Technology to power a live experience in the heart of London

A few problems we needed to solve:

• 4 teams & 2 actors per game
• No internet access
• Uninterupted gameplay needed
• No edge cases could exist

We decided that different apps on different tablets should be used for actors, and players. This meant the roles didn’t need to be mixed in a single app.

We built a local network for each component to connect to, meaning it didn’t need external ‘internet’ just access to the local WiFi.

Each person is paying £60 to play inside the venue, so there could be no breaks in gameplay. We build complex recovery and ‘tablet swap-out’ methods to always let the game continue.

Users are buying properties via an auctioning, competing on leaderboard and more. So there could be no case a game could be broken, or stuck-in-state.  We identified every possible point of breaking, and protected against them all.

So that’s why we built a system to cater for every edge case, every left-field use case, and instant recovery if the connection drops, tablets run out of power, or any other eventuality you can imagine. The stakes could not be higher; no in-venue tech-based game system = closing the doors to paying customers.

• Different apps
• Local server only
• Multiple recovery modes
• Break it, and break it again

The whole game is powered by a local network that powers the games, runs the auctions, has tablets for the actors and staff, and tablets for the players, all feeding into realtime leaderboards displayed on screens around the venue.

We built it all...