Tako – Leapfroglog

Week 150

That’s a nice number, 150. One-hundred-and-fifty. I like the sound of that. So what’s been going on this week?

I hopped on a plane last Sunday to the Netherlands for This happened – Utrecht #6. Wouldn’t miss out on my own party, of course. And I’m so glad I didn’t, because we had awesome talks by Berend & Sanneke, Matt, Sebastiaan and Keez, plus a surprise appearance over Skype by Mr. Buxton. The room was packed, interaction designers of all stripes were chatting away beforehand, during the break and afterwards over drinks. I had a blast and judging by the reports that have been coming in, so have many others.

Before heading back to the Netherlands the next day I managed to squeeze in a few meetings. One of those was for PLAY which, now that I’ve wrapped up project Tako,¹ is ready to move into its next phase. We’re planning to produce several playful ‘things’ for a number of cultural events and tie them all together with a meta-game. It’s a matter of getting all the right people on board now and getting going as fast as possible. So I’ve a list of folks to contact in the coming days.

I think I broke a personal record for the number of Skype sessions in one day on Wednesday, with back to back talks with my HKU students as well as a planning session with Karel and Julius for an urban games workshop they’ll be running tomorrow in Leidsche Rijn.²

And today, after spending Ascension day on a couch, plugging away at email and to-dos, I’ll be making the trip across the Øresund to Malmö in a bus full of makers and interaction designers to attend ThoughtMade, which I’m really excited about; an exhibition and talks including a candy machine controlled by Twitter. What more can one ask for?

I need to write a report on that one at the Hubbub blog soon. [↩]
A new development area of Utrecht I’d say is the closest thing to a real-world Sim City project that I ever saw. [↩]

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 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.

Week 139

The previous week seamlessly flowed into this one when on saturday I sat down to finalize the deck of slides for Raum Schiff Erde. On sunday morning, I grabbed a train and five hours later I was in Stellwerk, the conference’s lovely venue. Kind, clever people, a nice relaxed and friendly atmosphere, interesting talks, all in all a good event. There is more about what I talked about on the Hubbub blog. It wrapped up with some music and then we were off to dinner. Turned in late and got up early the next morning for another train. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed this short in a hotel, didn’t even manage to squeeze in breakfast.

On the train ride, I managed to review all of the graduation project proposals of my students. These were first drafts, next week they’ll need to submit a final version after one more round of reviews. Some have lovely, curious topics. (A satirical newsgame, anyone?) I’ll share some of them with you sometime soon.

I had a few hours to take a breather when I got back to Utrecht and then it was off to the HKU Academy Theatre to prepare for This happened – Utrecht #5. This was the first edition of the new year, and also the first in a new venue, which made it kind of scary. But everything turned out great. (Read a few reports to get a sense of the evening, if you’re interested.) We had possibly the best series of talks so far (although, of course, they’ve all been great) and a great crowd. I’m already looking forward to #6.

As if two of these challenges weren’t enough, on wednesday it was D-day for project Tako (which is part of a bigger plan that is locally known simply as PLAY). I presented the results of my research to a room full of cultural event organizers, games developers and assorted luminaries of the Utrecht city scene. I managed to wrap up the sizable stack of sketches only hours before in a final adrenaline-fueled design sprint. The responses were encouraging, so it seems we can start exploring the next stage. But before this I’ll need to annotate the deck of slides, include all the feedback and then we might have something we can publish.

In between and after, it’s been more work at Layar. I’ve been digging into the specs for several prototypes – lots of sketching there, too – forcing myself to consider multiple paths. Some of the output has been handed over to engineers. I can’t wait to see the results of their development efforts.

Even though all of this is more fun than is legal, I can’t wait for a work free weekend, too.

Week 138

Last evening I was on top of the Neudeflat, to review a draft of a presentation I’ve prepared as part of project Tako.¹ Earlier that day and monday I talked to the last two participants: Culturele Zondagen (a producer of frequent city-wide cultural events that always take place on sundays) and Habek (a producer of local hip-hop events and projects). Most of the presentation is in place – lots of rough concepts for playful cultural projects – it just requires some last additions and tightening up to be ready for the city lab session with all participants next week.

On tuesday morning I found myself in a room filled with students, who gave short presentations on the results from the initial field research they performed over the previous week. Some had interesting insights to share, ranging from the experience of story in single player versus multiplayer RPGs to the effects of a playful UI on the perceived effectiveness of information appliances. Others were really struggling with the development of a brief for their own work. Next up for them is to write up a proposal for their graduation project. We’ll review a first draft of those next week.

As I’m writing this, I am on my way to Layar again – who had some exciting news to announce this week and won a few awards in Barcelona too. Most of my time this week will be spent on a design sprint outlining a new product offering. We’ll do a review of that somewhere this week, and take it from there. Iterate’s the word. Thinking through making.

In the time that’s left, I’m chipping away at the talk for Hamburg this sunday. The rough silhouette is there, now it’s just a matter of building a deck. Should be doable, right? Right.

The promotion department of the city of Utrecht has its offices here, with stunning views. [↩]

Week 136

On a train to Amsterdam again, extra early so that I am on time for the second day of a workshop we’re running at Layar.¹ It’s being facilitated by BERG‘s Schulze and Jones, which is a real treat. Without giving too much away: we’re working on new product concepts. Can’t wait to see what results from this session, since it looks like I might be developing them further in the months to come.

I was doing some work this weekend, mostly planning the upcoming months since there’s so much interesting stuff on the horizon. I also popped over to Hilversum for a look at the games created during the local Global Game Jam.² Some 170 people participated and I think around 40 games were created. The general quality was quite high. Some of my favorites included:

So It Floats, which features gorgeous watercolor art and a biblical theme. You’re a monkey trying to get Adam and Eve to leave paradise. The gameplay resembles […]()’s games.
SSSSSOS, where you control a tiny space ship trying to survive a massive battle between two armies consisting of swarming space ships. You can get them to engage each other in stead of you by attracting and repelling them. It’s all driven by nicely tuned Newtonian physics and is accompanied by adaptive music.
Resonance, which was strikingly well-rounded for a 48-hour game. I’m not a huge fan of puzzle games, but this had a good learning curve spread across 14 levels. The musical theme was a nice touch too.
Save Your Souls, a frustrating experimental game you control with two mice, each tied to one character running down a track. From playing I’ve decided bimanual input devices are not for me.
What The Faql?, which I liked for its interesting social mechanic. Four players collaborate to get a cart from one end of a mine to the other, but one of them is a ‘mole’ whose goal is to sabotage the whole operation. This player gets a small jolt of force feedback from his controller at the game’s start.

All the games created in NL and across the world can be found at the international Global Game Jam website. Have a look.

Most of the conversations with project Tako participants are now finished. I had one more this monday, with the people who organize the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition.³ Not much else will be done this week, but I’ll need to start processing all the notes in the coming period.

Now that the EMMA group projects have finished the next phase for graduate students at KMT has started. They have four weeks to develop their graduation project proposals, which includes a research component. This phase was kicked off with a symposium on monday about creative processes in multidisciplinary teams. On friday, I’ll meet with the group of students I’m coaching (together with Irene van Peer) and review their plans for a short field study, which they’ll need to complete the next week. The results from this will feed into their final proposals. Can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Getting to a train on time is not without its hazards these days, snow and ice make biking to the station extra interesting. [↩]
GGJ NL is organized by my friends at the Dutch Game Garden. [↩]
Where, incidentally, I finally learned the meaning of Lisztomania. [↩]

Week 135

I managed to squeeze in a visit to the HKU KMT faculty’s project market in Hilversum on thursday last week. It’s an annual presentation of work done for external clients by graduate students. I coached one of those projects, which was done for the Nokia Research Center. They did a good job of presenting a complicated concept, which revolves around encouraging office workers to commute in a greener manner by tracking their travels on a mobile and giving them a real live plant to take care of with the water they earn based on this collected data… You should see it. Other favorites of mine were:

Lumen; a series of urban projections in Utrecht which were executed with high polish
Homeostasis; a beautiful expressive interactive art piece created for Crossing Border festival
Paper Cakes; a cool game designed for Wacom’s Bamboo Minis platform, which thematically and mechanically makes excellent use of the target input device¹

The project market always coincides with an alumni reception, which means reconnecting with a lot of old friends too.

Project Tako is in full swing now. I talked to two organizations on friday and will be seeing six more this week. It’s a privilege to meet all these people, who produce some of Utrecht’s finest cultural festivals. Lots of ideas for playful additions to their programs have already started to emerge. I’ll need to develop them further in the coming weeks. It’s also striking how each and every one of them keeps office in a beautiful building. Biking through my home town from meeting to meeting reminds me of how pretty it actually is.

One can never be too busy, so this monday we announced the next This happened – Utrecht. The line-up consists of Daan Roosegaarde on Liquid Space 6.0, Stella Boess & Stefan Gross on Love Hate Punch, Bas Teunisse & Lex van den Berg on Paper Cakes and Govert de Vries on Swinxs. The events is scheduled for monday 22 february. As usual I’ve been scrambling to get the website ready, send out the emails and make sure the venue is all set. Good thing I have Alexander and Ianus to take care of a lot of other stuff.

But for the most part this week, I’m continuing design at Layar. The first reviews of some initial bits have been scheduled so we’ll see how that goes.

The HKU and Wacom first met at This happened – Utrecht #2. It’s also been nominated for an IGF student award, so we could not resist inviting this project to the next edition. [↩]

Week 134

I’m writing this in the morning on a train from Utrecht to Amsterdam. I’ll be making this trip more often the coming weeks, since I signed a contract with Layar on tuesday. I’ll be reinforcing their UX team, doing interaction design on existing and new parts of their service. As is often the case with these kinds of engagements, there’s not much more I can say at this time. I’m sure there will be interesting things to show and talk about later on though.

In the time that’s not being taken up by Layar this week I’m getting going with project Tako. I’ve been calling the organizations selected for the project and scheduling meetings. The first one – with the people behind Uitgekookt; a culinary festival – is set for this friday. It’s a rare opportunity to talk about how you can bring a playful perspective to (in this case) cooking and food, I’m really looking forward to it. More meetings will be happening next week.

Also on friday, I’ll attend an evaluation of the Mount Everest project, which was wrapped up last weekend. I went over to the faculty to see the pieces the students had created and was blown away by the creativity and talent on display.

If I had to pick one favorite it’ll have to be the group that set up a spoof shop – called Extremely Safe – where you could come in and have your picture taken at a hazardous location of your choice. It was a playful service – you really did get that photo, plus a sheet of helpful pointers for telling the tale of your travels to friends and relatives – but once you were in, an impromptu performance took place too, commenting on contemporary obsessions with breaking rules and pushing limits.

Good stuff.

Week 133

We (Marinka, Evert and I) wrapped up the Move It project on friday with great success. I spent the day in a theater watching 24 concept videos of new street sports. The one that scored the highest was also my favorite; a team sport that involves bouncing a ball off the sides of an alley, includes the referee as a bouncing surface and allows the audience to participate by batting balls that leave the play area back into field. It’s called Bounce Ball, check out the video on Vimeo.

This week I’m spending most of my time acting as mentor on another project at the Utrecht School of the Arts (at the theatre faculty, to be exact). First-year students from all courses there (acting, writing, stage design, etc.) have one week to put together a program that will be open to the public on friday. The project is titled Mount Everest and revolves around the theme of people going to extremes and transgressing limits (as mountaineers often do).

It’s nice spending this much time in the theatre faculty, since this is the new venue for the 2010 series of This happened – Utrecht events. I’m getting good vibes from the physical space, I think it’s a great fit for our thing. I’ve met with Ianus and Alexander to make further plans for the next edition (which is planned for 22 february). Most of the program is taken care of so we’re on schedule for making the usual announcements and sending out invitations to the guest list.

I’ve also met with Karel to discuss project Unagi. This is a small game design event – an experiment really – that was born from the many discussions Karel and I tend to have over our regular dinners. The goal of Unagi is to create a place where Dutch game designers can meet, and where we can get a feel for what the state of the art of the discipline is. It also involves food.

I’m also slowly but surely getting up to speed with project Tako. Hopefully this week I’ll manage to plan most of the meetings that I’ll be having with the people behind some of the city of Utrecht’s major cultural events.

Last but not least, tomorrow I’ll be assessing the group project I’ve been mentoring at the Utrecht School of the Arts’ graduate school for art and technology since september. Also, on friday, the group will present their work to Jussi Holopainen of Nokia Research Center, who is the project’s commissioner. The project is titled EcoWay, and revolves around the design for a playful experience for companies that want to encourage their employees to commute in a greener manner. Here’s a photo of the group with their prototype. Look closely and you’ll notice it includes a herbarium with proper live plants.

This will be a bittersweet ending to a challenging but rewarding teaching experience. What most stands out for me with this project is how a proper team was formed from what started out as a collective of individuals thanks to a hands-on, thinking-by-doing approach.