This week saw the conclusion of Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life. It has been a truly epic adventure, both for the players and for us at nDreams (and for me in particular). I’ve stayed firmly behind the curtain throughout, but now I’d like to peek round it for a moment and say hi, and thanks, and bye.

We first pitched the idea for this game two years ago and I’ve been working on bringing it to life since July 2009. That’s when it became a full-time job. The game went live in March this year and now, eight months later, the whole thing can be archived for people to look back on and enjoy at their leisure.

The game has been a huge team effort, with fantastic contributions from Reebok, M&C Saatchi, Pulse Films, Future Platforms, Hypermedia, everyone at nDreams, many freelancers, and of course Lewis himself, who was enthusiastic and generous with his very valuable time. He’s already asking about a sequel. I’d like a few days off first if that’s okay.

But the biggest contribution has come from the hundreds of thousands of players around the world - and they really are all round the world. Google tells me that we’ve had visits to the site from 154 countries.

One of the great pleasures and challenges of this game was trying to entertain that global audience, and while it meant some manic travel at times, it was incredibly exciting to bring this type of adventure to audiences that have never known the like before.

The game ran in nine languages (including Turkish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean) and we organized live events in Kuala Lumpur, Birmingham, London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai, Cairo and Beirut. Beirut, by the way, is awesome.

We’ve all learned a lot from the experience and there’s still a lot of analysis to do, but today, thought can take a backseat to emotion. I feel so proud of everyone involved and grateful for having been a part of it. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to writing an action movie, and I got to fulfill a fair few of my personal career fantasies. I’m still a little disappointed that we didn’t get to blow stuff up, but maybe next time…

David Varela
Producer & writer, Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life

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