I’m in New York with Tuomo preparing for this weekends Playful event, part of NY design week. Tuomo is exhibiting Playkka and together we are running a kids solar sound toy making workshop this Sunday afternoon. If you are nearby come along to Gansevoort plaza in the meatpacking district. It’s free to take part and should be noisy and fun.
It’s happening now and I am doing my best to make a game for it.
more to follow…
update : 17 hours down, 31 to go. I think it’s time for a rest. It’s been a productive first day and I’ve got a just about playable version. Lots of things to do tomorrow though not least improve the graphics as it looks about as exciting as a crossword at the moment.
update : Blimey that was hard work but the finishing line is within sight. Here is a release candidate.
update : Final compo version here. Sadly I had to remove the audio due to an annoying bug. I’ll post a fixed version in the next couple of days. Hope you like it.
I don’t know much about Kodu as I’ve not used it myself. What I do know is that It’s from Microsoft Research and runs at a slightly overkill 486.47fps. Apparently It is an icon based game creation language interface aimed at children. Teaching children to program is a good thing and what better inspiration than creating games. It might be fun and hopefully inspirational but personally I’m sceptical about how much children will learn from this kind of approach. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve not been to many events this year but the two I have made it to have been excellent. One I already new about but the other was new to me. Recently I was kindly invited to take part in a workshop for a major Finnish mobile phone company. The workshop was very interesting but also excellently timed as it coincided with Alternative Party 2008. I only got to attend briefly but really enjoyed what I saw. A nice mixture of old computers, demos, electronics, art and of course beer.
The other event I’ve been to is WeLoveTechnology and which I should know about as Lisa organises it. It was a smaller salon event this year but it was as interesting a celebration of all things technological as ever. I especially enjoyed meeting Yuri Suzuki as I really love his work.
TileToy is now in Copenhagen at the DDR as part of the continuing Sauma world tour. Sadly I couldn’t make it to the opening but Tuomo did make it. There are more details and some images on his blog.
mySQLgame does away with fancy interfaces and hackneyed story lines and serves up it’s gameplay raw. As the developers put it “Are you tired of browser-based games that are thinly veiled interfaces for databases? Finally, there’s a game that just is a database!“. If you love points and who doesn’t, then this applications games for you. Mmmm points. Who thought SQL database queries could be so much fun.
We’ve come a long a long way from the days of SEUCK. While looking into weird and possibly wonderful world of Flex, I came across PlayCrafter. It’s only in Alpha at the moment but it is already looking interesting. It’s a browser based game creator where you can make, play and share games all from the comfort of your favourite browser Firefox. The editor is pretty limited and the games people have made so far aren’t up to much but it’s early days. Worth a look if you have fond memories from the heady days of the 8-bit game creator.
The excellent Progress Quest by Eric Fredricksen was originally released in 2002 as an EverQuest parody. Although it does a pretty good job of parodying pretty much every other MMORPG as well. The first time in a while that the game (well zero player game) rather than the players has made me LOL. Roll your character then just sit back and enjoy. You don’t even need to faceroll.
(Progress Quest via Indie Games)
I was pointed in the direction of a fun little physics game called Fantastic Contraption earlier (thanks Naseer). It’s pretty reminiscent of other sand box physics games, most notably Soda Constructor. It may not be the most original game but it is well executed and introduces goal based play through some nice level design. The catch being that you have to pay $10 to make levels or play the levels of others. Not allowing users to generate or share content seems like a strange business model, especially considering the established communities of other similar free games. The 20 free levels are definitely worth a look though.
UPDATE: There are some really nice videos on YouTube showing the variety and imagination of peoples solutions to the same levels.
There’s a new craze in Town, well the playground anyway. GoGo’s Crazy Bones are part toy, part game and even part sticker collection. If you are lucky enough to find any for sale there are 3 plastic figures and 3 stickers in a 99p pack. The style of the figures borrows from that of vinyl toys. The main game borrows heavily from Schweinerei, aka ‘Pass the Pigs’ in that scoring is based on the positions figures land in. When playing there is the fight inducing option of the winner keeping one of the losers figures if they decided to gamble battle. Some schools have of course already banned them. A move which will have set the cava corks popping at Magic Box International HQ.
I managed to get hold of a couple of packs, the last two in the shop. I’m guessing from my meagre haul that yellow and blue are two of the more common colours.