Jools Moore interviews LocoMatrix’s Richard Vahrman
Jools Moore: I hear you have a new game in development – what’s it all about?
Richard Vahrman: Finding and defusing bombs – it’s 24 meets geocaching meets The Hurt Locker. And it’s all against the clock.
JM: Interesting – how’s it played?
RV: The game is in 3 parts. One – using a map, find the area in which a bombs been hidden. Two – using orienteering, find the exact location of the bomb. Three – defuse the bomb but remember, it’s ticking, so if you’re not quick, you will be blown up.
JM: And that’s it?
RV: Not quite, once you’ve done this, you have to find all the other bombs.
JM: Sound’s exhausting – so where did the idea come from?
RV: We had been playing around with ideas based on a traditional treasure hunt (which incidentally was LocoMatrix’s second game). And watching people play (particularly adults), I was aware that there didn’t seem any urgency in reaching a target, so I was keen on doing something where you had to move quickly, or else you lost. Inherently, I am not too keen on games that have things blowing up, but a ticking bomb is a really good motivator!
JM: And I guess it makes an ideal team game; is that what you intended?
RV: Exactly, we are thinking up to 4 teams of 3 to 4 people. But we also wanted to factor in some elements that meant the fasted team wouldn’t necessarily be the winners. Strategy would come in too, and one of the ideas was that if a bomb explodes, teams in the blast zone are handicapped, but teams outside the zone can run to collect the bomb fragments which are also worth points – so you might get more points for not getting there first.
JM: It sounds as though this would make a great game for team-building companies.
RV: Yes, this was another of our considerations. A game where real teamwork would play a part – you have to decide which bombs to go for – which route to take you there – so many possibilities.
JM: And actually defusing the bomb?
RV: This depends a little on how the game is set up and who exactly we build it for. In general, like all good bombs (and incidentally why do all bombs have a numeric counter – if I made a bomb, this is the one bit I would leave out!), you remove the cover and then have to cut coloured wires in sequence. So in our game this may be done by correctly identifying the make and model of the bomb, either from a “book” or maybe communicating with a control room. But as a school’s game, the colours could be linked in with multiple choice revision questions.
JM: You mention a control room.
RV: Again, this is a variation of the game where a part of the team could be back at a base directing the operations and providing info on how best to proceed and what the other teams are up to.
JM: And is the game available now?
RV: Not yet, we are looking for sponsors to provide the wherewithal to carry out the coding. This may either be a school or schools, or could be a team-building company looking for something new. We tried an experiment using Indiegogo, a crowd-funding web site, but there seems little enthusiasm to fund games – this may change in future.
JM: But you have produced an excellent short animation which gives an idea of what it’s all about.
RV: Indeed – it was produced by Andy Etter who is our lead designer and the game itself will have the same retrp “public information film” look and feel to it. Have a peek.