Technology + Creativity at the �� Feed

Beat the Bot - use your voice to challenge our sport bot

2021-07-05T11:10:05+00:00

For two years, we've been creating the ��'s first synthetic voice. Computer-generated, it's helping us as a public service broadcaster to dip our toe in this new technological space. The voice is designed to be used across a wide variety of �� outlets, reflecting our core editorial and brand values.

Once we made the voice, we began looking for opportunities to test it with our audiences. Not only did we want to showcase our synthetic voice, we also wanted to explore whether we could use it to begin conversations with audiences. How does speech recognition fare with the wide range of accents across the UK? Can we see a future where audiences could have a conversational relationship with the ��? A quiz was the perfect opportunity to start to test these questions out.

Play Beat the Bot! Name relegated Premier League teams using speech recognition.

�� Taster - Play Beat the Bot

The ��'s brilliant line-up of presenters and on-air talent will always be at the heart of our content. But we think there's also a role for a synthetic voice to augment them. A synthetic voice could power interactive quizzes with almost limitless questions and challenges. It could improve the accessibility of existing content. And it could help create new content individually personalised to our users.

James Fletcher, Editorial Lead, Synthetic Media and Conversational AI

Sports Quizzes

Quizzes are participation experiences in their purest form. And we know our �� Sport audiences love doing really obscure and competitive quizzes, the harder the better...

The surge in DIY Zoom quizzes during the pandemic may have fizzled out, but a whole host of TV quiz shows with high production values have taken their place. Amidst quiz fever, we started to think about making a quiz that showcased our new synthetic voice and allowed audiences to participate using their own voice too.

Beat The Bot

So we created Beat the Bot, a web-based voice quiz where you have to guess the names of all the Premier League teams that have ever been relegated. You play in turn against the bot, with no room for error. The bot is never wrong.

A screenshot from �� Sport's Beat the Bot voice game, available on �� Taster. We've pixelated the answers, so no cheating!

Beat the Bot is a testbed for launching the first of many voice-enabled experiences that audiences can engage with through their browser on their desktop or smartphone using their in-built microphones. We also made sure that audience privacy is un-compromised, which is key in creating a safe environment for more experiences like this in the future.

Jamie Chung, Executive Product Manager

Does using your voice make a quiz more engaging?

We wanted to test a hunch that using your voice would give the quiz more jeopardy and deepen engagement. When it works well, using your own voice provides a frictionless experience. By reducing the effort needed to type answers and correct spellings, gameplay can happen at a natural pace. However, if the speech recognition doesn't understand your accent and you are saying the right answer, a voice quiz can be more frustrating than a text-based one. Using your voice to complete a quiz may be a novel experience for many of our users; given that this is the first voice web quiz for the ��, we had to overcome some design challenges.

One of the biggest UX challenges when designing Beat The Bot was indicating to the user when it was their turn to speak. If a user isn't sure when the microphone is listening and speaks too soon or too late, it can spoil their chances of winning. So we used visual clues in the interface to alert the user when it's their turn to speak and a circular countdown timer that slows ebbs away, telling the user how much time they have until the microphone will close.

Paul Jackson, UX Designer

What did people think?

After two weeks of being live on �� Taster, we had a completion rate of 67%, and 65% of people played it more than once. The mixed success of speech recognition has had an impact on playability for some people; we're aware this is an area that needs improving before voice quizzes can be rolled out on a larger scale. But the numbers of users retrying the game demonstrate that the format works. Once we can improve the speech recognition for a broader range of British accents, the format could be repeated for a wide range of quizzes across the ��.

You don't know what you don't know

2020-11-10T11:26:55+00:00

The story of how the Bitesize team created a quiz feature from their bedrooms, kitchens and garages.

It was the middle of summer 2020. After the whirldwind brought on by coronavirus, lockdown, working from home and not least Daily Lessons we were just settling into a comfortable routine.

And when I say ‘we’, I mean the lovely bunch of people that make up the Bitesize team these days: developers, testers, UX designer, business analysts, project and product managers.

Tickets were added in at a steady pace, features were coming along nicely. We even spent a couple of days in a hackathon devising new ideas for the website while shaking off some technical cobwebs.

Overall life working from home was as peachy as it could get in a global pandemic.

Maths, Science, Magic

We started looking ahead at what we could do to support our audiences in the new autumn term. Students faced interrupted lessons and a potential mix of in-school and at-home learning. We came up with a number of things we could offer to help. One of them was using quizzes to diagnose gaps in their knowledge and recommend where they should focus.

Quizzes are nothing new to Bitesize, we have two types of them already. One is the old favourite version made up of ten questions at the end of the revision chapters andother was a more elaborate learning experience powered by machine learning which aimed to help the user retain information.

This quiz was different!

The data science team had a prototype that used existing questions from test chapters and computed the user’s mastery level across each study guide with a certain level of confidence.

The more questions the user was asked, the higher the confidence level, and the more accurate the mastery level.

Based on those mastery levels we could suggest different topics or guides that the user should revise, effectively allowing us to diagnose a user’s gaps in knowledge.

“Trusssst in me…”(Kaa, the python — Jungle Book)

The data science team had written their prototype in Python. Within the Bitesize team we had never touched that particular gem of a programming language so we were very apprehensive at first.

However, Python is “The” language of choice for machine learning and data science in general, not least because two of the most powerful libraries for mathematical operations are using it: numpy and scipy.

Those two libraries featured heavily in the prototype presented to us, so it made perfect sense for us to try and use Python for the actual implementation. However it did mean we had to produce a whole new CI/CD pipeline for it to work.

It’s a long way to Live if you wanna rock ’n roll

Having a fantastically clever algorithm that can provide mastery and confidence scores is great!

Shaping it into a product that provides value to our users is a whole different proposition.

Some of the initial questions we had to answer were:

How should we package algorithm in order to be hosted in our AWS VPC?
What’s the algorithm’s domain and data contract?
How do we explain the algorithm to our audiences? Understandibly, these days people can be very suspicious of software that uses data to provide information.
And last but not least, what happens when there is a Live bug? Contrary to popular belief software will always have bugs. Our job is to ensure they are few and far between.

A few shaping and discovery sessions with the data services team led to refactoring the prototype to a new working model.

We started calling it the Efficient Learning algorithm or just “the algorithm”.

Its domain seemed to be made up of questions and answers. It required knowledge of Bitesize curriculum domain made up of subjects, topics and study guides. For example it needed to know that the topic Cell Biology contains guides like Cell Structure, Cell Division etc.

The results returned would be an array of guides with mastery and confidence scores for each one.

While our understanding of the Maths behind the scenes was not that great, hence the “Mystery Box”, we knew enough in order to get started on building the infrastructure for this and the UI.

To Lambda or not to Lambda

One of the early decisions made about the this new quiz was to host the algorithm as a lambda.

Some very good reasons for that were that the algorithm looked to be a data in/out function which did not need to store the results or any user data. Therefore, we did not need a permanent running EC2 for this. It could be packaged in a lambda that spun up, computed results, then shut down.

In addition, the “algorithm” did not need access to any of our systems except perhaps the curriculum data. Since the data required about subjects, topics, study guides was static we could just add it to one of our S3 buckets.

Lambdas are a lot easier to develop, wonderfully encapsulated, easy to spin up and tear down. Plus we already had a few kicking about our estate and we felt confident we could do this fast.

A Matter of State

Choosing to create a lambda implied that something else would have to handle the state. The “state” in our case consisted of a list of questions sent to the algorithm with a flag for whether the answer was right or wrong.

Initial UI drafts suggested that the quiz would run one question at a time and required the ability to store the user’s progress. We did not need any personal user data for this which suited us just fine because we wanted the quiz to be available to non-signed in users.

This is where User Store was the right solution for us. It is currently a client side module which handles CRUD operations for key-value data using the local storage API. The ambition for the future is to update the component to use a more permanent cloud storage solution whilst hiding the complexities away from the UI.

For the quizzes MVP we use it to store the questions which have already been answered. We could later extend this to securely store achievements and progress for signed in users.

UI and the MVP approach

The MVP planning sessions with the teams are always fun!

They involve creative discussions about what the core functionality should be. Then we look at the time we have to build it and start trimming the edges.

The MVP approach allows the whole team to build this product as fast as possible, then learn what works for the audience, and what doesn’t.
UX designers also changed their approach. Instead of carrying on a big discovery phase with lots of user studies, they switched to a ‘build, measure, learn’ one.

The UI focused on getting the user to results as fast possible with minimal onboarding. It had to cater for questions and answers with very different text sizes.

It needed to be friendly to smaller devices since it was estimated that most students will be doing their studying on tablets or phones.

The UI also challenged us to think of the way we can display results meaningful to a user.

Mastery scores are not extremely useful. We needed a system that can explain how well a student has done for each topic they chose.
In order to help with this, the data science team expanded the algorithm to return band 1, 2 or 3 for each study guide with band 3 being the highest mastery level.

To simplify results even further, we created band 1, 2 and 3 for the whole topic based on the scores of each study guide.

The bands map to a colour system of Red, Orange, Green:

The most useful part for the user is the study suggestions provided for each topic. For Red and Orange bands we display links to the study guides with the lowest mastery scores. This should direct our users to content that is highly relevant to their revision goals.

Infrastructure

Getting a Python lambda off the ground was not trivial!

At first we had to setup a local development environment to run the function locally. We used Python 3 virtualenv and AWS SAM which enabled us to test the function with different types of events.

Our CI/CD pipelines are mostly done via Jenkins and Cosmos. Cosmos is an internal tool that provides a GUI for managing CloudFormation stacks. We created a pipeline that spun up a Docker container from a Python 3 image. The pipeline copied the code, ran the unit tests and packaged the build and dependencies into a zip file. From there it was a simple step to publish it to our AWS VPC.

Cosmos uses AWS CLI behind the scenes, so the size of the package when uploading a lambda is set to no more than 50 MB. However, when creating the package we quickly discovered that numpy and scipy libraries in the dependencies pushed the size of the package over that threshold.

This is where AWS Layers were helpful. The Layers functionality in AWS allowed us to move these two runtime dependencies outside the function. AWS offers an out of the box layer for the two libraries so we did not need to create one ourselves.

Automate all the things!

Between our development teams, our testers are spread thinner than marmite on toast. So our plans to secretly make them GCSE experts by getting them to manually test the quiz over and over again seemed unlikely.

We came to the conclusion that we had created a very challenging system to test.

The algorithm was not deterministic. It would not be possible to force it to provide the same questions with the same input. Luckily it provided the same mastery results if the same questions were used.

The UI was intricate, worked fully client side and the quiz was 20 questions long. So manual testing would be long, boring and repetitive. Exactly the opposite of what we want our testers to do!

The test team built two sets of automated tests in Cypress. One set runs contract tests against the responses coming from the API Gateway. The other runs an end to end test of the UI and can run through the whole quiz interface as many times as it is needed.

Creating and updating automated tests has become part of the regular development process and as a result it has given us a lot of confidence in our features over the past year. Automated tests run across the whole estate on an hourly basis and flag breaking changes.

This means we can deploy to Live faster, catch problems early and we are not restricted by the number of testers in our team.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know … Until you know it!

Hopefully Bitesize quizzes will help you figure out what you don’t know. Well, at least as far as GCSE’s go.

We had a great time making this and look forward to adding more subjects and introducing new types of questions.

Gaming for public good

2020-07-28T09:06:38+00:00

On March 4th 2020, sneaking in before lockdown, �� Technology Strategy & Architecture in partnership with �� Academy Fusion hosted and live streamed a great Lunch & Learn event. The topic was using gaming for public good, so I was excited to attend.

The event kicked off with lunch and an opportunity to network and try things out. �� Blue Room, �� Research & Development, and guests SpecialEffect demonstrated the latest in games technology. Nearby, �� Children’s game Nightfall was set up to play. Attendees included interested �� staff, many of whom had worked in the games industry, and a number of invited guests.

Steffan Powell kicks off the event

We were welcomed by journalist and presenter Steffan Powell. Host of �� Radio 1’s The Gaming Show and a senior reporter for Newsbeat, Steffan brought subject knowledge along with his enthusiasm and energy. He shared that in the UK video gaming revenue is worth more than music and movies combined. Half the population game. Over 3 million watch eGames. The industry has its own Bafta games awards, and that museums like the V&A have created exhibitions on video games.

The talks kicked off with Si Lumb (�� Research & Development) and Phil Rich (�� Digital Partners) providing a snapshot of the gaming industry, and reasons the �� should take notice and explore gaming as a content medium.

Over the past 6 years, the time 16-25 year olds spend with video games has tripled. More than half would like a career in the industry. Over 70% of 18-35 year olds play video games, and about 46% of gamers are female.

Si Lumb and Phil Rich sharing a snapshot of the gaming industry

The market isn’t all about hardware and game titles. Gaming is increasingly something to watch as a spectator. It has bigger audiences than traditional sporting events thanks to social media, video streaming and services like Twitch. Not surprising when the average video gamer is 43 and raising children, who both play and watch video games. The multi-player social game popular with younger audiences, Fortnite, had a total prize pool of $100,000,000 in 2019, and Netflix consider Fortnite a major competitor for audience time. British eSports are trialling tournaments in schools. And as Si eloquently positioned it, “Strictly Come Dancing is just Battle Royale in sequins”.

Technology improvement enables high quality games to optimise as smaller file sizes, similar to video clips. MS XBox, Amazon and Google are taking gaming into the cloud. Interactive and object-based media add into the mix. While Virtual or Augmented Reality provide more immersive experiences or deep fakes as actors in film or television. Further industry convergence has seen Unreal, a gaming engine, used to flood the Weather Channel studios, build the virtual world in which The Lion King remake was filmed, and create locations and scenery for The Mandalorian TV series.

Match of the Day using green screen in a highly adaptable virtual studio

Augmented reality, interactive video and deep fakes are of interest to the ��, as are eSports qualifications, Minecraft for educational purposes, innovations addressing physical and mental health issues, providing accessible social interaction... the list goes on. From Newsbeat reports, to its documentary on Hideo Kojima. From This Game Changed My Life podcast, to The Game Show on Radio 1. From experimental content like interactive Casualty and a virtual Queen Vic or Tardis, to Nightfall the game. There’s a lot to gaming, and the �� is taking notice and exploring.

Recently the �� Children’s Games team launched Nightfall, their first multiplayer online game for children. Ashleigh Middleton and James Woodham presented the rationale and strategy behind the game.

James Woodham and Ashleigh Middleton presenting Nightfall

Nightfall is set in a dream world, where players are battling anxieties and fears. Players can explore freely and use the light from their torch to extract negativity from the nightmares they encounter. However, they need to collaborate with other players in order to deal with the biggest nightmares. The community of players feedback on what the nightmares should be and how the characters should look. Contracted companies Good Boy and Mira do the game development and artwork.

Aware that games are very popular with children, the team wanted to explore where the audience are. Part of the ��’s mission “to act in the public interest” is to entertain. For children this can be done within games. The team want to create games that provide a safe, social, collaborative space, live in real time. The games can also take an informative and ethical stance as they are non-commercial. There are no ad purchases. No chatting with strangers. And kids can play with their friends.

For example, Nightfall can introduce temporary branded zones within the game. The first of these is a Blue Planet zone. The zone should help grow the audience and provide marketing opportunity. It also directly addresses known concerns and worries of the audience.

Screenshot as Nightfall introduces the Blue Planet zone

Nightfall and the Blue Planet zone within it are live and proving popular. Other partnerships are being prepared and will go live soon. There are plans to stage scheduled events and challenges. As well as discussions around turning off or disabling the game at night, when children should be sleeping.

The �� is not alone in recognising the potential of games as a tool for learning and creative innovation. Stephen Reid from Immersive Minds shared inspiring stories and thoughts from their pioneering use of games and other interactive technologies to teach and educate young people.

Stephen Reid shares his enthusiasm and inspiring stories of educating through games

His own Eureka moment came after asking his class to tell him something they knew that he didn’t. One pupil knew how to slow-mo TV by holding the play button on the remote for 6 seconds. Apparently, they found out by experimenting, fearless of breaking something that could be reset or fixed. When he asked the class what this was useful for, he got a roomful of different ideas.

Stephen deduced that kids have a simple process around tools, uninhibited by experience. They identify a problem, find something that works, learn how to use it, and apply it to the problem.

Are we inspiring our students? Are we challenging kids enough, to solve real world problems for social good? In Egypt, Stephen visited a school where the classrooms and attitude were both fun and inspiring. He challenged the kids to find and solve real problems during the three months until his next visit. When he returned, one group had made a drone. They taught themselves how from the internet, including the lithium batteries. The drone was for detecting and countering an airborne plant pathogen affecting their parents rice straw crop.

A history classroom in Egypt sports a full-size stegosaurus skeleton moulding on its outer wall

Elsewhere, Stephen challenged some younger kids to build a hydro-electric power dam with Lego bricks. They learned that energy is created by turbines underneath the dam, not where the water flows over it. Then they recreated their dam in Minecraft to see it working and how weather could affect energy production. One kid worried about the fish in the river and discussed it with their father, who helped devise a solution. The next day they added a series of stepped pools at the side of the dam, so that fish could safely bypass it.

Other students were challenged to recreate a local ruin using Minecraft. They visited and measured the ruin. In the process, learning about its history and the fire that had destroyed the original building. They decided to create the full pre-fire building in Minecraft, using stone for the ruins that remained and wool painted like stone elsewhere. Then they recreated and watched the fire in Minecraft, and 3D-printed their version of the ruin.

Creative games like Minecraft can provide a much richer learning experience. Students could recreate Pompeii, Monet’s studio, world wonders, and more. They can build using bricks or learn and only use code.

In Africa, in a poor area that is lucky to get 3 hours of electricity in a day, Stephen met a man on the street showing kids how to create things from refuse. He provided a laptop and 3D-printer with a few supplies, then showed the man how to use it, along with tinkerCAD and Minecraft. The kids designed and printed small low-cost toys to sell in the city, and over a few months managed to raise enough money to build a school. Yet in the UK 3D-printers languish in school cupboards because no-one knows how to work them.

Stephen’s not short list of games that can be used for educational purposes

Second generation gamers don’t settle for what is given by the developers. They want to modify and hack the game, similar to the early simple gamers of the 70s and 80s.

Little Big Planet can be used for climate change game creation. Assassins Creed and Age of Empire can be used to teach history. Democracy can be used to teach politics. Kerbal Space Program can be used to teach rocket building. Ark can be used to teach about dinosaurs, food chains and ecology systems. Universe Sandbox can be used to teach about the effect of small changes. Riven can be used for teaching languages and number systems. Portal can teach physics. Valiant Hearts can teach about war from a dog’s point of view. Drone can teach about modern warfare and ethics. Interland can teach about internet and data safety. Life Is Strange looks at mental health, depression, culture, and immigration. A Normal Lost Phone covers alcoholism, refugees and more.

And this is only getting started with how games and interactive technology can be used for learning and education.

It’s also important to ensure everyone can participate. Tom Donegan from SpecialEffect spoke about the life-changing impact of making games and technology accessible and inclusive for people with severe disabilities.

Tom Donegan explains the positive impact of making gaming accessible to all

SpecialEffect started out trying to provide access for the physically disabled to play games, initially for educational purposes. While the work is led by an occupational therapist approach, they have found that access to games has a wider impact. Games connect a player socially when they’re unable to do other activities. Games give some independence and sense of achievement, provide a release and are something to look forward to. To some extent, video games level the playing field when playing with others.

Gaming can open doors to enjoyment, creativity and social connection that would otherwise be closed

Sometimes adaptations are as simple as providing a joystick or a couple of suitably large buttons. Other times it requires highly complex multi-modal personalised controls such as an eye-brow switch combined with eye-tracking and voice commands. The recent XBox Adaptive Controller helps simplify creating such custom set-ups.

SpecialEffect also do much collaboration, research and design to develop custom control hardware, such as improved Eye Gaze technology, and interfaces for using it. And the costs are significantly reducing, which also improves accessibility.

The event wrapped up with a panel conversation chaired by Steffan Powell. Discussing the significance of “gaming for the public good” were:

Dr Maria Stukoff – Director of the Salford University Maker Space and Co-Chair of eSports Industry Collaboration,
Stephen Reid – Founder and Director of Immersive Minds and Creative Consultant with Microsoft Education, who had previously spoken about his work during the event,
Jordan Erica Webber – a freelance presenter and journalist who is the resident gaming expert for Channel 5’s The Gadget Show and co-author of Ten Things Video Games Can Teach Us: (about life, philosophy and everything),
Elle Osili-Wood – an award-winning video game presenter and journalist, named as one of the most influential women in gaming.

Steffan chairing the panel on gaming for public good at the ��

Steffan kicked off by asking about their perceived attitude of the �� in regards to gaming. Jordan wishes �� departments would talk with each other more, to move beyond the basics of what video games are and how they are not damaging children. Elle is working on several �� projects about the artistic, scientific benefits and technology aspects of games, and would like more stakeholders to move past the concept of games being juvenile or insignificant. Maria described games as content-rich immersive storytelling not dissimilar to TV dramas or documentaries and would love to see the �� have its own Twitch channel. Education works well by doing and problem solving, and it’s surprising the �� isn’t already doing more. Stephen meets similar attitudes in education with teachers, who would love the �� to add some weight to the positive side of games and speed up the needed change in attitude, so that conversations no longer start on the back foot.

The next question was about trends. Elle, an editor for PlayStation’s YouTube channel, recently helped create a 12-episode professionally edited series of playing a game, based around the challenges. Jordan highlighted that online content for audiences has been around for some time and is becoming more professional and interactive with the audience. Maria shared that Fortnite’s best player Ninja has 231 million hours of live-watched play, ratings competitive with the top sports and Netflix shows. She also pointed out that XR (extended reality) will change the gaming and eSports environment to be even more immersive in significant ways. Jordan pointed out that the �� could add quality control to eSports production that YouTube doesn’t or could learn from. Stephen shared that 84m people in US will watch eSports by 2021, almost as much as NFL, so eSports is definitely a big trend.

When asked what the �� could do differently in the gaming space, Stephen jumped on education as a key area that isn’t being addressed yet, in particular supporting teachers. Elle shared how games improve literacy, social and communication skills, can improve physical fitness, emotional regulation, and help with conditions like ADHD and Dyslexia, and that there are numerous scientific studies proving all that. Stephen pointed out that gaming is play based learning, though it has become digital, and we need to advocate more for play.

Asked if there is room for more representation on TV, there was a resounding yes. Elle pointed out that online and gaming is now more mainstream than TV. Jordan shared that suitable content formats are needed for TV, such as documentary, as daily news on eSports has too slow a turnaround. Maria pointed out the need for regulatory shaping and normalising of gaming as content.

Asked if the �� should make games, as they did 20 years ago, again there was a resounding yes. The Hitchhiker’s text adventure game was fondly remembered.

Asked about their opinion on the balance between play and education in games, Stephen shared insights from a recent 3-year study on games for learning Maths, where the kids hacked the game to do what they wanted. Kids recognise enforced learning. Environment, mechanics and narrative all matter. Elle emphasised the importance to work with people with experience as storytellers, writers and researchers.

Final thoughts hoped the �� would become more proactive than reactive in regard to gaming, with more around the stories and art of games, content no one else would create. Steffan shared that more is happening, and Stephen mentioned �� Build-it Scotland, that recreated the country 1:1 in Minecraft, and got over 10,000 responses to build local places.

With more time afterward to check out Nightfall and the latest in games technology, there was plenty to talk about as the event wrapped up. Hopefully this is just the beginning of much more to follow.

Find out more and stay tuned for further updates at: https://canvas-story.bbcrewind.co.uk/gaming-for-the-public-good/

CBeebies adds new Peter Rabbit and Hey Duggee games to Playtime Island app

2020-06-09T09:00:00+00:00

Parents looking to keep the kids entertained this summer will be pleased to hear that we’re launching two brand new games in the CBeebies Playtime Island app, based on two of our best-loved shows.

Hey Duggee: The Paddling Badge is a brand new multiplayer game, in which little ones can choose their favourite member of The Squirrel Club and earn their paddling badge in a fun race against the other squirrels. And the multiplayer functionality means that even though kids might not be able to go to a swimming pool at the moment, they can enjoy racing their siblings or parents digitally and have some fun in the pool!

Peter Rabbit Running Wild is a follow up to the hugely popular Hop To It game, where kids can choose their favourite from Peter, Lily or Benjamin and explore exciting areas like Mr McGregor’s Garden or Jeremy Fisher’s Lake. Interactive paw prints offer kids lots of things to discover in these places, or they can go and find characters like Jemima Puddle-Duck and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.

Alongside these two new games one of our most popular games, Waffle and Friends, is also getting an update. A brand new fairground level lets two players explore the funfair together and play fun mini games.

CBeebies Playtime Island is an app for families to enjoy together, where kids can learn as they play, and as part of this update we’ve also redesigned it to make it even easier for children to play independently. The Playtime Island app has always put CBeebies favourites like Go Jetters, Mr Tumble and Bing at children’s fingertips, and in this major update we’ve redesigned the island with kids in mind from the very beginning – so they can do this even quicker.

Designed for independent exploration and uninterrupted discovery of a vast catalogue of games, Playtime Island is a safe, delightful and engaging space for children to spend their time. The updated app also includes an enhanced download manager setting, so that parents can control the size of the app, quickly downloading or deleting games as their child’s interests change.

We hope that parents and children enjoy the new games and the new look for the CBeebies Playtime Island app, which is available for free from the Apple, Google Play and Amazon app stores.

Introducing Nightfall

2019-04-24T12:55:28+00:00

Today we’ve released a brand new game called Nightfall into Beta, which means we can continue testing and getting feedback from people before it fully launches. We’re excited because it’s the ��’s first multiplayer online game, and something new we’re trying for audiences aged 8-13+ years old.

The game begins when the players fall asleep, challenging young people and their friends to take on the role of Nightfallers – guardians of light fighting against darkness, and battling to banish every last nightmare from the dream world.

Once in the Nightfall dream world, players can take part in solo play while they find their feet and build their skills, but to make real progress in the game, players need to work together to stand against the tougher ‘Nightmare’ challenges.

We like the idea of young people collaborating to tackle nightmares together, rather than competing against each other, and children seem to like it too as this feature has proven popular in testing so far. We hope this gives them the idea they conquer their worries, and that they don’t have to do it alone either.

We’re also exploring some �� settings for future nightmares. We’re thinking big – like how some of our best-known TV programmes could be brought to life in the game, and even how Radio brands and beyond could be a part of the Nightfall world as well. It’s very early stages but we are testing some exciting ideas behind the scenes.

As you may know, we already offer younger audiences a range of games on CBeebies and C�� online and in our children’s apps. They allow our audiences to interact and play with their favourite �� programmes and characters in new and interesting ways - like Danger Mouse, Dumping Ground, and Furchester Hotel for even younger audiences.

To date, those games have served great purpose in bringing our show brands to the ‘gamers’ in our audience. Building on that success, Nightfall is an exploration of how gaming is evolving as an entertainment format for younger audiences. Young players are becoming savvier than ever before and in response to this shift, one of our key focus points has been around the format of gaming itself. We want to talk to the audience in the most genuine language possible, a language, which now is for many, a native one.

In creating Nightfall we’ve looked at the games industry, assessing which aspects feel genuine to the gaming audience, while still serving our core mission to Inform, Educate & Entertain. Nightfall is an attempt at producing a game true to the expectations of gaming fans, so we can ultimately bring our brands to them in a format, language and tone they already understand, enjoy and welcome with open arms.

Underpinning our approach to game design are the principles we apply to all of our digital products for children – creating brilliant, safe, and positive online experiences. For example, in Nightfall there are social elements, like Emojis, but these have been designed to ensure young people are kept safe by only allowing the use of a pre-defined set of messages, such as a smiley or sad face. We also provide the players with a pre-defined username when they join and we don’t have a free text messaging system, so private information can’t be passed around in game further enhancing our approach to privacy.

Our other games are typically driven by a single programme or character, whereas Nightfall has been designed as a standalone game, able to bring in a range of other �� brands. Designing the game this way means it’s not just for fans of one particular show or character – it works for a wide range of our existing audiences and, importantly, for younger gamers who may or may not be regular �� audiences.

As I say, we’re in the early stages of exploring what various �� brands could look like in Nightfall. We hope that fans of our TV shows will be surprised and delighted if one of their favourites makes an appearance, while others might discover them for the first time. And others still will simply enjoy the game for what it is. That’s been a big driving force behind Nightfall – making a game that people will simply love to play, together.

The Nightfall Beta phase will see a limited audience group playing the game. Players will be able to sign up to play via the existing �� iD system. Once registered, players will be able to visit the Beta website and collect an ‘access ticket’ until the initial batch run out. We’ll regularly release more access tickets as we grow and evolve the game throughout the Beta. Those unable to secure a ticket straight away will be able to request one online and we’ll add more once we get enough requests. We’re aiming to discover some insights around whether this approach is right for our audiences, and with their input, how and where to take the evolution of the game.

So for now, you can have a go at getting a ticket to the Nightfall Beta here.

The interactive game training the next generation of news reporters

2018-03-29T10:10:08+00:00

�� News, �� Design + Engineering and Aardman Animations have teamed up to produce an interactive game, giving children a taste of newsroom decisions and pressures. Senior product manager Andrew Leimdorfer explains how it's evolved.

The iReporter game aims to give players the chance to take on the role of a journalist in the �� newsroom. The game was commissioned by the �� News School Report team, who's mission is to help 11-18 year olds develop their media literacy skills, and is part of a set of resources to use in classrooms across the UK.

The "choose your own adventure" game challenges you to make your own decisions on which sources, political claims, social media comments and pictures should be trusted as you contribute to the day's news output.

The game features video interviews in social media type environments

The idea to use the vehicle of a game to develop these skills first surfaced in Autumn 2017 and, after a competitive tender process, Aardman Animatons were selected as the right partner for the project. Although the basic structure of the game and the key learning points were defined from the outset, the script and gameplay were developed throughout the creative process and user-tested with groups from schools in Bristol and Coventry. The feedback from the youngsters was then incorporated into the design.

Players are presented with a series of editorial choices

While setting out to deliver key editorial learning points, such as the importance of thinking twice before sharing, working out the motives of your sources and spotting obvious fakes and mistakes, the brief was to keep the game engaging and fun for the target audience. The use of social media style interfaces as the main way of delivering the content helped ensure the interactions felt familiar. Aardman also did a great job to keep humour in the story, while delivering the educational points.

Players are under pressure to meet different deadlines

We know from feedback on School Report Day that the initial response has been great. It takes around 20 minutes to complete the game, which is a significant commitment for online content, but we're already seeing high levels of engagement and significant numbers of users playing through the whole game.

However, the success of the project will be judged over the longer term as schools across the UK use the game in the classroom and new cohorts of School Reporters are educated about the pitfalls of fake news, but also inspired by the fast-pace challenge of working in a newsroom.

CBeebies apps team launches public beta group for Android users

2016-06-29T12:25:00+00:00

CBeebies has today launched a public beta group for Android users, inviting them to test the CBeebies Playtime Island beta. The app will launch to the public across iOS, Android and Amazon later this year. John Kearney, Senior Product Manager - Children’s Apps explains how recruiting users to join a beta group will help to ensure CBeebies makes the best possible app experiences for their audience.

Later this year, we will be launching a new app, CBeebies Playtime Island on iOS, Android and Amazon. The app will feature brand new games, including popular characters from a whole host of CBeebies shows.

As product manager for a portfolio of the ��’s apps for children, my job is to work in partnership with �� Children’s to make the best possible apps for our audiences. We use existing product data along with research about our audiences and future trends to inform how we shape new features, make commissioning decisions, and develop new products.

Today, we’re really pleased to announce that we’re launching our CBeebies Playtime Island beta app, initially on the Android platform. We believe this will help �� Children’s make the best possible app experiences.

The �� has always worked closely with its audience to help it make better products, content and technology. The availability of beta platforms, now means we can learn about our audience’s expectations at scale, building on our relationship with parents and children, to help us make better products for all. We want to hear what our users think; what works, what doesn’t, what’s great and what might be missing.

Our short-term aim is to get feedback from parents on the general performance of our app on the Android platform. The app caches HTML5 games on the device, and plays them out in a webview powered by 3rd party Crosswalk libraries, developed by Intel.

By integrating Crosswalk libraries we’re able to provide experiences for many CBeebies users who aren’t using the latest operating systems (Marshmallow or Lollipop). Typically on older operating systems, HTML5 game performance in the webview is unstable, and by integrating Intel’s Crosswalk libraries for version 4.4 KitKat and above, we can better reach our audience on Google Play and Amazon Kindle stores.

We’ve found the performance to be impressive across our testing coverage, but we’re keen to verify the implementation on this platform at greater scale with our beta users.

On the iOS platform, we have the same technical approach, but a different implementation. The majority of users are running iOS8 and above, we utilise Apple’s WKWebView, the performance is stable, but we will need to review the performance on iOS10 later in the year.

The beta app contains two games, Furchester Food, and Peter Rabbit Hop To It. Both games have performed extremely well for CBeebies on the website, and we’re keen to test our assumption that successful web games can serve our audience needs in the app space.

Beta group users can feed back to the product team directly by pressing the feedback button. This launches a parental safety lock, and once completed, the user is prompted to open their email client, to contact the product team. The app also contains the same data analysis packages as our live products (which users can turn off at any time).

As the sample size of our beta group increases, our intention is for the group to become a destination where suppliers commissioned to produce games can test their in-development games with real users.

We want to empower game producers to the make best possible experiences for our apps, and we believe this could be achieved by offering a feedback loop from a large number of users playing the in-development game in their own homes, on their own devices.

On our roadmap for CBeebies Playtime Island, we will be introducing features which we hope will make the experience more fun and rewarding - including avatars, rewards for progress, and the ability to download new games into the app.

We could test these features out using multivariate testing in the live app but this makes it hard for us to explain exactly what’s in our app. It would also be possible that two children living in the same house could get quite different sets of features - and that would be confusing.

It’s really important however that we find ways of measuring the impact of features in our development cycles, and the beta group is a more appropriate place to do this as we’ll be able to explain to the parent what’s different and why.

So to sum up, we believe our public beta group will play a vital role in helping �� Children’s deliver better products for our audience by:

● building closer relationships with our audience

● enabling game producers to deliver their best work ever

● helping �� Childrens only invest in features that deliver real value

Ultimately, we believe this approach will help improve the way millions of parents and children in the UK will be able to enjoy fun experiences from the �� that keep them coming back again and again.

If you’re interesting in joining the CBeebies beta group, or would simply like to find out more, visit our FAQs

Doctor You: Casualty goes interactive for unique episode

2015-10-14T09:40:00+00:00

Since its first broadcast in 1986, Casualty has remained one of the most popular shows on the ��. Line Producer Wendy Wright explains how a new episode puts fans into the heart of the action like never before, with an interactive edition to watch and play along with on �� Taster.

I’ve always loved playing computer games and for a while dreamed of working in the gaming industry, so I was very excited when a couple of colleagues returned from a workshop run by Connected Studio and announced that we were going to be making an interactive episode of Casualty.

From the outset we all knew that tackling this project would require us to think and plan in a different way to usual. We make over 40 episodes of Casualty every year and after 30 years the processes involved in producing an episode are almost second nature. However, we have always operated in a very linear fashion and the interactive project was going to take us all into the world of non-linearity for the first time. Luckily, we weren’t expected to embark on this journey alone, and Connected Studio teamed us up with digital production studio fish in a bottle, and we were really happy with the work they produced.

Tackling this project would require us to think and plan in a different way to usual

Simon Norman (writer) and Stuart Cheetham (co-producer) worked with fish in a bottle from the initial development and pitch at the Development Studio, so they had a good knowledge of what we were keen to do from the outset, which really helped as we continued to work with them and Connected Studio throughout the pilot development.

Simon and Stu already had a good idea of the story we wanted to tell, but whereas on a normal episode of Casualty the writers and producers continue to develop a script, the non-linear nature of this project meant spending time developing a storyboard and plotting - in detail - where all the different branches and player choices would lead, and ultimately, how they would all be resolved. For a long time the script was actually a diagram that covered several sheets of A3! The actual script format that we are used to working with was literally the last piece of the jigsaw and was only finalised a couple of days before filming began.

From the beginning we were determined that the player should have real choice in the episode and that there should be different endings dependent on those choices. We also wanted to do more than just offer dialogue options. We’re a medical show, so it seemed obvious that the player should be given the chance to perform procedures and save lives (or not!).

This level of interactivity turned out to be one of the more challenging aspects for fish in a bottle, as the project was being built using the interactive video tool, Interlude, and we were testing this technology to its limits due to the story we had devised and the way in which we wanted to the audience to be able to navigate through it.

An important decision made early on was to tell the story with a first-person perspective

Another important decision we made early on - and against advice from other game developers - was to tell the story in the first person, rather than the traditional third person style. The reason for this was two-fold; it seemed the best and quickest way to involve the player in the heart of the action, but it also served to make the best use of the time we had on set with the actors. Looking back this was a really key decision as it has made First Day feel really immersive, distinctive and unique.

These decisions meant that the director, Kodjo Tsakpo, was involved in the project at a much earlier stage than if we were still in the linear world. We are very lucky to work with so many talented people on Casualty, and Kodjo was the first person I spoke to about the project. He understood what we were trying to achieve immediately, and his passion, enthusiasm and commitment all the way through the project was incredible.

Filming proved to be a lot easier than we anticipated. Of course it took a while for us all to get used to acting and interacting with the camera and there were a couple of head scratching moments and poring over the storyboard whilst we figured out just where that particular version of the scene fitted in. Again, Rob Sloan and Drew Wilkins from fish in a bottle were brilliant, along with the ever-present storyboard diagram.

We filmed it all in just three days, which is a testament to the dedication, enthusiasm and professionalism of everyone involved - both in front of and behind the camera. There was a real feeling of adventure on set and everyone embraced the ambition and scale of what we wanted to achieve. My constant comment became “we’re making it up as we go along!”.

Post production proved to be a little more fiddly, and the real challenge was converting the non-linear structure of First Day into a linear process - crucial for ensuring a consistent look and sound from scene to scene. The answer was to playout and treat every branch of the story separately, which proved to be very time consuming. End to end the entire project spans more than an hour, and once again the storyboard was invaluable for keeping us on track. Rhys Davies, the Editor, earned himself a gold medal for stamina, perseverance and dedication, but finally our part of the process was complete. It was then on to the technical challenge for Connected Studio and fish in a bottle to get the pilot live and functioning on the ��’s audience facing innovation platform �� Taster. You can enjoy Casualty: First Day here.

You’re the Boss: new game for C��’s The Dumping Ground

2015-01-28T10:54:49+00:00

How do you make a game that tackles the serious issue of living in a children’s care home and is fun and engaging for our C�� audience? I want to explain how the new game for C�� does just that – it’s to support the new series of The Dumping Ground and it’s called ‘You’re the Boss!’

I’m a Content Producer for C�� interactive and I produced the game with the �� in-house team and indie agency Somethin Else.

The Dumping Ground is now in its third series. The show follows the trials and tribulations of young people in a children’s care home called Ashdene Ridge. It deals with tough emotional stories in an accessible and entertaining way and follows on from the successful Tracy Beaker programmes based on the books by Jacqueline Wilson.

We knew that "nurture" games (i.e games in which you have to look after characters) are popular with our C�� audience, and particularly with girls aged 10 -12 – a key demographic of the viewers of The Dumping Ground. It seemed a perfect fit. With 14 young people with different passions, desires and needs all living in The Dumping Ground and the chaos that constantly follows – what better game story could we find than to try to keep everyone happy?

We created a clear definition of what we wanted the game to be: “You’re the Boss is a resource management game with soul, in which the user must create, nurture and maintain a positive environment to achieve harmony amongst the well-loved residents of the ‘Dumping Ground’.”

So how do you keep young people happy? We were keen the game reflected all aspects of happiness – not just short-term quick fixes. So we collaborated with Somethin Else to develop a mechanic that measured happiness in three ways: fun, fairness and love.

Fun was easy – you can buy the young people things for the house (like a telly) or give them activities to do with their friends. Players are rewarded for knowing the characters of The Dumping Ground; you wouldn’t please Tee if you made her play football!

Our audience really care about the characters and their lives. Keeping the Dumping Ground characters believable in-game was paramount. We worked closely with the Script Editor Phil Gladwin to define the likes and dislikes of every character so when they are featured in the game they are true to their personalities in the show. This was built using a matrix to ensure that characters behaved appropriately within the game system.

Love and fairness were a bit trickier. Players have to deal with events that might happen in the show. This may range from a simple conflict “Jody called Harry a cowbag!” to a situation that is unique to young people living in care. For example; “Tyler’s mum was due to visit but she didn’t turn up.”

We were keen that these events didn’t become too repetitive so we built a database of variables for each part of the sentence to keep the game entertaining. For example Jody might call any number of characters a ‘cowbag’, but she might also call them a loser, a nerdface or a big fat baby! Every event also had a list of characters it might apply to – so a visit from mum would only happen for the children in the show known to have a mum.

Players must choose how they deal with each situation – spending hard earned stars from completing chores to send the young people to Mike or May Li; the care workers, or by ignoring the problem and risk making the young person unhappy. We were keen to show that everything is a balance!

Any game must be challenging and replayable to encourage our players to return as often as they do to the show. We developed a series of quests that will be released every week after The Dumping Ground show is aired and tie in with that episode’s story. Completing the quests will unlock more rooms, characters and furniture in the house – and add to the complexity (and chaos!) of the game.

Finally, something we are really proud of; the accessibility feature. The game is built in Unity; a cross platform game development system. The benefits of a cross platform approach using Unity are clear: the potential to reach our audience with a consistent experience across mobile, tablet and desktop. However, it was not without its challenges. To create an accessible experience, Somethin Else had to build a bespoke voice over mode and auto scan mode for the game because we could not use the device’s in-built features with Unity for a non-native app. They rose to the challenge and we look forward to evaluating the success of this feature in the near future.

I really hope our audience enjoys the game as much as we have enjoyed making it.

The Dumping Ground- You’re the Boss is available in the Apple app store and Google Play store and as a desktop game on theC�� website now.

New Antiques Roadshow play-along app

2013-01-03T09:45:09+00:00

I'm Tom Williams, development editor for Red Button and dual screen in �� Vision.

Today we launched the Antiques Roadshow play along app for mobiles and tablets. It's a first for the �� and builds on the hugely successful Red Button play-along game we launched last October.

Play along with Antiques Roadshow from your mobile

Here's how it works: launch the app while you're watching Antiques Roadshow, press 'Play along with the programme' and choose a value for each of the objects featured.

A clock tells you how long you have before the expert gives their valuation. The app keeps a running total of the objects you value correctly and gives you a ranking at the end of the programme: novice, enthusiast, connoisseur or expert.

You need to get over 75% correct to get to expert level and believe me that's quite a challenge. At the end of the quiz we'll link you to more information on the top finds of the episode you've just watched and from the series so far.

Why Antiques Roadshow?

As development editor my priority was to create a companion experience that would genuinely enhance a programme for a mainstream audience.

We piloted a number of titles but Antiques Roadshow stood out. As soon as we tested the first prototype of the app with audiences we saw what a buzz it created in the living room.

The interface is simple enough not to distract from the programme and the interaction builds on existing behaviour - who doesn't shout out what they think an item's worth?

Antiques Roadshow is a key title for �� One regularly pulling in over six million viewers on a Sunday night.

It's now in its 35th year and Simon Shaw, the series editor, and his team are constantly seeking out new ways to keep the programme fresh while maintaining the core values that audiences love.

The new app does exactly that.

Play along with Antiques Roadshow

The app is one of �� Vision's portfolio of companion experiences - a strategy driven by Victoria Jaye and outlined in her blog last year and part of the ��'s plans announced by Daniel Danker to build on our Red Button offer in a connected world.

Viewers love playing along

The mobile and tablet app builds on the existing Red Button offer providing a much improved interface and the ability for multiple players to play along in the same room.

So far, over 1.5 million unique users have pressed red to play along and the response on Twitter has been incredibly positive. You can read some of our favourite tweets about the red button service on Tom Bedwell's Storify page (N.B: includes strong language).

Simple magic

At the heart of the app is a great bit of technology that's totally invisible to our audiences - audio watermarking.

We've embedded inaudible signals in the soundtrack of the programme that are picked up by the microphone of a phone or tablet.

These are used to identify the episode, line up the correct questions and then display them at exactly the right point in the programme.

In short it provides a way of joining up your TV and mobile/tablet without having to do anything complicated. In fact it makes the whole experience feel a bit like magic.

It has the added bonus of synchronising the app with the programme however you choose to watch it, whether on �� One, a recording of the programme or on �� iPlayer.

There's more information on audio watermarking and one of our early pilots in the R&D blog.

Collaboration

The app was built and designed in Salford by the �� Future Media team. It's editorially driven by the television production team in Bristol, enhanced by onward journeys into the history behind the programme's top finds from Knowledge and Learning with invaluable contributions from R&D, Marketing and Audiences teams here in London.

It's been an amazing feat of collaboration across multiple teams considering that four-way video conferences were often the only way of linking the teams together.

An alternative career beckons?

Give it a go and let us know what you think

The Antiques Roadshow website has details on how to download the app and information on when the programmes go out on �� One.

If you can't wait until Sunday, you can play along now with the programme in iPlayer. Give it a go and see how you do. Are you novice, enthusiast, connoisseur or expert? We'll be keeping an eye out for the hashtag #AntiquesRoadshow if you want to let us know.

By the way, the image above shows my score last time I had a go so beat that if you can.

The app works on Android mobile devices up to 7" running firmware 2.2 & above and iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches running iOS 5.1 and above.

Tom Williams is development editor, Red Button and IPTV.

Technology + Creativity at the �������� Feed