By Jim Rossignol on November 20th, 2009 at 5:45 pm.
It’s about road safety and it’s still set in a fantasy world! These MMO designers. Tsk! Code Of Everand was actually down when I clicked through to have a look, but apparently the idea behind this free MMO is teach road safety skills to nippers. It’s a metaphor, you see: “Deadly ‘spirit channels’ inhabited by roaming monsters criss-cross the land. Players are ‘pathfinders’, heroic adventurers trained to cross the spirit channels safely.” The UK’s Department For Transport worked with augmented-reality games dev specialists Area/Code, (responsible for the Discovery Channel’s Sharkrunners and Drop7 on me iPhone), to create the game. It’s probably worth noting to the rest of the world that the UK drives on the wrong side of the road, so what this MMO teaches foreign children could potentially result in comedy cartoon flattened-by-steamroller mishaps. It won’t be as good as being taught how to cross the road by the man who was inside Darth Vader, anyway. (See below.)
20/11/2009 at 17:53 Spoon says:
Even people in the UK think they drive on the wrong side of the road? Awesome.
20/11/2009 at 18:16 jRides says:
We drive on the Left in case we should have the sudden urge to Joust. True story. :)
20/11/2009 at 21:37 TeeJay says:
PS. Over 2.3 billion people live in countries that drive on the left – ie over a third of the global population.
20/11/2009 at 17:57 Klaus says:
Ooh! Road safety. This will likely knock WoW off its pedestal.
~The driver sure took some time stopping. I am also glad James Earl Jones was the voice of Mr. Vader.
20/11/2009 at 18:02 Klaus says:
Also. ‘I won’t be there when you cross the road.’ He wasn’t ‘there’ in the first place, he came after the incident. Did he reverse time? Did they recross the street?
I am too invested in this.
20/11/2009 at 21:02 Persus-9 says:
He was watching and I’m sure he had everything under control. I’m sure he would have got there in time if there had been any real danger.
20/11/2009 at 18:12 Dave says:
Oddly, my wife was watching that David Prowse video last night after somebody’s questions on another forum about just how James Earl Jones wound up as the voice of Vader.
20/11/2009 at 18:17 Tei says:
Frogger The MMO.
20/11/2009 at 18:20 Orange Required says:
That is actually a very cool concept. Proper original.
This tickles my happy-glands.
20/11/2009 at 18:22 Krondonian says:
”It’s about road safety and it’s still set in a fantasy world!”
I wouldn’t fancy playing as a mangled child’s corpse after not paying attention :O.
20/11/2009 at 18:37 Ace says:
Well, yeah, but he told those kids personally about the green cross code. He is telling the children watching the video that the video is how he is informing them of the code; it is a pain for him to take the time to tell so many kids in person.
20/11/2009 at 18:42 Hulk Hogan says:
Best MMO concept ever.
20/11/2009 at 18:57 Railick says:
This takes the cake for the craziest thing I’ve seen this month
20/11/2009 at 20:00 amishmonster says:
People in the US aren’t excluded from jousting, thanks to sitting on the left side of the car! I know. There were many bouts of plastic-collapsible-lightsaber jousting in high school.
20/11/2009 at 20:01 amishmonster says:
We in the US can still joust, thanks to sitting on the left. I should know; we had many bouts of collapsible-lightsaber jousting in high school.
20/11/2009 at 20:08 g-eJ says:
Ah, but you have to use your left hand to joust, while we can use our might mighty righties.
20/11/2009 at 20:07 amishmonster says:
Oops, those were supposed to be replies to the 1st post. And only once.
20/11/2009 at 20:19 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
Bloody Hitler took this option from us…Bastard!
20/11/2009 at 20:49 Railick says:
How would driving on the other side of the road stop you from jousting when you sit on the other side of the car from us too ? O.o You can still joust just with both parties on the right side of the car instead of the left :P
20/11/2009 at 20:57 Railick says:
According to Wikipedia people used to ride on the left side of the road so they could hold the reigns of their horse with an off hand leaving their right hand free to a)stab people or B)shake their hand in frienship and catch a dreadful disease in the process :P Then in America they switched to the right side because of the drivers of large carts who wanted to drive on the right allowing people to pass them on the left (because they liked to sit on the back left hosre since there was no seat on their cart or something) gotta love Wikipedia you can find a reason for anything even if it isn’t true :)
20/11/2009 at 21:06 Persus-9 says:
Well I’ve started playing through the tutorial and if this is how you’re meant to cross the road then I’ve been doing it entirely wrong all these years. Turns out the correct way to cross the road isn’t to go to a pelican or zebra crossing or even just to wait for a gap in traffic but rather to use various improvised explosive devices to scare away all the traffic.
20/11/2009 at 21:13 Railick says:
Is this suposed to be a training game for UK or Afghanistan ?
20/11/2009 at 21:57 We Fly Spitfires says:
I think it’s great that the UK government is investing in such new technology and innovate ways of teaching kids. Huzzah!
20/11/2009 at 22:59 Edgar the Peaceful says:
Here, here!
20/11/2009 at 22:58 Edgar the Peaceful says:
Looks pretty spangly. I’ll check test it out on my young ‘uns tomorrow
21/11/2009 at 01:18 no says:
What a waste of money.
21/11/2009 at 02:22 castin4 says:
Think of how much government organizations spend on TV and Print ad campaigns to get these kinds of messages across. This might be no more effective, but I’m betting it’ll at least get more attention from the target demographic.
21/11/2009 at 02:56 bill says:
Nah, he just copied the post from Joystiq, which is written by americans… ;-)
21/11/2009 at 03:09 bill says:
That was a reply to Spoon. This is a reply to myself. It won’t work. Let’s see…… *presses button*
23/11/2009 at 07:46 EaterOfCheese says:
This is a reply to Bill. *bonks on button*
21/11/2009 at 14:04 kafka7 says:
I always imagined that when Vader got undressed for bed he was dressed as Green Cross Code Man underneath. Try to get that out of your head next time you watch him.
21/11/2009 at 18:44 Klaus says:
I don’t ever remembered thinking about Vader undressing for bed. Damn you!
21/11/2009 at 18:52 Klaus says:
I don’t ever remembered…
hmm…