CBC has gone live with an immersive online reality game to back the upcoming mid-season drama The Border, along with microsites for other upcoming premieres. But The Border stands out from the rest. The idea is to drive viewers online to interact with an extension of the show itself, which is exec produced by Peter Raymont (Shake Hands with the Devil) and confronts Canada’s toughest border security issues.

Players can immerse themselves in the online story at cbc.ca/theborder, which puts the user through a first-person interrogation sequence. The video flow responds to how users answer interrogators’ questions. From there, the user acts out the rest of the online story through a series of games. Several of the games are locked until Jan. 7, when the 13-ep show premieres in the Monday 9 p.m. timeslot.

A yet-to-launch mobile contest invites users to use their phone cameras to capture ‘passport stamps’ or ‘QR codes’ that will be scattered across the country. Users can then send the photo via mobile phone to a number on the microsite to get a text response. The process counts as one contest entry.

‘The concept was simple, as relayed to us a few months ago by producers White Pine Pictures and Stitch Media,’ says Jam3media cofounder Mark McQuillan. The Toronto shop handled creative, design, development and implementation of the project, while Stitch Media’s Evan Jones was its interactive producer.

‘This site will certainly set the standard for immersive reality games, and is already beginning to turn heads in Hollywood,’ McQuillan adds.

With the U.S. writers strike now in its sixth week, The Border is pegged as a potential Monday night winner by some media buyers, who note the show won’t face competition from 24.

The site for jPod, about game designers, includes a highly addictive and (for longtime gamers) nostalgic eight-bit game called Defendoid — in which the user blasts away at aliens.

Basic, and less interactive, sites are also live for the hockey wives drama MPV and Sophie, about a newly single mom with a talent agency and a colorful entourage of friends.

From Media in Canada