Peptone

A participative mobile phone game played on a big screen for up to 50 players. Call in to build your critter and control your movements with your voice and your phone’s keypad.

Scream or blow into your phone to keep your critter alive. You replenish your energy by making noise. The volume of your voice also gives you a speed boost. But beware as noise attracts the deadly virus. Don’t let it touch you or you’ll lose a chunk of energy. When the combo master appears on screen, be the first to enter the number combination to gain a special power.

Credits

Exhibitions

Press

Local design firm Departement, specialists in interactive media, plugs in and powers up Peptone, their digital “ecosystem,” on big screens in the halls of Place des Arts. Using your cellphone, you (like several dozen others, concurrently) dial up to create a lumpy little organism and whoop ’n’ holler into your phone to keep it alive—but beware, the same noise that sustains the lil’ bibitte also attracts toxic bacteria! Special “combo” numbers afford extra life points to keep the creature wiggling and wandering.

– Montreal Mirror, Feb 24 2011.

OK, so it makes for some noisy gaming and it doesn’t quite have the subtle complexities, or competitiveness, of the online multiplayer world, but it’s interesting to see these sort of installation/game hybrids taking shape, along with incorporating mobile phones as a user interface. And perhaps best of all, it’s a great excuse to scream in public.

– A Multiplayer Game Installation That’s Controlled By Shouting – The Creators Project, Mar 17 2011.

Peptone was recently on display in Montreal, where an estimated 900 phone calls from 400 unique players—it supports up to 50 players at once—created and controlled in-game creatures with the sounds of their screaming.

– Peptone, The Game That’s Controlled By Shouting – Kotaku, Mar 21 2011.