Caparo design crew

The client —
The Fairly Hydrated Knight is one of the 4 interactive installations/games we designed for the Ghajn – Water Conservation Awareness Center in Malta. The Center is open to schools and the public. With these games, it aims to raise awareness as to the water challenges faced by the Maltese islands and the Mediterranean. The project was supervised by Medies as to the educational practice and was organized by GWP Mediterranean.

The game is a fun and educational experience for children aged between 7 and 10. The objective was to introduce the water management practices in Malta over time. It is displayed on a large screen installation (135x241cm) that consists of 4 smaller screens, paired together as a unit.

The creative concept —
The game, which resembles a fairy-tale, explores the waterworks of a fort: water availability inside the fort, water security inside the fort under siege, water quality, and safety during the long dry summer months, precautions for water leaks etc. The concept suggests that players identify themselves with a hero knight, who protects the castle from enemies and keeps the water safe. The idea was based on the fact that in the Middle Ages, water was a very precious commodity for a fort. Enemies that wanted to attack a fort would usually start by destroying the water supplies.

The game has 2 main parts. Part 1 indicated as ‘LEARN’ is an educational map that explains the 4 game stages of part 2. Players learn valuable information about the facilities and waterworks in forts for every game stage and discover the reason for the gameplay.

Part 2 indicated as ‘PLAY’ is the actual game, which consists of the 4 game stages: Cistern, Well, Aqueduct and Qanat. Through quick action gameplay, players must protect the facilities from enemies and maintain the water's safety and availability within the given time. The 4-stage sequence repeats three times after the successful completion of the last stage, provided players have kept their lives. Every new stage sequence has an increased level of difficulty and at the end of the game, players get an avatar, depending on their score.

We designed the concept, animations, and all design elements. We used mix media techniques to create backgrounds and character, such as paper cutting, plasticine props, and other material. All the images were then processed digitally. The animations were made with stop motion and frame-by-frame animation. For the sound effects and music themes, we used open source music libraries (Freesound.org, Youtube audio library) and custom made sounds produced in-house.