DMU's Big Screen to be turned into biggest ever arcade game

De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) will be staging the largest-ever gaming experience in Leicester’s history as part of the One Giant Leap festival in the city.

The big screen on the Vijay Patel Building on the campus will be used to stage the Retro Arcade Games event for four hours a day from today (Monday 14 October) – to coincide with the school half-term holiday.

Students, staff and the passing public simply need a smart phone and can then scan the QR code on the big screen display and then build their space characters to bump around the Apollo spacesuit helmet. High scores will be recorded and displayed on the public leaderboard.

The festival and game are part of Leicester’s celebration to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the Moon landings back in 1969 and a series of events are taking place across Leicester.

There is no limit to the number of users who can access the game at any one time and people can build as many characters as they like, but they disappear after two minutes on the screen.

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The new gaming experience will be launched today (Monday 14 October) at noon and run until 2pm and then run again from 4pm until 6pm. It will be the same schedule for the rest of the week apart from festival’s final day, Saturday 19 October, when the game will be on screen from 1-5pm.

Festival designers have been working with DMU on the plan for weeks and it will be the first time the 34-metre square screen has been used for gaming. The Retro Arcade Games was staged in the city earlier this year, but has never been tried on a screen this large.

Sean Clark, from DMU’s Institute of Creative Technologies, has been helping to develop the week-long computer challenge in partnership with BID Leicester and DMU Local.

He said: “It’s a fun way to bring people together. I think the older players might recognise the platform format of the game, it’s definitely influenced by the arcade games.

“We wanted to take the ‘space invaders’ theme of the Moon Landings and do something different with it, which people could access on their phones. I hope people enjoy it.”

The computer games are part of the One Giant Leap festival, which also involves a kids’ game jam and the Museum of the Moon at Leicester Cathedral.