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.