Charlotte Mikkelborg – Time Detective

Time Detectives (Time Investigators (US) is the world’s first multi-sensory augmented reality game and winner of the SXSW Innovation Award for Convergent Gaming 2023.

The idea for the game was born out of a competition run by Story Futures to find ways to attract people back to the UK’s many rich cultural heritage sites after the sector was decimated by Covid. The first installment of this narrative game invited diverse family audiences to become time-travelling detectives to investigate the mysterious sinking of Henry VIII’s favourite warship, The Mary Rose, that claimed the lives of almost all the 500 sailors on board. Using a mobile phone to reveal secrets from the past, you follow a trail based on your chosen character, interrogating clues to solve the mystery. All players experience the sights and sounds of life onboard the Tudor warship and those playing at the Mary Rose Museum location in Portsmouth, UK, had the option to wear a scent backpack for the full multi sensory experience of life onboard.

First, you are onboarded by the animated ship’s dog, Hatch, and then you meet a member of the ship’s crew – who have been captured volumetrically so you can feel their physical presence within your space.  Your chosen crew member gives you some backstory and sets you on your way with the first clue.  Further characters have been brought back to life from portraits that the museum had created from skulls found and using details we know about their lives and actors’ performances were then mapped onto their faces using facial recognition and AI to bring these portraits to life.

I handled every aspect of creative development from idea conception, to development of the characters, narrative development and scriptwriting. I directed the volumetric capture shoot to capture the live action characters for inclusion in the game.  I also creatively oversaw game design, art direction, 3D asset design, animation, visual effects, and sound integration.