Disney and Creative England offer £95,000 ‘healthy living’ development fund

Disney’s UK arm and Creative England have launched a development fund for games studios and technology start-ups that can come up with an original way to encourage families to live healthier lifestyles.

A total of £95,000 has been set aside as a development fund for the project, continuing Creative England’s ventures to support creative and digital firms – particularly smaller firms and start-ups.

As Disney will be releasing the chosen digital tool, it is opening up all of its IP to participating developers. That means studios can pitch ideas that revolve around any of the classic Disney properties, such as Mickey Mouse, but also the PIxar IP and characters from the Marvel and Star Wars universes.

"We know developers would love to work with those stories," said Disney Interactive developer Matt Carroll. "Hopefully they can, for this project, do something a little different, something that isn’t the usual run-of-the-mill game that could be great commerically and hopefully a change for good as well."

The aim for developers is to come up with something original, something that engages whole families on both a group and individual basis. The final product could be anything from a traditional game or app, to something that involves wearable technology or augmented reality.

"We’re interested in seeing how people use technology in different ways, who combine that with those stories [of our IP] to create something really compelling," Carroll added.

Devs interested in participating should head to Creative England’s website to learn more about the initiative and how they can submit their ideas.

Submissions are now open and close on Monday, April 20th. Three applications will be selected by Disney and Creative England at the end of stage one, with the successful trio of companies each receiving a £5,000 grant to prepare their ‘proof of concept’.

Stage two will involve a live pitch and Q&A with a judging panel, who will decide which of the three shortlisted pitches will receive the £80,000 development fund.

Disney is hoping to have a final product released by February 2016.