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National Museums Liverpool Blog - Cargo-a-go-go - the development of the game

 Friday, June 18, 2010

Cargo-a-go-go - the development of the game


Friday 18 June 10

cartoon graphic of a seagull and a docker from the Cargo-a-go-go game

A very unusual thing happened during the development of Cargo-a-go-go, the fun new game on the Merseyside Maritime Museum's website. I was involved in the development of the game and had tested it thoroughly during this process, so when it was first launched my score was  right at the top of the leaderboard. This doesn't happen to me very often so I was very tempted not to tell anyone else about the game.

The word is out now though and thousands of people have now played Cargo-a-go-go, knocking me of the top spot in the process. Of all those people, I did wonder how many actually realised that the game has its roots firmly in Liverpool's maritime history, thanks to some very thorough research.

You can now read all about the development of the game on our website. The process started when the web team at National Museums Liverpool produced a thorough brief and an initial concept sketch for the game. Thankfully the game's developers, Glow, produced some much better graphics, thanks to some detective work of their own.

On a recce to the Albert Dock, technical director Thom Shannon found inspiration for one of the key elements for the game right outside the Merseyside Maritime Museum when he spotted an original wheeled crane on the quayside. You can see the full set of Thom's photos of the crane on Flickr.

Based on this information and examples of cargo ships from the era, provided by the museum's curator of maritime history, the artist Sophie Green produced an initial illustration which the game's graphics were based on.

If you haven't seen Cargo-a-go-go yet then why not have a play - it is Friday afternoon after all. If anyone asks, you're learning about Liverpool's heritage!


Posted by Sam | 18/06/2010 12:12   | Comments [0]

Posted in: merseyside maritime museum
Tagged with: game | maritime history

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