Month: June 2009

Iskan­der sac­ri­fices sleep to be the first to write up a report of the third This hap­pened in Utrecht, and as always tries to dis­cov­er a theme where none was intend­ed. I am glad the notion of crafts­man­ship was some­thing he picked up on in all pre­sen­ta­tions though, because I think that is cen­tral to the This hap­pened concept.

A three-part book on the Dutch elec­tron­ic cul­ture sphere, look­ing at how the ways we engage with cul­ture are chang­ing, report­ing on a recent e‑culture con­fer­ence and the state of the sec­tor in gen­er­al. Worth the EUR 12,50? I’ll soon find out.

Alper shares the work he’s done in the open gov­ern­ment data space (in Dutch). “Het kan alle­maal wél beter. Lat­en we het dus gaan doen.” Amen.

“GaIn focus­es on devel­op­ing sys­tem­at­ic and play­ful approach­es to enhance and orga­nize the process of cre­at­ing new prod­ucts, espe­cial­ly from the per­spec­tive of game design process­es.” These Fins remain at the fore­front of games design research.

A brief inter­view with Alexan­der that touch­es upon what is wrong with pure rep­e­ti­tion and the virtues of gen­er­a­tive systems.

Pho­tos of “the first East African skatepark con­struct­ed by local young­sters.” Won­der­ful stuff, via Hessel.

“And Yet It Moves is a puz­zle-plat­former, set in a unique world, made of ripped paper. With­in the paper col­lage, you can jump, run and last but cer­tain­ly not least: rotate the world.” There are too many inter­est­ing indie games being released to keep track of, lately.

James reports on a recent Gov­Camp held in Ams­ter­dam, where hack­ers com­pet­ed to come up with the best mashup of gov­ern­ment data sources, and design­ers and civ­il ser­vants pre­sent­ed on top­ics relat­ed to data, the Dutch gov­ern­ment and civic duty.

“We are mak­ing a new game, a film about The Sand­pit and social gam­ing in gen­er­al, and we’ve got this love­ly new web­site to doc­u­ment every­thing inter­est­ing that hap­pens between now and the big launch at the Hide&Seek Week­ender on August 1.” A project worth keep­ing an eye on.

Since I’ve been think­ing about using Twit­ter as the plat­form for a per­va­sive game for some time, this is real­ly inter­est­ing to me. A nice sim­ple con­cept, seem­ing­ly well-executed.

“The games on offer the night I vis­it­ed includ­ed Press Gang, a Q&A ses­sion where “celebri­ties” get grilled by the gut­ter press, and Sem­a­pho­ria, which involves devis­ing a flag lan­guage to trans­mit cod­ed mes­sages. Both were enter­tain­ing, but nei­ther these nor the Mex­i­can thumb-wrestling com­pe­ti­tion going on in the bar could be labelled pro­found cul­tur­al expe­ri­ences.” Which makes me won­der whether the author of this piece thinks all the­atre is profound…

“Mie­gakure is a plat­form game where you explore the fourth dimen­sion to solve puz­zles. Because humans can only see and move along three spa­tial dimen­sions, press­ing a but­ton allows to ‘swap’ one reg­u­lar dimen­sion with the fourth, invis­i­ble dimen­sion. Armed with this, the pro­tag­o­nist can see inside closed objects, walk through walls, move objects from one dimen­sion to anoth­er, hide under 3D shad­ows of 4D objects…” This is incred­i­bly cool, but also makes my brain hurt.

“iSee is a web-based appli­ca­tion chart­ing the loca­tions of closed-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion (CCTV) sur­veil­lance cam­eras in urban envi­ron­ments. With iSee, users can find routes that avoid these cam­eras (“paths of least sur­veil­lance”) allow­ing them to walk around their cities with­out fear of being “caught on tape” by unreg­u­lat­ed secu­ri­ty mon­i­tors.” This project was start­ed in 2001. Here’s me think­ing I had an orig­i­nal idea with the con­cept I devel­oped for my Pro­ce­dur­al Urban Rhetorics talk from 2008. Sigh. This is very inter­est­ing stuff, by the way.

Niels ‘t Hooft reports on Adri­an Hon’s pre­sen­ta­tion at the NLGD Fes­ti­val of Games 2009 (in Dutch). Of all the even­t’s keynotes, the one he high­lights is pro­grammed by yours truly.

“Cel­e­brat­ing near­ly 2 years as the CEO of a small and dynam­ic inter­ac­tion design com­pa­ny I thought I’d col­late some thoughts on start­ing up your own com­pa­ny in inter­ac­tion design as this be use­ful for some­one out there.” Sol­id advice root­ed in first-hand expe­ri­ence from Alexan­dra, some of it use­ful to inter­ac­tion design­ers going at it solo as well.

I haven’t seen much good come from the Dutch gov­ern­men­t’s obses­sion with what they call “the cre­ative indus­try”. (The fact that they use the word “indus­try” is proof enough that they do not get it.) I’d be hap­py when they final­ly lose inter­est and leave “us” (the many-shaped cre­ative dis­ci­plines) to our own diverse devices.

“Right “now” (ear­ly June in 1666) the Eng­lish and Dutch are half-way through the Four Days Bat­tle at sea and so we get to read updates in “real time” as Pepys hears them. The first day he didn’t even men­tion what was going on. Yes­ter­day he was busy help­ing the war effort” A diary of a famous Eng­lish­man is being tweet­ed more or less in sync with “our” time. What a won­der­ful idea.

A punch bag that changes colour the more you hit it. A sim­ple but fun inter­ac­tive light­ing installation.

“You know what they say: game design­ers do it bet­ter out­doors. OK, maybe that’s not quite right. But game play­ers, put down your con­trollers and blink into the light. There are sto­ries on the streets, and the game is to find them.” Kro­to­s­ki cel­e­brates the charms of per­va­sive gam­ing. Some of the com­ments to this piece are telling; peo­ple bemoan­ing the fact that these games seem to be pop­u­lar only in areas with lots of web geeks hang­ing out. I guess that means the games need to get a broad­er appeal.