Douse The Great Fire

What was the project?

My client, the Insurance Museum in London, wanted to initially create a game that people could play while walking around the museum to provide entertainment and education. I was given this open brief and asked to use my experience of making games to create the concept, then characters, world, and develop the game idea itself.

The historical event of the great fire of London was chosen and the purpose of the game was to educate how people would have protected their homes and how the great fire led to the creation of the fire brigade and, subsequently, home insurance!

I pitched an idea of a ‘Street Urchin’ of the period to be keeping their home safe from burning down, as we agreed to aim the game predominantly at children. The interaction was simple – a point-and-click system of tapping on a fire to make the protagonist move to a spot and throw water on the fire. For fires too high up to splash, you could use a fire hook tool and, when you ran out of water, you go to the water trough to refill – with three throws included in each refill. If you would like to try to beat my score of 28 fires before the timer runs out, feel free to click the link below – best of luck!

Due to the pandemic, the museum took its interests online while a permanent building could be established. Thus I had to rethink the interaction from touchscreen to mouse and keyboard. Luckily Unity is built to be cross-platform and the change in control systems did not impede the development schedule and I was able to complete the brief well ahead of the deadline.