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“The single greatest thing Nidhogg does is that it understands how to entertain a crowd as well as its players.” a wonderful example of a videogame with performative qualities.
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“Nu nieuwe diensten als Foursquare, Runkeeper en talloze andere ons handelen in data vastleggen, en onze progressie in het leven kunnen meten, zullen onze levens steeds meer aspecten overnemen die we voorheen alleen kenden uit games.” Juha snapt het, en legt het lekker helder uit. De tentoonstelling waar dit voor geschreven is (over naturalisme) lijkt me ook de moeite waard.
Week 180
Last week was packed again. When a few last minute meetings get squeezed in, it usually means trouble. Week number 180 was no exception, which explains the absence of a weeknote on friday. A quick rundown of stuff that went down:
- Wieger and Sylvan worked on a prototype of the Learning Lab metagame, which we presented on friday. Got heaps of feedback, now all that’s left to do is: do a last live test, document the design, write up things we learned throughout the project.
- Together with Irene I spent time detailing a storyboard for a video sketch for project Buta. We met up with Hein on friday, to see if he could be assist us, since he has mad video and motion graphics skills.
- Properly kicked off Maguro on thursday. More on that one soon.
- Did a review of the Pampus project, which is coming along nicely. This friday I’ll do the final assessment of the project, and the week after it’ll be presented to the client so the heat is on.
- We did a “pants down” release of the Bandjesland additions to the PLAY Pilots website. Shame’s a good motivator, so now we have a real incentive to tweak it so we can announce it officially this tuesday.
- I wrote some descriptions of the interactive work that’ll be on display at Tweetakt 2011.
links for 2010-12-03
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“Spy Party is two-player game with one player taking the role of the spy and the other taking the role of the sniper. The spy may be one of any number of party guests, joined by an ambassador and a double agent. The spy has four tasks to complete: Bug the ambassador, steal a statue, transfer a microfilm and contact the double agent. The sniper has just one task: identify and assassinate the spy.” This game sounds excellent. I want to play it now.
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“So here it is: all recent urban plans I saw where based on the assumption that some sort of growth (demographic, economic) would propel the city back into the limelight. Now that this assumption has been slashed we need to rethink our urban strategies. What will the city look like in a contracting world?”
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
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An awesome two-player indie dueling game with some wonderful performative qualities.
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I’m told that if you look these guys up in SF you’re treated to a bizarre ARG-like experience.
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Once again a lovely This happened – Utrecht report from Iskander. Glad to see the theme of “thinking through making” shone through this time around.
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
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“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.
links for 2010-11-14
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“Rather than merely a place to do work, the choice of a like-minded coworking community with the right amount of diversity and exposure to new skills and ideas could be as important as choosing a neighborhood to live in.” A solid overview of the cowering phenomenon. Although I love the concept, I have rarely seen it work well.
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“…when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.” Which is to say: always be aware of your own actions, prevent them from becoming bureaucratic.
links for 2010-11-13
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Solid advice from Eric Zimmerman on common pitfalls of educational game design. I can certainly relate to many of these.
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“I suspect the lag also contributes to the extreme unease the system sometimes creates – we’re deep in the uncanny valley of interaction.” Chris finds Kinect slightly scary, and requiring an American size living room.
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“How to Live Safely is actually a novel, about a man named Charles Yu searching for his father in quantum space-time. He lives in Minor Universe 31, with science fiction wrapped around an inner core of approximately 17 percent reality (by volume). He’s a time-machine repairman, armed with his TM-31 Recreational Time Travel Device, TAMMY the slightly neurotic user interface, and Ed, his nonexistent but ontologically valid dog.” On the to-read list.
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.