Making a resolutely 2D art style come to life in a 3D world

The Dumping Ground is one of CBBC's most popular shows as it tracks the often turbulent lives of young kids in Ashdene Ridge Care Home. Being a live action show and tackling often quite challenging subject matter meant that translating it into a game world was quite a tough job.

We created a custom scripting system that allowed us to create complex dialogue systems where players could interact with NPC's to find out what they need to do to progress.

Goodboy are always looking to create new solutions to meet the demands of the audience. In this instance user testing showed us early on that the usual gameplay format of 'die & retry' wasn't going to work at all. Kids were getting into the narrative of the game only to find that after an unlucky turn they were set back to the start where they had to wade through the same story all over again!

To combat this we effectively removed the notion of 'dying' in the game completely with instant respawn points that dropped the player back into the action whenever they messed up. Far from dumbing down the game, it freed us up to create a much larger and ultimately more mentally challenging world.

Success has been found in the positive reaction of fans and as with other CBBC games, we have already produced a first expansion pack, taking the player on new adventures in and around Ashdene Ridge. In addition, thanks to the game's ongoing popularity, it has been selected for conversion to an App which we will be delivering very shortly!