Over 400,000 players. A James Bond licence. 12 years together.

The problem

HiddenCity turns stories into real-world adventure games. Players are guided by their phones through cities, with their choices and actions driving the narrative they experience in the real world. The games take players into art galleries, bars, museums, and across rooftop terraces with memorable views.

As the business grew, so did the complexity. HiddenCity faced three technical challenges that were holding them back:

Content needed to be editable by non-technical staff. The games involve layered narratives with multiple characters, branching paths, and location-triggered events. The people who write and manage this content aren't developers. No off-the-shelf CMS could handle the complexity of what HiddenCity needed while remaining usable by the creative team.

The games needed "choose your own adventure" logic at scale. Player decisions had to trigger different real-world outcomes, with multiple characters interacting across branching storylines. Building an engine to manage that complexity reliably was a serious technical challenge.

Live updates had to be safe. When thousands of players are mid-game across a city, pushing content changes can't break their experience. The system needed version control and a release process that allowed the team to make fixes while games were in progress.

What we built

Lamp built a bespoke platform from the ground up.

For the content management problem, we created a system that lets non-technical users input and manage player communication at every level. It has version control, a simple interface, and the ability to revert changes instantly. The creative team can update game content, including making changes while players are actively playing, without risking broken game flow.

For the game logic, we built a set of methods for handling branching player decisions. The story shifts according to what each player does, creating personalised experiences with different real-world outcomes. All of it monitored and managed by the platform in real time.

We also implemented automated test scripts so new game content could be validated before release, removing the risk of broken player journeys reaching production.

The results

HiddenCity has grown from a promising idea into a leading player in the real-world gaming industry.

The technology platform has become a competitive advantage in its own right. The barrier to entry for competitors is high, largely because of the sophistication of the system underneath the games.

"Working with Lamp has been wonderful. They're knowledgeable, reliable and incredibly proactive. The impact of the development work has been that the business has become a leading player in the industry, and the high barrier to entry for our competitors is largely due to the technology."

Rob Reason, Founder, HiddenCity

Why this matters

HiddenCity is an unusual technical challenge. The platform has to handle branching narratives, real-time location tracking, live content updates, and a non-technical CMS, all without ever breaking the player experience. It's the kind of system where reliability isn't a nice-to-have; it's the product.

Twelve years in, the platform is still running, still evolving, and still powering a business that has grown from local walking tours to a James Bond licence. That doesn't happen by accident. It happens because the technical foundations were built to last.