Matchbox Pictures' new 13 part TV series Nowhere Boys also launches a stand alone immersive online game that links to the television episodes in a way that has never been seen before in Australia.
The transmedia project titled Nowhere Boys: The 5th Boy, was developed alongside the TV series by writer Craig Irvin and producer Julie Eckersley and has been built by Melbourne based game developers Millipede with support from ABC3.
This unique interactive game will unfold alongside the television series, which follows four boys who get lost in a forest and only to discover, when they return home, that they are in an alternate world identical to theirs except for one startling difference – they were never born.
Six different game worlds will unlock online at different stages throughout the broadcast. “It is a truly unique crossover that we have created between the game and the TV series. The platforms have been carefully intertwined to give the player the feeling that they are directly influencing the TV show”, says producer Julie Eckersley.“As far as we know the American series Defiance is the only other show to explore this territory to date.”
If you go to the website www.abc.net.au/nowhereboys you will currently see a countdown and a boy sleeping who will wake directly following the first episode.
When the player wakes he will discover he has been cast into an unknown world where he is pursued by a mysterious force known only as ‘The Darkness’. You are then drawn to a strange apparition who promises that she can get you home… if only you help her to rebuild a powerful Talisman. The quest becomes a bid for survival that tests the limits of the players ability as they travel through the five elemental worlds; Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Spirit, before confronting ‘The Darkness’ in a climactic battle. Along the journey it becomes clear that you (the player) share a common enemy with the Nowhere Boys and that you have an integral role in helping the boys get back home.
Key elements have been constructed within the game to entwine the online and TV worlds. Players will open doors and, pass objects through dimensions that will actually appear in the series during the next TV episode. These objects help the Nowhere Boys on their mission and are often key to their survival. In one episode the character from the game even makes an appearance in the TV show. “We’re trying something really new and we hope the audience will enjoy it,” says Eckersley.
While the TV series can stand alone without the game, those who engage on both platforms will have a much richer experience. Subsequent sections of the game will be unlocked after further episodes go to air with the final game world unlocking just before the final episode of the series.
Nowhere Boys is created and produced by Tony Ayres (The Slap and Underground: The Julian Assange Story), produced by Beth Frey (Next Stop Hollywood and Dr Sarmast’s Music School) and executive produced by Michael McMahon (Next Stop Hollywood and The Slap) and Helen Panckhurst (The Straits and My Place).
The series is produced with the assistance of Screen Australia, Matchbox Productions, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Film Victoria. The series will be sold internationally by NBCUniversal and in Australia and New Zealand by the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.
Nowhere Boys will screen each Thursday night at 6.30pm from November 7 on ABC3.