With the rising popularity of iPhone gaming, a whole new interactive world has opened up for kids industry players. And with the surfeit of titles hitting the Apple Apps Store, Toronto, Canada-based Untold Entertainment is looking to stand out in the crowd, creating an innovative new game driven by stop-motion animation.

Headed up by president Ryan Henson Creighton, the two-year-old company is primarily in the business of performing interactive service work for prodcos like marblemedia and Sinking Ship Entertainment. But Creighton, who previously worked as a senior games developer at Corus Entertainment, is also launching original IP, starting with stop-motion Clue-inspired game, Kahoots.

Players assume the role of the title’s detective and carry on through the game’s 50 levels to track down criminals wreaking havoc in its fictional city Londonton, which features districts such as East Westinghamshireham and Vicar’s Bottom. Crimes range from setting the Big Bernie clock to toll for tea time at 3:30 a.m. to issuing postage stamps sporting body parts that no one wants to lick. It also includes a currency system, in which players are rewarded with munnypence as they achieve goals that can then be spent on various items at the curio shop to speed progress through the game.

Inspired by kids Brit TV series like Noddy and Fireman Sam, Creighton says he always wanted to create a game in stop-motion clay that would appeal to kids. Kahoots will be available as a downloadable PC title online first and then in an iPhone and iPod Touch version this quarter. At press time, Untold was in the process of making the final decisions on the game’s price-point.

Creighton is banking on its quirky and playful clay design aesthetic that extends to its logo to pique players’ interests. ‘It’s easy for your game to get buried on gaming sites,’ he says. ‘So we’re hoping people are more likely to click on an icon if it’s different.’

In the meantime, the gameco has a few other kid- and family-friendly game projects and IP in the pipeline and Creighton is definitely open to talking to potential partners.