Bow Street Runner
Channel 42008
overview
Five originally scripted episodes
Over two hours of gameplay
World’s first online period drama
awards
BAFTA Winner 2008
Flashforward Winner 2008
BIMA Winner 2008
Learning on Screen Winner 2009
W3 Winner 2009
Davey awards Winner 2009
Bow Street Runner was Littleloud's first project for Channel 4 Education and the broadcaster's first game to win a BAFTA.
Grimy cadavers, gas-lit streets, gin addiction and Georgian Noir – Bow Street Runner offers a clear (if often unsightly) window into 1700′s London.
Our challenge was to create a game that cast players in the role of a member of the titular Bow Street Runners, London’s formative police service, solving a slew of crimes linked in an overarching mystery.
The game uses actors shot in period costume against green screen, composited into detailed 3D sets.
By searching for clues, interrogating witnesses and generally being a smart policeman, you must work out whodunnit in each of the game’s five chapters before presenting your evidence to convince the judge of your deductions at the end of each chapter.
The game broke new ground in delivering an adventure of substantial size online and for free. Produced in conjunction with Georgian experts, Bow Street Runner’s story, detail and gameplay are all authentic, offering players a unique and dramatic insight into a world long lost to time and technology.
“BSR was my first commission at Channel 4, my first with Littleloud, and it won us our first BAFTA, too. Hat trick!”
Alice Taylor, Commissioner Channel 4 Education
“I joined Channel 4 in 2007 with a new brief to make educational games and online experiences for 14-19 year olds.
Littleloud were one of the first production companies I thought of, and we commissioned them to make an online game to complement City of Vice – a peak-time drama-doc about the beginnings of the police force in Georgian London.
Littleloud worked with the TV production team and historical consultants to come up with Bow Street Runner, an online game that mixed HD film and CGI to make a really evocative and educational experience.
The game won a BAFTA – the first time C4 Education had won a BAFTA for one of their projects, and set a standard for future commissions.Littleloud are one of the most innovative and talented gaming studios in the UK, and they always deliver high quality, award-winning work.”
“Authenticity is the core theme here: it is teaching us about what it was like for the early coppers, and for the magistrates who tried to put the rule of law back into the nastiest times of the Big Smoke…
If Channel 4 can maintain this level of quality in the online games then this is the kind of thing that could, and should, end up in school history lessons.”