A NEWPORT-BASED gaming company has joined forces with the team behind Wallace and Gromit to develop an 'exciting immersive experience' based on the popular characters.

And the consortium, which includes a number of other British creative companies, has received a £4m government investment to develop the project.

Tiny Rebel Games, which was founded by Susan and Lee Cummings, is part of the consortium with Bristol media company Aardman, the makers of Wallace and Gromit, and other firms Potato and Sugar Creative.

It is also part of the Tiny Rebel family of companies which includes Tiny Rebel Brewery and Tiny Rebel Bars.

Chosen by UK Research and Innovation as part of the Audience of the Future programme, which is a key part of the government’s Creative Industries Sector Deal, the consortium has been awarded the grant to explore and pioneer cutting-edge immersive experiences.

The new immersive experience will be rich and multi-layered, realised through innovation and technology, bringing Wallace & Gromit alive in an entirely new way, while also creating a new platform for storytelling for the audience of the future. The ambitious plan includes a multi-month campaign leading into a groundbreaking location-based multi-user augmented reality experience in 2020.

Susan Cummings, founder of Tiny Rebel Games and member of the consortium said: “We feel the future of immersive experiences lies in being able to weave a story together using a variety of media and experiences.

"At the core will be an engaging narrative, created in partnership with the incredibly creative team at Aardman, which will appeal to Wallace & Gromit fans of all ages.

"Around this core, we will use both cutting edge and traditional techniques to enable storytelling and allow people to engage with an evolving narrative. These may include immersive technologies such as augmented reality, mixed reality and haptics as well as live theatrical production, websites, social media channels and even comic books and audio adventures.”

The consortium also has research support from the University of South Wales.

Tiny Rebel Games has previously conceived, co-developed, and published two award-winning Doctor Who games and publish and developed Tiny Rebel Beer Money Inc in collaboration with Tiny Rebel Brewery.

Ms Cummings was one of the principal founders of 2K Games and built up its product portfolio, including signing Bioshock, Borderlands, Civilization, X-Com, SpecOps and building the foundation of 2K Sports. Lee was a producer at Rockstar Games where he was integral to the design and production of Grand Theft Auto and Bully.

The Tiny Rebel Games team has a combined 40 years of experience creating blockbuster console, PC and mobile games.

Sean Clarke, executive director, rights and brand development, Aardman, said: “Aardman is a business built on great storytelling and creative ambition. We are delighted to partner with this bold project, developing new Wallace & Gromit content which can be interacted with on many levels. We are sure this will delight and engage fans, offer a unique experience and maintain Wallace & Gromit’s reputation as pioneers of technology.”

UKRI Challenge director for audience of the future Prof Andrew Chitty said: “It’s fantastic that we complete our line-up of audience facing demonstrators with this hugely ambitious collaboration between Tiny Rebel Games, Potato, Sugar, University of South Wales and the creators of Wallace and Gromit.

"Their aim to revolutionise augmented reality gaming along with the advances in AI, haptics, audience interaction and film production technologies from our other competition winners means the public will be able to try out some truly groundbreaking experiences over the next 18 months.”