Gaming’s cultural and technological impact is so great these days that it’s reaching into unusual new areas. Immersive gaming is a key phrase you’ll hear from virtual reality proponents, and that’s something you can get now thanks to a partnership between Royal Philips, the global leader in lighting, and Frima Studio Inc., Canada’s largest independent game developer. Frima has made Phillips Hue lighting interact in real time with the gameplay of its popular title Chariot, exclusively on Microsoft’s Xbox One. It’s a combination that opens up a new market for Philips while adding some marketing heat to the Xbox One and Chariot. “Chariot has been a great title in our ID@Xbox portfolio since it launched into Games With Gold last year. We’re thrilled that Frima is pushing the boundaries with this new technology from Philips Hue and are really excited to see it come to Xbox,” said Chris Charla, director of ID@Xbox at Microsoft.

Chariot is a popular couch co-op platformer with rich, vibrant colors — and now it can control all the Philips Hue lights in the room to reflect in real time what is happening in the game. Different lights are connected together to create a unique ambiance with hundreds of colors for the ultimate immersion in the game universe. When enemies attack, Hue lights blink red. When colorful plants bloom, their colors are reflected in the room. From subtle shifts to sudden bursts, everything onscreen is reflected in a Hue-enabled space. “With its stunning art and mesmerizing environments, Chariot is a perfect fit to demonstrate the full potential of Philips Hue for games and Frima is the ideal partner to help us showcase a technological world premiere,” said Wout Verhagen, director of strategic alliances and partnerships at Philips.

Cyrille Jean, Associate Brand Manager at Frima Studio, spoke with [a]listdaily about the game and the cooperation with Philips and Microsoft.

This a fascinating and unique extension of gaming into the home. Where did the idea originate?

At Frima Studio, we have employees whose job it is to develop ideas and innovate. It’s the company’s philosophy to encourage initiatives and good ideas. In this case, Chariot was an internal initiative. Last January an employee saw the opportunity in the new technology developed by Philips — an opportunity to bring a game experience to another level. The studio gave the green light to the employee to approach Philips, and they believed immediately in the idea.

How difficult was it to implement the control of Hue Lighting within the game?

Luc Beaulieu, CTO at Frima Studio: Once the R&D portion was done, it was quite simple. It took about a month to implement the Philips Hue lights into Chariot and another month for it to be production ready on Xbox One. Balancing the lights with the gameplay so that it feels right was a good challenge.

Will Philips be using this connection with gaming in its marketing for Hue Lighting?

The Philips Hue Lights change the way we always used lights at home. Now, the consumer can control them (colors and intensity) as you wish via an app or other systems. The initiative came from Frima which had the objective of offering players a more immersive game experience. We can’t deny that both sides benefit from this partnership and the visibility that resulted, but the first objective was for Philips to offer many possibilities to the consumers with the Hue Lights, and for Frima to offer a better experience to gamers in their living room. This brings attention to Chariot and we appreciate it because we’ll keep surprising you.

Will we see other games connected to Hue Lighting?

The door is now open and the idea public. The experience is great, so I’m sure that other developers will make Philips Hue Lights compatible with their games.

What sort of response have you gotten from gamers about this connection?

We’ve had a very positive response from the community. The majority of players enjoy the new experience offered by the association with Philips Hue.

Here are some quotes from players:

“Seriously, this is like the coolest thing ever. I hope this gets seen by the Xbox team and they try to implement it as a system feature. The immersion factor is really impressive.” said one Reddit user, among many other laudatory comments on Reddit.