Tag: Ebi

Week 168

So, I got back from a one-week holiday on Terschelling last weekend (which was lovely, by the way) and immediately dove into work again. So much to do at the moment, it’s a challenge not to get swamped. Anyway. And it is one of those weeks where I need to look back on my calendar just to remember what has been going on…

Most notably, two interns have started at Hubbub. They are working on games for the second installment of the Learning Lab, an experimental educational program created by River Institute, which will be running at the University of Amsterdam the coming months. Their first assignment is to design a game that will be played by Learning Lab participants (who are called “pioneers”) today and tomorrow at the Natural Networking Festival. It is nice to have these guys on board. This week I regularly sat down with them to review their plans but aside from this they are incredibly self-steering. They’ll be blogging about their exploits on the Hubbub blog soon.

Also, I had a full day of work on Maguro yesterday. We spent the whole day at the client’s office (a large governmental organization which I can’t name at the moment). The morning was taken up by short presentations from the side of us, the design team. We also had the chance to talk to a selection of people from our target audience and get a tour of their work environment. In the afternoon we sat down to brainstorm concepts, and came up with some interesting ones. I enjoyed getting a chance to see this organization from the inside, which due to to the sensitive nature of their work is a little secretive. We decided to use part of the workshop’s program to try out some mechanics that we might be using in the game, without the audience being aware of it. That lead to some interesting results.

This week is bookended by meetings for project Ika. This project is run from the still very new Design for Playful Impact research group at the HKU. On monday I spent some time with the people leading the other projects to get a general sense of the program. Today I’ll be meeting up with the client for the first time.

And in between I’ve been doing more work on PLAY Pilots. I dropped by Zesbaans to check out an early version of their installation for the Netherlands Film Festival, which is called The Stereoscope and is this kind of toy-like VJ-ing tool loaded with fragments from Dutch films from the past 30 years. Awesome, awesome, stuff. It’s already fun to play with, even though the custom-built console is yet to be finished and the game mechanics haven’t been implemented yet.

And finally, in other news: we announced the next This happened – Utrecht, and I uploaded a selection of photos from the Bocce Drift game Hubbub ran a few weeks ago.

Week 164

I am sat at the studio while around me FourceLabs are putting the final touches to their installation for Stekker Fest. I’ll be there tomorrow to hand out buttons to players. It’s the first in a series of three playful additions to three festivals that I am overseeing – first called project Ebi and now commonly known as PLAY Pilots. As such I can’t wait to see the response of players. On the other hand, I am sure it’ll be great.

The next project in the PLAY Pilots series is by Zesbaans for the Netherlands Film Festival. I had a few more meetings about that one as well, mostly about getting some productional stuff sorted. It turns out getting big screens for a long period of time is kind of expensive. Your learn something everyday.

Last week we launched a first version of the PLAY Pilots website, which includes an online game. This week we’ve started rolling out the first improvements. I have been planning some changes and additions to the ruleset. We’ve also started work on pulling in the Wip ‘n’ Kip game data.

Apart from this, I have been doing some preparation for new projects; codenamed Uni, Maguro and Fugu. More on those as things develop.

Week 162

Slightly overdue so I’ll keep it (very) short.

Week 161

This past week, again, was mostly about project Ebi. We kicked off the third iteration on monday with a review of the version we delivered the friday before. What followed was a heated discussion about the ruleset. I felt it needed a bit more depth so players would have more interesting choices. The trick is to not go overboard with the complexity, because we want the game to still have immediate appeal.

By the way, project Ebi has a name now and it is PLAY Pilots. The site is still cloaked but the process blog – where you can find many wonderful weeknotes by FourceLabs and Zesbaans as well as ourselves – is public. We’re also on Twitter and Facebook. Keep tabs on those channels to get early access to the BETA…

On tuesday I headed to Amsterdam for a taste of Stumptown‘s coffee – something Alper had been bugging me about for ages – and a trip to Pristine for some accessories for my new bike. I spent the rest of the day at Alper’s studio reviewing one of my students graduation thesis. She’s designed a point-and-click adventure game with an intersex protagonist, an attempt to critique gender conventions through gameplay. Interesting stuff.

On wednesday I continued work on Ebi with the team. It was Bernard‘s last day before his vacation so we wrapped up an important part of the copy. In the afternoon I headed to the Nederlands Film Festival‘s office to kick off the second pilot that is part of Ebi, which will be created by the awesome crew at Zesbaans. They have posted their first weeknote over at the project blog.

Thursday, I met up with a few of my students. Some still require help, but a few others are at the point that they looked apologetic when I asked when they would like to meet again. They’re in the final phase of their work, and I’ve done what I can. We’ll see each other at the finals, which will be in august.

A first for Hubbub, I had a chat with an possible intern on thursday too. I’m still not sure if we’ve reached the point where we can offer a good environment for interns (I take the educational responsibility we would have quite serious) so we’ll have to see if we take one on board.

On friday, I was back at the soon-to-be new Dutch Game Garden on the Neude square – we’re moving next week – to work with the Ebi team. Alper was mostly hacking away at sign-in stuff for Twitter and also the new version of the game engine. Simon made good progress with the designs for the game interface and I was surfing for fun customizable gadget to hand out to our players during the first festival we’ll appear at; Stekker Fest 2010. Would you fancy an eighties style suncap?

Also, a few of our FourceLabs friends dropped by to discuss technical matters dealing with how we’d integrate the web game we’re building with the physical one they’re doing for Stekker Fest. They also showed some awesome mockups of the whole setup made with LEGO. They’ve also been playing around with high speed cameras, yielding awesome footage. I’m sure they’ll share more details in their next post.

Week 160

So here we are at the end of week 160 which has been mostly about project Ebi. Today we’re wrapping up the second iteration of the project. It’s crazy to think we have been going for only four weeks in total now and at this point we have a a first software version of the game running with copy and design shaping up nicely too. My personal contribution hasn’t been that huge, it’s mostly been about making sure the killer team I’ve assembled (if I may say so myself) can do its job.

In between writing this, me and Bernard are playing with the prototype, as Alper is hacking away at it. Meanwhile Simon (back from a vacation to Austria, his fatherland) is back in Rotterdam polishing some of the new screens we’ve identified after settling on a ruleset.

Aside from this I’ve spent some time again at the HKU talking to students. This included a live demo of a game a few of them are working on that involves brain control. They’ve gotten their hands on an Emotiv BCI and are figuring out ways to make mastering thought patterns as a player actually doable. Students have all the fun these days.

Week 158

It’s the end of week 158 and I am sat at a table in what will soon be the new Dutch Game Garden. On the fourth floor builders are putting final touches to the studio FourceLabs and Hubbub will be sharing. I am on the first floor, with a gorgeous view of the Neude square which is the scene of much summery activity. The city as theatre.

This week has been mainly about project Ebi. We kicked off a second iteration, after wrapping up basic functionality in iteration 0, this one is about adding the game specific stuff. Most of our energies so far have gone into designing a good ruleset. We had a breakthrough on wednesday and reconvened today to formalize those ideas, and fill in the blanks. We now have enough material to push forward on design, copy and engineering. It’s that stage of that project where the shape of things starts to become clear and you can’t wait for it to materialize so that you can touch it, use it, play with it.

In a short while I’ll be strolling through the centre of Utrecht to the current and soon to be old Dutch Game Garden, for a farewell party. We’ve had plenty of good times in Drieharingstraat 6, let’s give the old building one more bash.

Week 157

Had another busy week, with time equally divided between projects Buta and Ebi.

The former has come to an end with the delivery of a video sketch yesterday. Leading up to that on monday we tested several paper prototypes of games for people and pigs with farmers. The response we got from them was encouraging. Having processed this feedback we settled on one concept that would be developed further into a video sketch. After this we developed a scenario, sketched a rough storyboard and divided up tasks. I hacked together a software prototype of one half of the thing, which is aimed at people (using Processing and the LiveView screencaster) while Irene built a to scale physical model of the installation for pigs. I can’t share the video just yet but I’m sure it won’t be long before I can.

Ebi’s first iteration has come to a close today and I am happy to see we have working software with pretty pictures and nice words, all thanks to the hard work of the team (hello, Alper, Bernard and Simon). I was mostly making sure these guys could do their jobs, as well as organizing work that will need to be done by others in future. Next week, after iteration two, I think we will have a thing we can show you. Can’t wait for that.

And now, it’s time to close this damn laptop and prepare for the afternoon’s game. I’m not a big fan of football but Netherlands – Brazil is not to be missed.

Week 155 & 156

I have some catching up to do with these. What can I say, things got in the way of writing last week’s notes.

These past two weeks I have been pushing to get a new project, codenamed Ebi, off the ground. It is the next step in my involvement with the PLAY project in Utrecht. I’ve put together a team consisting of Alper, Bernard and Simon to build a game that will tie together several other playful things that will take place over the coming months at several Utrecht events. We’ve had our kick-off and are now in the midst of the first sprint, with delivery of a first rough system by the end of next week. Copy is being written, software is being developed and designs are being made. It’s a pleasure to see this ad-hoc team coming together so fast and getting down to business. That takes real skill, in addition to the craftsmanship each brings to the table.

Other than that, project Buta (another codename) started this week, which is a research thing at the new Design for Playful Impact group at the HKU. We’ve been doing field research and have been sketching and prototyping initial ideas. The subject matter is kind of controversial, so I can’t share too much about it, other than that it involves pigs. Yes, pigs.

In between, I dropped by the presentation of the U-turm project, a student project where I acted as advisor on. The demo worked nicely. With some additional work on the game design I am sure it will be a hit in Dortmund. I also attended Layar‘s one-year anniversary event, where several things were unveiled that I had some part in, such as the all-new floaticons.

Looking ahead, I’ll be busy with Ebi for the next month or two and will also have to take some time to move into a new studio, that I will be sharing with FourceLabs in the new Dutch Game Garden on the Neude. Ace location, nice space, can’t wait for that to happen.

Week 154

A very low-key, quiet week this was. Partly due to the fact that I took the Monday off (gasp!) And partly due just to the fact that it’s one of those in between periods. Old projects winding down, new ones starting up.

One of those new projects I’ve codenamed Ebi. It’s the next step we’re taking with the thing called PLAY that I’ve talked about here before. I’ve been building a team and we’re ready to kick off next week.

I’ve also seen my students again, discussing the aftermath of their mid-terms. Some are moving ahead without trouble, others need some help. The trick is to figure out which student needs which kind of feedback.

And finally, you might like to know I met with Ianus and Alexander to talk about the next batch of This happened – Utrecht events. There, it’s a challenge to balance our urge to make each edition better than the next one with the fact that, essentially, we’re doing it all for the fun of it, not for business.