Fixelândia, as the project was dubbed, is a virtual aquarium deployed at the end of 2011 at Forum Sintra, a shopping mall on the outskirts of Lisbon. Guests to the center get to create and customize their own virtual pet fish, which are then ‘released’ into their new home at the mall
In our continued effort to make sure our interfaces are easy to use and visually appealing, we’ve recently launched these in the Lisbon area. Have a look
A tactile shopping center directory for Forum Sintra (on the outskirts of Lisbon) and tablets for accessing additional info about l’Oreal products at Perfumes & Companhia shops in Portugal.
Bruce Sterling mentioned our virtual aquarium project “Fixelêndia”, for Forum Sintra on the outskirts of Lisbon, on his ‘Beyond the Beyond’ blog via Wired.com
In mid October we posted about our Virtual Aquarium project for Forum Sintra, on the outskirts of Lisbon, where guests get to create their very own customized virtual pet fish and then standby and simply enjoy the view.
Forum Sintra, located on the outskirts of Lisbon, is the 12th and most recent Multimall Management shopping center in Portugal. The center, which opened its doors to the public in April 2011, wanted to offer shoppers an innovative attraction that would appeal especially to younger audiences, and help foster enjoyable memories and positive connections between guests and the center.
After brainstorming with client Multimall, creative technologies specialist YDreams proposed a giant-sized interactive virtual aquarium they dubbed Fixelândia, for the enjoyment of the center’s guests. (Note: the name is a play on words because in Portuguese fixe means cool, but also sounds like the word ‘fish’)
The experience, unique to Forum Sintra, gives guests the chance to create and thoroughly customize their own virtual pet fish. Two touch consoles, located at each end of the giant virtual aquarium, comprised of fifteen 40” monitors, invite shoppers to customize their pets. Guests use the touch screens to create their new friend from scratch – they decide on the shape of the body and fins, as well as the color of its eyes and stripes. The variables available enable guests to create up to 30.000 distinct fish, so the risk that any two fish will be identical is minimal! After determining what their new pet will look like, guests get to name it and release it into Fixelândia!
Creating their new pet fish is only half the fun; to make sure they grow into happy, healthy Guppies, the fish need to be fed and visited, a task that can only be accomplished by checking in at the touch consoles at Forum Sintra. The more you visit your virtual pet fish, the bigger and happier it grows, and the more you are able to further customize it by adding new features. In addition, a dedicated website (http://www.fixelandia.net) is also available so that guests can regularly check up on their pet fish from home to see how it’s doing.
