CATCH SOMETHING: CHANNEL 4’S PROJECT ROUTES
Another development I’ve been keeping an eye on (as it’s being produced with the help of Boing Boing/Offworld friends Alice Taylor and Margaret Robertson) but haven’t yet mentioned is Routes, from UK TV network Channel 4. Ostensibly a half-interactive/half-educational look at the science of DNA and disease, the 8-week project launched smartly with Breeder, a viral campaign to cross-breed and mutate — quasi-Spore style — a creature with other Facebook and MySpace users.
But now it’s gone even more literally viral with Sneeze, a game designed to hammer home the exponential rippling effect that airborne contagious diseases can take. Here it’s played out with something wonderfully akin to Q Entertainment’s Every Extend Extra or k2xl’s Boomshine: you’ve got one sneeze to try and infect a maximum amount of wandering passers-by, whose delayed sneezes then, hopefully, continue to infect everyone across the board.
There’s six more games to go, and they’re just a part of what Routes is offering: the film side is currently following the ongoing story of comedian Katharine Ryan and her battles with lupus, and, underneath it all, alternate reality gaming fanatics unFiction quickly discovered that there may, in fact, be “ARG in these here waters,” and have promptly commenced sniffing out clues where they can find them.
Routes [Channel 4/Wellcome Trust]
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