Joe Kennett, an artist and developer for video games, has asked students in Leeds to help him set the Guinness World Record for the “most pets in a video game”.
Speaking at Leeds Trinity University’s Journalism and Media Week, he called on the audience to send him photos of their dogs so that their pups could be a part of his new video game, “Good Boy”.
The photos will form part of a huge image gallery in the final credits of the video game, which has already used the likenesses of countless dogs to inspire its characters.
Set on the fictional planet of Terra Two, the game is centred around pups exploring outer space, and stars a customisable dog-like space rover named Good Boy.
Kennett explained that within the game’s universe, when a dog dies on Earth, their consciousness is uploaded into the bodies of space rovers.
This allows them to “live forever among the stars as a brave space explorer”, he said.
Good Boy is one of these rovers, and acts as the player’s best friend, staying loyal throughout the game as both man and dog-rover complete quests together and “form an unbreakable bond”, said Kennett.
Luckily, however, Good Boy also has canine friends to join him on his journey. Alongside the protagonist pooch, there is also a full cast of assistant dog-rovers that crop up throughout the game.
These assistants are based on the design team’s own dogs in real life, with each of the virtual characters taking on the looks and personalities of their real-world counterpart.
Kennett explained that basing the game’s characters on their own pets has helped the team to identify with the project by giving it a personal touch.
“It just has that extra layer of love,” he said. “Because they’re our dogs, the whole game has that extra pasting of personal feeling”.
“There’s no way to make yourself work as hard on a game as having a deeply personal investment in it,” he added.
The campaign to set the Guinness World Record for the most pets in a video game is also part of personalising the project, according to Kennett.
When fans have their own pets in the game, they connect to it in a way they don’t with other releases, he said.
“Having that attachment to it is really important,” he said. “People love their dogs, they love their animals, so it has made it pretty easy to market.”
The video game is the latest release from the independent studio Observer Interactive.
To find out more about the game and the campaign to set the Guinness World Record, visit https://observerinteractive.com