It's a broad remit, but then as Taylor points out, it's a broad audience: "the content depends on what we're trying to achieve and who we're trying to reach with it.14-year-old boys and 19-year-old girls don't have much in common. Browser-based games like Bow Street Runner (about London's early police force), 1066 and Trafalgar Origins, have dealt with historical themes, while Smokescreen, last year's award-winning interactive drama, was a darker look at the dangers of social networking sites. The results so far have been polished, entertaining and, yes, even educational. We look at careers, citizenship, I want to explore belief and death. Financial management is going to be big next year.
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So big themes that started in 2009 are things like privacy and security while online – and offline as well, actually. "We generally look at what gets you from 14 to19 in one piece. "We don't do standard curriculum, we don't do key stages, it's a lot more zeitgeist-y than that," she explains. Taylor is a keen gamer with an excellent blog on games theory, and her remit was to transfer a substantial part of the channel's annual £6m budget to interactive and online projects.
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She also employed two multiplatform commissioners: Matt Locke, to handle digital TV projects, and Alice Taylor, previously Vice President of Digital Content for BBC Worldwide. So Walker decided to switch her budget to the online space, where she could reach teenagers whenever they were available. Sticking out a few edgy documentaries during school time just wasn't cutting it anymore. Alternative entertainment options like mobile phones, games and social networking were drawing young audiences away from terrestrial TV. Meanwhile, this fickle target audience was beginning to watch less broadcast television anyway.
Challenging and confrontational programmes like Crip on a Trip and Gay to Z were being aimed straight at teenagers – but the teenagers were at school missing it all. At the time, the channel was broadcasting its education content as part of the morning schedule and most of it was going out during term time.
New to this installment is a free-roaming mode, during which the player explores various locations and interacts with the girls without following any storyline, and the possibility to change the physical appearance of the female characters before the game begins.Three years ago Janey Walker, then head of education commissioning at Channel 4, came to an important realisation. This visual novel-like gameplay can be interrupted during some scenes, and switched to "movement mode", during which the player can explore 3D surroundings and have interactive sex with the female characters, either gradually seducing or forcing them. The player reads text accompanied by still backgrounds with superimposed animated cel-shaded 3D models, occasionally making decisions. The gameplay is for the most part identical to that of the previous game. Love Death 3: Realtime Lovers features a different character cast and plot, but shares an overarching story with its predecessor. The four young people try to regain their memory, and gradually realize their connection to a dark world with supernatural beings. He steps outside and meets three girls who seem to have the same condition: they only remember their names, the word "maiden" and, for some reason, the number 10555. All he remembers is that his name is Lid. DescriptionThe protagonist of the game wakes up in a house, suffering from an almost complete amnesia.