Manchester-based design and advertising firm LOVE Labs created a real-time collaborative digital drawing game, called Doodlr.

With the help of Socket.IO and node.js we wrote a server application (we like to call this “Mo”) that bridges the gap between smartphone web browsers and real-time, multi-user experiences. Doodlr is our first idea built using Mo.

They tested Doodlr out using the shop window of MadLab, a maker space in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. Participants connected through a smartphone browser via URL or QR code. Then they had 12 seconds to draw whatever prompt was on-screen: “heart,” “ghetto,” “mullet,” etc. As they drew, the drawing instantly showed up in the shop window, with a maximum of 6 artists drawing in the same drawing space at a time (each person was assigned a different “ink” color). Once the 12 seconds had elapsed, the drawing was saved and posted to a Flickr gallery.

“The thing that’s really exciting about this is the fact that it’s so instant. We’re not asking anyone to download an app, or even log in in to a specific Wifi network – Doodlr works in the browser, and over 3G,” says Graeme Rutherford, creative digital strategist at LOVE.