ABOUT

Matmi teamed up with Warwick Davis & Offficial to release a crazy, addictive, interactive app.

The app is called PocketWARWICK and was the brainchild of the actor Warwick Davis, star of Life’s too short, Star Wars and Willow.

Matmi were approached by technology investors Offficial, who are producers of the app, and Warwick Davis to develop PocketWARWICK. Working alongside Warwick and Offficial over the 7 month development time was incredible, providing more laughs than any other project.

Have your very own Warwick in your pocket!

Warwick Davis fans can get closer to their favourite celeb than ever before with this new free-to-play app. Combining elements of The Sims and Tamigotchi, PocketWarwick features the star himself -feed him, tickle him, dress him as frog, take him to auditions, send him to the Gym – whatever it takes to keep him happy.

The Matmi team worked very closely with Warwick to ensure his personality and unique sense of humour was accurately conveyed via the games AI system- over the months of development he visited and chatted to the team constantly about how his character would react to certain events, his favourite foods (chocolate biscuits!) likes and dislikes – so we feel we have digitally captured his characteristics to a tee.

Result

Released Thursday 8th November, the app has produced some incredible statistics – to date it has achieved:
•Over 50k downloads in the first week and still climbing steadily
•Reached top 10 Apple iTunes chart in 1st week, with an app store review of 4/5
•Reached no. 1 in its category on the iTunes App store after 3 days
•2nd place and climbing in the Shorty Awards
•Tweeted by celebrities including Ricky Gervais and Michael Owen
•Featured Daily mail app of week
•PocketGamer’s app of the week
•Thousands of shares to twitter via the app,
•20K YouTube views and climbing
•Over 4000 Twitter followers and climbing
•Featured on the hugely cult YogsCast showand received over 3million views – the busiest video of the week on YouTube!



Director of Official, Jamie, said of working on the PocketWarwick project,

“When we were first approached by Warwick with the opportunity to produce this game, we immediately recognised how innovative his concept was. Throughout the production of the project Offficial, Matmi and Warwick worked together to push the limitations of creativity, ultimately resulting in a surreal game which we’re proud to have worked on. As PocketWarwick was the first game that Offficial have produced we were entering the unknown somewhat when we started the project. Matmi managed our expectations and offered advice guidance throughout which has led to a successful relationship from our perspective, we’re already actively seeking out opportunities for other projects we can take to the talented team at Matmi!”

Director of Matmi, Jeff Coghlan:

“Working with Warwick and Offficial on the app over 7 months was a fantastic and unique experience. Being able to collaborate so closely with him on the creative direction the game took ensured PocketWARWICK was a real reflection of his personality and humour. The game was his brain-child and we were honoured to be such a large part of its creation.

The world of celebrities and games are becoming closer all the time and we wanted to take this even further. PocketWARWICK attempts to blend these worlds together more than any app before. Fans are already used to being able to interact with their favourite celebrity through social networks; PocketWARWICK is a mere extension on this. We expect the trend of celebrities getting more heavily involved in the digital world (and games in particular) to grow and we look forward to being part of it.”

Client, Warwick Davis:

“When I first approached Offficial with Pocket Warwick, I was thrilled that they were as enthusiastic about the project as I was. I have always loved technology and have been fascinated by what can be achieved with mobile apps. Pocket Warwick was a way of fusing my creativity and passion for performance with technology. Offficial took the project to Matmi and together we created something unique and enjoyable. I was very specific about what was in the app. It was important to me that Pocket Warwick had the same likes, dislikes and sense of humour as me. There’s a piece of my soul in Pocket Warwick, Offficial and Matmi did a great job in extracting it.”