Waybuloo
BBC
Goals
Waybuloo is a 100 episode TV series commissioned by the BBC for its pre-school channel CBeebies. RDF Media Group, who own the Waybuloo brand asked us to help them build the brand online.
Waybuloo needed a strong and engaging presence on the BBC website. The brief was to create a destination that would complement the TV series which features real children and the CGI animated Waybuloo characters.
The site needed to feature the emotional themes of the television series through interaction with the characters, building on the concepts of participation and citizenship within a safe, visually stimulating and intuitive environment to engage young children and their parents.
The second part of the project was to develop an HTML website for other audiences outside of the BBC environment.
Solution
We developed a site which reflected the magical world of Nara enabling children to experience the environment as if they were a child or Cheebie from the TV series.
We recreated Nara through the faithful rebuilding of the world using sounds, images and animations adapted from the series, and placing children within an explore-able environment. It was important to recreate the uplifting emotional themes and gentle aesthetic whilst adding entertaining interactivity.
For an added sense of depth, we created a ‘depth of field’ similar to the live action footage as well as tactile, interactive animations of the Piplings.
Additionally, we used parallax scrolling and CGI animations and an additional layer of video. The site encourages children, with their parents and carers, to point, click and play with Nok Tok, Lau Lau, Yojojo and De Li.
Audio completes the experience with a soundscape and voices shared with the series. Children are rewarded for completing simple, fun games or activities by a sequence of ‘Buloo’: the Piplings gently floating into the sky.
Results
The site is a vibrant and ever growing environment which will continue to encourage children to play and learn key life principles. The success of the site has led to ABC in Australia licensing the site from RDF for its territory.