Layar – Leapfroglog

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 149

I’m writing these notes on a train to Malmö for a change. I was there this wednesday and am back again to have a chat at Illusion Labs. I was put in touch with them by Hampus of The Astonishing Tribe, whom I visited on wednesday. TAT’s an interesting group, specialized in the design of innovative mobile UIs. Their Recognizr concept video made quite a splash in AR circles earlier this year. I once gave a lecture on playful UIs at their office and even though nothing concrete is in the works it would be interesting to collaborate some more on that topic some time.

On wednesday I also met up with my friends at InUse, whom I did some work with when I was last in Copenhagen. That project dealt with applications of multitouch in a real-estate project. Over a Lebanese buffet lunch Mijo and I mostly mused on what’s changed in UX consulting land the past few years and how that might develop into the future. We talked about ‘peak complexity’, the internet of things and strategies for designing deeply networked things. Good stuff.

To wrap up that day, I had a surprise meet-up with Karin of Ozma, (again thanks to the awesome connecting powers of Hampus). Ozma is a game design studio working very much in the same spirit as Hubbub, with a focus on “gaming beyond the screen”. It was very encouraging to discover a company that’s been successfully working in this space for the past four years. (And they’re not the only one, in Sweden alone there’s also Fabel, The Story Lab and Grul…) One of the things we talked about is a cool platform they’re developing for urban games that is not GPS-based, but runs entirely on SMS and is therefore very useful for working with target audiences who do not have access to high-end phones (i.e. teens and tweens).

That wednesday I headed back to Copenhagen, my mind suitably blown, as you can probably imagine.

…

Other than that I have been enjoying Socialsquare‘s hospitality on the Vesterbrogade. Martin, Magnus and I spent some time hashing out the details of the workshop we’ll be doing and we managed to narrow down the questions we’d like to answer to a manageable set. I’m keen on having part of this project’s output be shareable with the world; in what shape or form we have yet to determine.

My active involvement with Layar has gone on hold for the time being, but at the same time the first bits of my work for Layar are finding its way into the world. They’ve launched a new version of their app, which now supports paid content. (Android is out, iPhone should follow soon.) This was one of the first things I worked on for them, before moving on to stuff that’ll hopefully see the light of day somewhere over summer. Designing the paid content stuff involved dealing with a ton of dependencies on processes behind the scenes. It was an interesting challenge to make it as frictionless as possible. Plus, the mobile payment ecosystem is itself an interesting beast to deal with for a while. I also found myself designing for several mobile platforms at the same time, which can really mess with your head; both Android and iPhone have their own ‘grammar’ of interaction (or more precisely, one of them has something resembling a proper grammar, the other’s is more accurately described as a pidgin). So designing in parallel for both is a bit like speaking two languages at the same time. Confusing, even to a Dutchman.

All this, plus some more Skype calls with my HKU students (remind me to share some details on their work next time), another Skype session with the U-Turm group and the very final preparations for This happened – Utrecht #6 took up week 149.

Week 148

So, the first full week of working in Copenhagen is behind me. I’ve mostly been working from our apartment in Nørrebro. Which is fine for now but I am looking forward to getting out more, and maybe doing some coworking here and there. Wouldn’t want to turn into a real hermit here.

Let me have a look at my calendar, what’s been going on?

Ah, so I had a meeting with Martin and Andreas of Social Square (at the very charming Granola, where they serve very tasty mixed juices, by the way). We’ll be doing a multiple day workshop to look at their design process and discover ways to use play as a tool for working with clients. The session is scheduled to take place in a few weeks. I just need to develop a more detailed plan for the session.

I crossed the Øresund on tuesday evening to attend the Nordic Game Indie Night, which was organized by the Copenhagen Game Collective (whose Darkroom Sex Game I’ve blogged about here before). There were six games on display, all from Scandinavian creators. There was free beer. And there were a few talks, of vastly differing depth and entertainment value. The setup was nice though: the games’ creators talked about each others work. The only problem was that many weren’t very articulate, and shied away from actually criticizing games. Some, though, like the guys from D-Pad Studio, really took the time to analyze a game on different levels. Others, like Cactus, seemed more interested in drinking beer. However, Cactus’s game Tuning was my favorite of the bunch, for its sheer mind-fuck awesomeness.

Apart from this, I’ve continued work on Layar, had another round of mentoring chats with my students and made some more preparations for This happened – Utrecht #6. We opened registration for the latter on monday, by the way, and were fully booked in 58 seconds (and had some server wonkiness in the process). Crazy, crazy stuff.

Week 147

Well, the volcano did mess with my flight. Despite that, I am still writing this from an apartment on Birkegade in CPH, where I’ll be spending the coming 5-6 weeks. Here’s what my workspace looks like:

Traveling here took up the whole of wednesday. We went by train; Utrecht to Duisburg, Duisburg to Hamburg, Hamburg to Copenhagen. They put our train on a freaking boat for a bit. That was different.

So I’ve been settling in. Getting a bike, reconnecting to old haunts, that sort of thing (I was here for a year in 2007-2008).

Apart from that, I’ve been taking care of some last bits of work for Layar, doing some prep for This happened – Utrecht #6 (registration opens Monday!) and talking to my HKU students. I also had a first meeting with a group of MediaLAB Amsterdam students who are creating a playful urban projection for ISEA2010 in Dortmund.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a city to explore.

Week 146

Crazy, crazy week I am glad to have survived. But wait, it’s not done yet. Tomorrow (saturday) I’ll be running a workshop in Leidsche Rijn with local young folk, for Cultuur19. The aim is to design a little social game that’ll function as a viral marketing tactic for our upcoming urban games design workshop in the same district. This is a Hubbub mission, and I am glad to have the support of Karel who – besides cooking up crazy plans at FourceLabs – is an occasional agent of Hubbub.

This was my last week working on site with Layar because I’m heading to Copenhagen on sunday. I’ll be staying there for a few weeks, working there – for Layar still, possibly for Social Square – lecturing at CIID and apart from that just taking it a little slower. My apartment is around the corner from the Laundromat Café in Nørrebro so that should be no problem.

I was at Waag Society‘s beautiful Theatrum Anatomicum last wednesday to cohost a workshop on games and architecture as part of the Best Scene in Town project initiated by 7scenes. I presented three bold predictions for the future of games in the city. Look for a write-up of that one at the Hubbub blog soon. The teams came up with interesting concepts for games in Amsterdam and I enjoyed working with all of them.

Going back to the start of this week, I turned 30 on monday. A watershed moment of some sort I guess. Somewhat appropriately, we announced This happened – Utrecht #6 that day too. Check out the program, I am real pleased with our speakers.

Now let’s just hope that volcano doesn’t mess with my flight in sunday and the next note will be coming to you from lovely CPH.

Week 145

It’s been a shorter week than usual due to Easter (which was a nice long weekend with friends and family, by the way). I’ve divided up my time equally between work at Layar – which for me has entered its last phase; a few more weeks to go and then I’ll be handing over – and “other stuff”, being:

Some prep work for This happened – Utrecht #6. The line-up is shaping up nicely and we have an awesome sponsor again. Announcements will be made next monday.
An appearance at Visible Cities #03 which was all about urban games. I had the pleasure of sharing a table with Michiel, James and Juha; sharp folk all around. Some notes will probably find their way to the Hubbub blog soon.
Teaching at the HKU. Which can more or less be summed up by the tweet I posted afterwards: “Really pleased with the hands-on mentality of my design students. Feet in mud, head in clouds, as it should be.”
And now, on friday, some loose ends to tie up before the last weekend of my life as a twenty-something kicks off.

So there you go.

Week 144

In between the work I’ve been doing at Layar (which I can’t really tell you much about still, sadly) it’s been a relatively quiet week.

On monday I got my photo taken for this book on creative SMEs in Utrecht that I mentioned in the previous weeknotes. I had a chat with Lodewijk of Stekker Fest about the next phase of Tako and then headed off to Amsterdam for Mobile Monday #15. As is often the case with MoMo, I ended up half provoked – I find the views of Singularity people a little problematic – and half inspired – Booreiland and Tinker.it! had some fine design work to share. The best part was the pleasant dinner I had afterwards with Alexandra, Iskander and Peter.

On tuesday, after a day of hard graft at Layar I had a chat with Jeroen about Tako too. We’ve more or less figured out the organizational scheme we’ll need to push things forward so now it’s a matter of finding a few more people to help run it. We have a list.

Wednesday morning was spent at the HKU; chatting with several of my students about their progress. Compared to the ones I had last year, these guys are more hands-on and have all started building stuff already. That makes mentoring much easier. In the afternoon I spent some time at Waag Society talking to Ronald and Martijn about a 7scenes workshop we’ll be running on april 14. If you’re reading this, it might be of interest to you. Have a look.

Yesterday (thursday) and today are all about Layar again so not much to report there. Next week’s notes will discuss just four working days since it’s Easter here. I’m looking forward to a longish weekend catching up with friends and family. See you on the other side.

Week 143

I nearly forgot about last week’s notes even though I wasn’t even that busy. So here I am writing this on a sunday from the couch after having had a nice family brunch and with a La Chouffe close at hand. It’s all good.

Since this is a sunday I will keep it short and strictly chronological for once. Monday started off with a long interview for a book on Utrecht’s creative SMEs. This was followed by a meeting with Alexander and Ianus to evaluate the last This happened – Utrecht and make plans for the next one. On tuesday I visited the HKU for the first of what will become many conversations that I’ll have with my new group of students. Afterwards I hurried to Layar HQ for more design work, which basically took up the rest of the week (punctuated by a lunch with Alper about his trip to Austin and NYC and another one with James about the Urbanode project he is planning at VURB.) Laurens (of LouLou & Tummy fame) has joined us at Layar bringing a whole new dimension to the creative work being done there. It’s exciting to be part of that.

So there we are, a brief review of the week. Now if you don’t mind I have a Chouffe to quaff and a few 3voor12 Draait podcasts to listen to. Bring on week 144!

Week 142

I am sat on the couch at home typing this. iTunes is on shuffle (some Burial at the moment). I’ve just had a Bi-Fi snack sausage (a guilty pleasure) and some ice tea. I was kind of hungry, but now I’m ok.

Last week wasn’t as crazy as many recent ones have been. Still pretty busy, with some work in the evenings etc. But the pace is lower. That’s a nice change.

Today I sort of wrapped up project Tako. Sort of, because although I’ve delivered what was this project’s aim, it is part of something much larger. So we’re already making plans for phase two. Anyway, I’ve published an annotated deck of slides to the project’s participants weighing in at 100+. It describes concepts for playful stuff that can be added to the programs of ten of Utrecht’s major cultural events. It also describes a metagame that can be used to tie it all together. The response to it has been good so now the next step is to actually produce a selection of these concepts, which is super exciting.

I started the week with a long drive to the Westland for a slightly overdue evaluation of Mega Monster Battle Arena. Dario Fo, Daniël and myself agree it would be awesome to put on an improved version of the show at other venues because it really is something special, more people should see it. If you have suggestions for a suitable event or venue, let me know.

On wednesday I made a last minute decision to drop by the great TrouwAmsterdam again for an evening on maps as art and new cartography techniques. Amongst other’s Sarah van Sonsbeeck was there to talk about her work. She mentioned the project Alper and I did with her, which I found flattering. The evening’s program contained a lovely range of the super-artistic to the very applied and the hyper-analog to the purely digital. Good stuff. It reminds me of the fact that I want to do Hubbub games that involve maps in some way.

In between, I’ve been banging away at designs for Layar. It’s interesting to experience the rhythm of idea divergence and convergence in a project. It’s like ebb and flow. This week was definitely characterized by a new wave of divergence, which means scrambling to capture all that emerges. Next week we’ll need to bring it all together again and focus things. Ebb and flow.

iTunes has started playing an Interpol song now. I think I might grab some crisps after I’ve posted this.

Week 141

It’s been a while since I spent time at my own desk in the Dutch Game Garden. It was nice to do this again yesterday, having the city right outside my door and kindred spirits such as FourceLabs upstairs. I wasn’t inside the whole time though, in the morning I had another chat at EKKO about Tako. And in the afternoon I headed to Leidsche Rijn accompanied by Julius to attend a workshop concerning Utrecht’s bid to become European capital of culture.

I kicked off the week with two days of work at Layar (now on my way to Amsterdam in a diverted train for my third and last day of the week there). I’ve been collaborating closely with some of the engineers to shape some upcoming new… stuff. Things are developing at such a high pace that it’s a real challenge to keep up. It feels like being on top of a rodeo bull sometimes, but in a good way. This means I need to be pragmatic and fast with developing and documenting designs.

In between, I’ve posted a long overdue project description to the Hubbub site for Mega Monster Battle Arena. It’s this quirky project – a cross between a game and an opera – that I was involved with last year. It feels good to finally have it out there for me and others to point to.

Other in-between stuff includes a final review of several graduation project proposals. I need to provide feedback by the start of next week, and then I’ll switch to coaching a handful of students.

The week will be topped off with what is sure to be a fun friday at the BUROPONY studio. I’ll do some work on their site, and in return have them do some additional work on the Hubbub brand. Scratching each other’s backs, that’s how small creative enterprises flourish.