CBeebies revamp goes live

One of Jason’s last SDK development projects, while he was working at Pushbutton, was the creation of the game engine and UI code for some rather tasty games that have now (at the end of August 2009) launched under the BBC’s ‘Red Button’ on the Sky platform.

A total of three games were created for CBeebies, with each one pitched at a different age group. Adult users might find that the gameplay on In the Night Garden wears a bit thin after a while, unless they’re playing along with their children, but for those of us in the industry there are plenty of nuggets to savour in all three of the games:

• Loads of content in each game; the In the Night Garden game is really three mini-games in one!
• Content that adjusts to the capabilities of each set-top box at run-time (for example, audio clips are only played where hardware support is available).
• A highly performant UI, even on older STBs and when the games are broadcast in relatively little bandwidth.
• Fast loading, with an animated ‘on brand’ experience right from the start.
• Navigational integration with the new CBeebies portal.

The external pages linked to below show some nice images of the games, and give a general background to the CBeebies interactive service, and the shows that two of the games were created to support...

• BBC - press release, September
• BBC - Press Red Blog, talking about the launch, August

In the meantime, grab yourself a Sky box, press red, and get playing!

• BBC - CBeebies listings for interactive TV
• Green Balloon Club
• In the Night Garden