Nihal Tharoor and co-founder Benedict Tatham launched the homicide thriller recreation ‘Dead Man’s Phone‘ worldwide, throughout iOS and Android platforms, this week after registering over 200,000 downloads even in a pre-launch beta model since final yr.
Within the recreation, designed as an interactive crime drama, the participant turns into the lead character within the story and units about piecing collectively clues to unravel the fictional homicide of a London teenager Jerome Jacobs, pushed from a balcony and located useless holding his telephone – the central function within the crime-solving journey.
“The idea takes benefit of smartphones to have interaction the participant in an thrilling new type of storytelling. Our telephones are a microcosm of our lives and we’re all intimately acquainted with use them. They’re the proper location to inform deep interactive tales,” explains Tharoor.
On their telephone, the participant may have a information app that studies on who they arrest, a maps app the place they’ll observe the dwell location of suspects, a social media app the place they’ll launch a viral marketing campaign and even a Zoom app to conduct distant police interviews.
And, if the drama feels real looking, it’s as a result of the creators turned to former Metropolitan Police detective sergeant and murder investigator Sim Cryer as advisor and likewise one of many actors within the crime drama.
“So, we might usher in these real articles on the Met Police and the way homicide detective work is performed within the UK,” says Tharoor, who hopes to set off a complete new development with this idea and appeal to non-gamers to the fold by tapping into the recognition of dramas more and more being accessed by on-line streaming platforms.
The concept of telling an interactive story completely by a personality’s smartphone was born in 2017, when each Tharoor and Tatham have been working at high advertising corporations.
They took the leap to experiment in a complete new enviornment and based Electrical Noir Studios in London.
“Ben and I had zero video games trade expertise once we based our firm,” remembers Tharoor.
Now over three years later, Season 1 with six episodes of ‘Useless Man’s Telephone’ has bagged the BAFTA Cell Sport of the Yr Nomination and an official choice on the London Video games Pageant 2021.
Reviewers have been impressed with the revolutionary and immersive format and organisations have additionally been drawn to the way in which the sport tackles delicate topics round gang violence, racism and racial profiling.
The duo behind the favored recreation is already engaged on Season 2 as a part of a wider plan to convey the narrative high quality of a TV drama into particular person arms.
