor of Workimage who produced all the video footage required.
“We wanted to create something lasting from our involvement with the National Museums at Night Project in 2014” Jo Smedley, Managing Director of Red Herring Games said. “We were asked by the National Fishing Heritage centre to produce a themed murder mystery for their space last year, but we wanted to give them something that had a longer duration impact, and this interactive on-line game does that.”
With no public money available to fund the project, Red Herring Games turned to local sponsors and their fellow #SBS winners to help towards the project costs.
“We could never have achieved this without help” Jo Smedley said. “And we were really pleased with the response to our request for sponsors last year. Some of the donations came from local businesses, some were fellow #SBS winners, and we even had a few donations from our customers who wanted to help the project along.”
The footage from this unique game also piqued the interest of Estuary TV.
“We thought it would be a really interesting idea for the channel.” said Lia Nici, Producer at Estuary TV, “And we’ve worked with Jo and her team to turn the on-line game into an episodic version for television broadcast.”
The TV version of the game is set to air later this year, but for now the public are encouraged to make the most of the experience on-line.
The game takes the form of an interactive tour of the National Fishing Heritage Centre, but with a difference. Around the museum there are eleven suspects and a series of clues to investigate. Players can interact with the suspects who will provide witness statements and answer set questions, and inspect the clues within the building in more detail. The solution is hidden within the game, and players must find the firm’s mascot Sherlock (a Red Herring) if they want to find out “who dunnit”.
Pleased with the success of last year’s event, N.E. Lincs council are looking to run a similar event this year. Work has already begun on the new experience which will be titled “Death in the Library” and will take place in Grimsby Central Library as part of the Museums at Night celebration in May.
You can play the game yourself here:
As well as just generally being good fun – this interactive on-line game has fantastic applications for education.
Prompting investigative thinking, cognitive reasoning and observation. Children can take notes, listen to suspects, review evidence and write creatively about the investigation.
A comprehensive educational support resource is available for this interactive murder mystery game free at TESResources
