Month: November 2010

Week 179

Another quick weeknote, things are simply too busy. I was going to attend the STRP conference today, for example (which looks great) but have had to cancel. Too much to attend to.

So what’s up?

  • We ran This happened – Utrecht #8 last Monday. For a great impression of the evening read this report by Iskander. Video’s will be up soon at the event’s page.
  • Work with Alper, Simon and Bernard on the last of the additions to the PLAY Pilots website. The project is nearing its end as the last live game will launch tonight at Le Guess Who?
  • A full day of meetings and a session with the Pampus student team at the HKU. I also had the chance to discuss the next steps for project Buta (you know, the thing involving pigs).
  • A trip to the Graphic Design Museum to discuss the challenges of exhibiting games.
  • Some work with my interns at Hubbub on the Learning Lab metagame. They’ve built a great paper prototype; we’re going to play it today.
  • And some talk in between about what happens after PLAY Pilots, as well as about the interactive program for Tweetakt 2011…

links for 2010-11-23

Week 178

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!

links for 2010-11-16

  • russell davies: post digital – an apology
    “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.
    (tags: postdigital russelldavies digital futures)

links for 2010-11-14

links for 2010-11-13

Week 177

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.

links for 2010-11-11