In Links on
23 November 2010 with Comments Off
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An awesome two-player indie dueling game with some wonderful performative qualities.
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I'm told that if you look these guys up in SF you're treated to a bizarre ARG-like experience.
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Once again a lovely This happened – Utrecht report from Iskander. Glad to see the theme of "thinking through making" shone through this time around.
In Weeknotes on
23 November 2010 tagged Bandjesland, Game in the City 2010, Katamari Damacy, Keita Takahashi, Learning Lab, Maguro, Noordhoff, Pampus, PLAY Pilots, This happened – Utrecht, Tweetakt with Comments Off
I have developed a sort of routine when it comes to writing these notes. I usually sit down on friday morning and bang them out in around half an hour. The trick to a lot of the things I do is developing habits. Others would call it OCD.
But whenever something other than the ordinary stuff happens on friday, it’s a challenge to still post weeknotes. This was the case last week. I was at Game in the City to see Keita Takahashi speak and also participate in an invitation-only workshop with him. A great experience all around, Takahashi-san turned out to be a bit of a philosopher, an interesting combination of a super-serious and very playful personality. The signed Katamari disk I took home is a perfect souvenir.
Week number 179 has taken off already, so I’ll have to keep this short now. The most important things to report are that I worked on the Bandjesland additions to the PLAY Pilots website with Alper, Simon and Bernard. The game had a test-run last friday and we’ll be doing a test of the data import this week so we can tweak and tune before the whole thing goes live coming friday.
Furthermore, I spoke at an event for middle school teachers on wednesday, where I proposed a traveling games studio that would partner with teachers and students to make games about a variety of subjects (anything really). Got some nice responses afterwards, which was heartening. Slides and notes will probably show up once things calm down a bit on the Hubbub blog.
Aside from this I worked on Maguro, the Pampus project, Tweetakt 2011 and the Learning Lab project, and took care of the last preparations for This happened – Utrecht #8. The latter took place last night and was a lot of fun once again. Bring on the rest of number 179!
In Links on
16 November 2010 with Comments Off
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"The only way to be a Post Digital business is to be a thoroughly, deeply, massively digital one. To be digital in culture not just in capabilities. To know how to iterate in public, to do experiments not research, to recognise that it's quicker and better to code something than it is to describe it in meetings. You need to be part of the wider digital culture, to have good sharing habits, to give credit where it's due, and at the very least to know how to do ellipses in Processing." Duly noted.
In Links on
14 November 2010 with Comments Off
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"Rather than merely a place to do work, the choice of a like-minded coworking community with the right amount of diversity and exposure to new skills and ideas could be as important as choosing a neighborhood to live in." A solid overview of the cowering phenomenon. Although I love the concept, I have rarely seen it work well.
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"…when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future." Which is to say: always be aware of your own actions, prevent them from becoming bureaucratic.
In Links on
13 November 2010 with Comments Off
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Solid advice from Eric Zimmerman on common pitfalls of educational game design. I can certainly relate to many of these.
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"I suspect the lag also contributes to the extreme unease the system sometimes creates – we’re deep in the uncanny valley of interaction." Chris finds Kinect slightly scary, and requiring an American size living room.
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"How to Live Safely is actually a novel, about a man named Charles Yu searching for his father in quantum space-time. He lives in Minor Universe 31, with science fiction wrapped around an inner core of approximately 17 percent reality (by volume). He’s a time-machine repairman, armed with his TM-31 Recreational Time Travel Device, TAMMY the slightly neurotic user interface, and Ed, his nonexistent but ontologically valid dog." On the to-read list.
In Weeknotes on
12 November 2010 tagged Bandjesland, Le Guess Who?, Learning Lab, Monobanda, PLAY Pilots, River Institute, speaking, Talks, Tivoli with Comments Off
I was just checking out a secret development version of the Bandjesland page on PLAY Pilots. It is shaping up nicely, all the basic tech is in place, now it’s just a matter of kneading it to look nice and connecting it to the installation Monobanda are building for Le Guess Who? When all goes according to plan we’ll have a lovely online record of what went down in that very special place in Tivoli Oudegracht. Getting the scaffolding up for this took up a large chunk of the week, with Alper and Simon back in the studio for engineering and design.
Next wednesday I’ll be speaking at an event for teachers in middle education at Pakhuis de Zwijger organized by Noordhoff Publishers. I’ve been asked to share my most remarkable idea for engaging students in a novel way. I have a rough outline of the thing on paper (it popped up almost fully formed when I woke up this morning, love it when that happens). Now it’s just a matter of building the slides. Shouldn’t take too long.
Another major thing this week was coaching the development of a paper prototype of the game we’re designing for the Learning Lab. Wieger and Sylvan, my two awesome interns at Hubbub, have come up with a lovely concept for something that runs on top of the course’s internal blog system and supports students with reflecting on their self-development. We played through it this morning with the client, filled a big whiteboard with comments and are now in good shape to work towards a version that we can playtest with students. Lovely.
In Links on
11 November 2010 with Comments Off
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"The purpose of the Cyborg, as well as his own homeostatic systems, is to provide an organizational system in which such robot-like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, leaving man free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel." A good design guideline, if you ask me.
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"…there’s going to be an interesting job coming – somewhere between design and communications – expressed in behaviour. And something to do with animation and something to do with choreography." I don't think that's a new job, I think it's interaction design. The descriptions here are spot on though, and embedded behaviour is sure to come to the fore in the coming time.
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Games for education is a topic close to my heart. However, I found this article to be a disappointing mess of hype and hunches with the occasional good idea hidden between them.
In Links on
10 November 2010 with Comments Off
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"…the most fundamental acts of design are essentially a combination of talent and practice. Like a sport or a musical instrument – performance, not process…" Of interest mainly because I am looking for new ways to frame design for students and trainees. Methods in stead of processes might be a helpful approach.
In Links on
9 November 2010 with Comments Off
In Links on
8 November 2010 with Comments Off
