Lightmaker were commissioned by The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh to create an innovative new touchscreen experience to be housed in their redeveloped gallery. The gallery was opened to the public in November 2011.

The client identified digital media as playing a significant role in the re-opening of the gallery with the brief being to create the ‘Faces & Places’ application. This application consists of five sections (Faces, Places, Timelines, Collection & Gallery) which allow the visitor an open-ended, self-directed exploration of the galleries collection.

The objective of the ‘Faces & Places’ application was to drive visitors to the venue, enhance their visiting experience and maintain engagement after their trip through an integrated online experience.  It also needed to provide not only different levels of interpretation, and ways into the collection but also a compelling and fun learning experience.

The touchscreen application also needed to be directly connected to the supporting website and deliver a gripping, interactive experience to encourage visitors to discover, learn and explore a wealth of information. After an extensive technical strategy, user research, scoping and wire-framing process Lightmaker embarked on the design and development of the multi-touch, gesture-based kiosk application which features the galleries’ entire collection as well as a series of interactive experiences. Users are also able to save their activity and continue their journey on the website for which Lightmaker also created new sections.

One of the challenges was how to connect the kiosk experience to the website and encourage people to continue their exploration online after visiting the gallery. This was achieved through the ‘My Face, My Place’ activity whereby gallery visitors can select a portrait that best matches the attributes they choose to describe themselves. This portrait is then made available in an online painting application where they can create their own version of the portrait and submit it for inclusion in an online gallery. This approach encourages visitors to participate in a more engaging experience of portraiture.

The application was built to run on Adobe Air using a combination of Flex with a Flash Professional authored library and a .Net CMS.

Lightmaker worked with Electronic Arts to develop a site to support the launch events for Star Wars: The Old Republic in the UK, USA and France.

The purpose of the site was to raise awareness of these events, which were run in association with GAME in the UK, Best Buy in the USA, and Virgin Megastore in France. The site provides users with important information about the events and promotes pre-orders for the game via EA’s digital distribution service, Origin.

The site also provides users with an opportunity to win tickets to the events through various Facebook channels.

Lightmaker has significantly increased its shareholding in what was previously SMSLottoMe Ltd and we are pleased to announce a name change at the same time to Lightmaker Lotto Ltd.

Lightmaker Lotto is a global supplier of mobile fixed odds and lottery games via SMS and APPs on various platforms.

These services are hosted on our gaming platform in the United Kingdom that complies with United Kingdom Gambling Commission ISO/IEC 27001: 2005 Security Standards and Remote Software Technical Standards.

What we do:
1. Host mobile games on our platform
2. Provide full reporting information in real-time
3. Connect to game payment systems for entry verification and prize payment
4. Communicate entry and results to players
5. Provide each player with web access to view history and claim prizes

In summary:
If you want to move your lottery to a mobile platform – Lightmaker Lotto is a full service one-stop-shop application system.

Lightmaker Lotto is Regulated by the UK Gambling Commission and have been granted a Remote Casino Operating Licence number 000-001930-R-104156-004.

Lightmaker Lotto is already supplying lottery games to customers across South America and Africa – for more information on our offering please contact us.

Lightmaker has taken its first steps into the highly competitive world of Gaming apps with the release of the eagerly awaited “Eat Zombie Eat” game under the newly formed Lightmaker Games label.

The game sees Norm, a happy go lucky zombie, in need of a healthy zombie diet of fresh meat and it is up to the player to provide him with those much needed arms, legs and other body parts.  In fact a good smattering of brains helps Norm to survive decomposition, but beware – junk food and boulders are not Norm’s best friends!

Project lead and developer Jon Gaukroger explained the thought process behind Norm’s adventures. “We wanted to make a game which was simple and addictive.  It was based on a flash game we made a few years ago which involved using the mouse position to move the character, however we were able to modify this to use the accelerometer capability of iPhone and iPods.”

The major challenge for the Lightmaker team was working out a way to get all the required animation sequences into the game-play without creating a massive file size for players to download.  Using a variety of tools including TexturePacker they were able to compress the animation sequences into a format which is low in file size, and quick for the graphics card to render.  The game has two sets of all graphics which means it works well in a standard resolution as well as with the HD graphics for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

The team are already looking to release an upgraded version of the game and hook it up to Apple’s Game Center so that people can view a universal leaderboard and compete against their friends.  Social functionality will also be included to allow people to share both the game and its scores via Twitter and Facebook.

Watch this gaming space!!

Lightmaker have launched a new microsite for The Fairtrade Foundation’s 2012 ‘Take a step’ campaign.

The Fairtrade Foundation wanted to create a brand new microsite for their ‘Take a Step’ campaign, and help reinforce their online presence in 2012. The objectives of the site were to create a sense of community and dialogue with prominent calls to action and outbound links to social media channels across a broad range of audiences.

The initiative has been split in to two phases; the primary phase and purpose of the holding site is to engage users with the proposition “Take a step in 2012″ and interact with the wider campaign which will take place between February 27th – March 11th. Users are encouraged to sign up to a newsletter to receive further information in the New Year and to start interacting with the site.

The microsite is rich in social media content from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr feeds. There’s also the ability to register for the latest campaigns as well as comment on the Fairtrade products that are being showcased. This is just the first phase of the project with the second phase to launch soon…so watch this space!

In continuing the partnership between the Professional Bull Riders and Lightmaker, We are proud to announce that one of the up and coming young bulls in the PBR has a new name….Lightmaker.

Lightmaker, the BULL, competed in the sold-out Professional Bull Riders 2012 kickoff event at Madison Square Garden. His debut appearance was against PBR rider Ryan Dirteater, who was only able to hold on for 4.83 seconds. Lightmaker the Bull’s strong showing at the event earned him both a Twitter and Facebook page. The event was broadcast nationally through the CBS Sports Network as well as streamed live on PBR.com.

Stay tuned to see which PBR riders will be able to overcome the bucking power of Lightmaker the Bull this season.

Part of Sony ATV Music Publishing, Extreme Music is a business that produces and catalogs music for the purpose of licensing it to broadcasters worldwide. Their content is meant to be used across a variety of mediums including TV, film, advertising, and radio. Extreme is characterized by a relentless commitment to delivering a stellar catalog, employing incredible production values, and supplying an unrivaled roster of talent including XZIBIT, Snoop Dogg, and Quincy Jones among many others. Prospects can here clips of music on the site and licensees receive a custom hard drive with thousands of tracks.

Solution

Lightmaker designed and developed two music library applications. One for desktops (Mac, PC, Air) that interfaces with the Extreme Music Catalog via their API and makes searching, viewing, and listening to the content simple and intuitive. Another interface was developed for the iPad so Extreme Music’s website could be perused effortlessly via touchscreen.  A seamless user experience was created that adhered to the existing websites core functionality while delivering a high level of design and touchscreen usability.

Challenges

• Developing a desk top application that is intuitive and quick in interfacing the music on the hard drive.
• Delivering a new touchscreen Ipad experience that existing users would embrace
• Integrating quickly and seamlessly with their existing  API.

In 2011, The Research and Innovation Team at the Royal Bank of Scotland approached Lightmaker to create a mobile application called ‘Horizons’.

This native app would be used to surface various information sources that the RBS team regularly use into one central location and would be accessible on both iPhone and iPad. It was to be made available only to RBS employees, via their internal Apple appBank.

The App displays the following information in a mobile friendly format and is fully editable by RBS using a bespoke CMS:

-News feeds
-Publications
-Proof of Concepts
-Videos
-Team member contact details

Lightmaker host the app and Content Management System and use encoding.com and Akamai to ensure optimum performance – specifically for the videos section.

Adobe have featured an in-depth case study of Lightmaker’s work on The Open Championship Score Centre + in its Customer Showcase. The case study gives a comprehensive outline of Lightmaker’s development approach to the project, its benefits and features as well as the software Lightmaker used to realise this project.

The notable successes of the project are outlined as:
- Increased audience engagement over mobile devices for The Open Championship by 350% from the year prior;
- Users consumed 110TB of audio and video streams and averaged over eight minutes per session using the app or console;
- Expanded the reach of tournament sponsorship, maximizing advertising investments with The R&A;
- Delivered an exceptional online and mobile experience in eight weeks.

You can read the full case study here and view a demo of the project here.

“Using Adobe solutions to create the desktop and mobile experiences supported our goal of extending the reach and impact of content related to golf’s greatest championship,” says Kevin Bain, Digital Media Manager, The R&A. “The app made it possible for golf fans everywhere to follow all the action and interact with other fans across virtually any computer or mobile device, while helping The R&A strengthen its business relationships with sponsors and partners. It was a clear win for everyone.”

We’re delighted to announce that Lightmaker have won the Employer of the Year Award at the UK West Kent Business Awards and were also shortlisted as a finalist in both the Innovation and Business of the Year categories.

In the Employer of the Year category, we won on the basis of our commitment to employee work/life balance and advanced working methods which help achieve this.