Let's Play with the Numtums!

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Let’s Play with the Numtums: Joint Number Play for Parent & Child

Brighton, UK, 27th February 2012. Plug-in Media announces the launch of its latest interactive entertainment project for kids: Numtums.

Numtums is a multiplatform 25x5 minute series developed in-house by the BBC, featuring cuddly Numbats each with a number of their tummy. It will be broadcast as part of a raft of new learning shows, kicking off the spring season on CBeebies and the channel’s 10th birthday.
Plug-in was involved with Numtums from its inception – working closely with the in-house production team at CBeebies to develop an interactive strategy for the brand, prior to commission. The company then pitched competitively to win the contract to produce the vision for the website, with its innovative suite of interactive ‘toys’.

Numtums delivers a variety of different routes in which pre-schoolers can engage with the brand online. The vision was led by the short-form TV show, but also reflects the ‘snackable’ nature of the web, the limited attention spans of the audience and the context in which children of pre-school age typically experience online content: often with parents and carers or an older sibling by their side.
For a product that focuses on the younger end of the CBeebies demographic, it was essential to deliver big rewards for the shortest of engagements – so the 25 different activities developed for the online experience are more ‘interactive toys’ than full-blown games. Children can enjoy as many or as few of these playful experiences as they like, which are served in rapid succession, each focused on the same number between 1 and 10. Alternatively they can go back and play their favourite ‘toy’ again and again, focused on a different number each time.

Two further routes through the content are available based on whether the child is playing alone or with a grown-up. Whilst the older children will probably want to play Numtums on their own, grown-up and child alike will enjoy plenty of the activities together. Each of the toys can be played as 2-player experience with the adult or older sibling setting up the activities and the child completing them.
"Numtums has been a fantastic opportunity to explore a lot of themes we’d been thinking about for a while. It isn’t about a parent plugging their kid into their computer for some quiet time – it’s specifically designed to be experienced jointly, and in turn this creates a framework for play that parent and child can take offline too. A lot of own IP development is also heading in that direction, so watch this space..." says creative director, Dominic Minns.


About Plug-in Media

Plug-in Media is a double BAFTA-winning digital media production company that delivers engaging, interactive entertainment. We blend animation, gaming and narrative with great design and first-class technical development to produce work that is visually stunning, technically groundbreaking and with great storytelling and humour at its core. Plug-in is currently developing apps and games for a range of different platforms and have a development slate of in-house IP destined for a variety of different platforms from broadcast TV to physical toys.

Contact:
Juliet Tzabar, Managing Director
juliet@pluginmedia.net
+44 (0)1273 783794