Straandlooper Animation, the Northern Ireland based production company, has announced what it believes to be a first – namely the introduction of their animated children’s TV series ‘Lifeboat Luke’ as a series of interactive games called ‘Spotisodes’.
The games are available for use on iPhone and iPod touch and will be released weekly on Fridays from this month onwards. The new games give players the opportunity to watch episodes of ‘Lifeboat Luke’ interactively, ‘spotting’ a number of set items that appear throughout the story. If the players select each item and get them all right, they release a password which will unlock exclusive Lifeboat Luke colouring pages online at www.lifeboatluke.tv.
The move to introduce an interactive branch to the ‘Lifeboat Luke’ franchise comes after the launch, in July of 2009, by Apple and Straandlooper Animations of an iPhone application based on the property which was entitled ‘Keek on a Crab’.
2010 is the centenary year of the Lifeboat in the real life town of Donaghadee on the County Down coast in Northern Ireland and since Lifeboat Luke is set in the mad, magical seaside town of Donaghadoo – marking the centenary of the real Lifeboat with the release of the weekly Spotisodes featuring its fictional counterpart seemed like perfect timing.
The featured stories follow the search and rescue adventures of Lifeboat Luke and his crew and introduce young audiences to sea and water safety issues. Made in association with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the charity that saves lives at sea in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, a percentage of all profits go towards helping the volunteer crews of the RNLI.
’Lifeboat Luke’ producer and Straandlooper Animation Managing Director, Richard Morss tells IFTN why this interactive element was initiated: “The change in the way kids consume content coupled with a depressed an over-subscribed TV market for pre-school shows inspired our resident brainiac (and dad of 2 ) Kevin Beimers to come up with this fun way of enriching the TV content for mobile platforms.”
For more information visit www.lifeboatluke.tv.
