MAKER FAIRE 12-13 March 2011

Just back from Maker Faire in Newcastle, and it was one of my best ever festival experiences.

Kids loved ZU3D workshop - http://www.zu3d.com - where they made their own playdough models and created stop-frame animations.  Also DIY PIE (although they ran out of pastry for jam tarts), where they cut out and decorated oven gloves.  They made pin-hole cameras from beer cans, designed and created pop-up cards, built amazing marble runs from cardboard and plastic piping and empty bottles (and masses of gaffer tape), also home-made compasses from paper cups and paper clips... We never made it to the guerilla knitting zone.

Some great audio stuff, in particular Mike Cook's hexome...

BIG PIECES: El Grando the fire-breathing dragon was pretty hot, there was a noisy robot fighting arena + Arc Attack show.

Fun pieces: the robot toilet cruising around outside the venue, illuminator imaginator pictures from glowstix, chainmail makers and a giant cardboard spider over a giant cardboard racetrack hosting wiimote controlled cars equipped with their own webcam eyes, a flirtboard interactive table that senses when your beermat is close to mine, the pulsing Emergence tree...

Run marble run

Thanks to Renzo the Toymaker http://www.toymakingactivities.com/english/homepage.html for the original idea of making a marble run from cardboard.  

We built this one from cornflake packet, glue, sellotape.  Designing it was fun, testing it was better.

SuperMario gets real

Hard to explain ... but they set up their own Mario Kart Racing Game (inspired by the original) using toy cars, toy rockets for boosters (Bullet Bill), brio, lego and cushions for tracks and mushroom jumps, gold coins to collect and spiders to avoid.  It was an epic race with a lively soundtrack, requiring no consoles, controllers or screens.

Watching that spontaneous leap from virtual to actual was a profound inspiration for toy development, how to utilise embedded technology and how to avoid manufacturing more plastic ...

icould - choosing a games degree

http://icould.com/article/choosing-a-games-degree/

PLAYFUL 2010

24th Sept 2010 at Conway Hall - here's a summary of an interesting and enjoyable event:

Clashing with PICNIC in Amsterdam - check out at http://www.picnicnetwork.org/  
Toby Barnes (Mudlark) and remotely Stuart Candy (Futuryst) introduce proceedings...
HG Wells - Floor Games and Little Wars

Naomi Alderman - narrative in games
http://www.naomialderman.com
Raph Koster - Ola's Law - http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/laws.shtml
Quickstart a narrative with desire, fear, secrets, character development.
Games generally written in second person, which is unusual - it happens to you - so the pleasure of getting to know a character is mitigated by giving the player autonomy over decisions the character can make; and character becomes necessarily bland or ambiguous.
Recommended interactive fiction - All Roads, Slouching towards Bedlam, The Act of Misdirection.
And games - Bioshock, Silent Hill, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia Sands of Time

Paul Bennun - http://www.somethinelse.com 
Papa Sangre, new audio game - http://www.papasangre.com/ - lose yourself in the game, freedom from the screen.

Jim - http://www.madeinme.com
Ladybird did it for books, Sesame Street for tv, so The Land if Me aims to inspire pre-school kids - without any traditional educational 'measureable outcomes'.
Toys vs. games - the game/play is not predetermined in a toy, depends who picks it up.  Where there's interest, there's learning.

Bea-Davy Sutherland - ethical games
Checks out Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin - http://vimeo.com/15278745

Nicholas Nova - evolution of game controllers
Neat tactile feedback on direction control cross.

Pat Kane - http://www.theplayethic.com/
http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/
Dispirited by Frankie Boyle's sardonic humour, but understanding its value as a social pressure valve ... temporary transcendence from routine and acceptance of life.  Also humour keeps alive the prospect of hope, represents a permanent oasis of cognitive freedom 
Paolo Virno - Wit and Innovation http://www.generation-online.org/p/fp_virno13.htm

Richard Hogg - contrarian
... makes choices based on being in the minority in everything ...

Tom Muller - http://www.hellomuller.com/
Graphic design in comics.

Jonathon Smith - Lego games
Our deepest conflict - what we really, really want vs. what is expected of us.
Lego - has infinite possibilities, systematised, has both overt and discreet affordances, can attain mastery.
In video games, there is conflict between freedom and constraints.  Particularly noticeable in boys over 5 (after school kicks in) is the dramatic orientation towards finding and dealing with expectations, rather than free play, which has informed the design of the games.

Spots vs. Stripes - http://www.spotsvstripes.com/homepage.aspx

Cadbury Pocket Games competition finalists - James Wallis (FlickRacer) and Sally (Eggathon).
Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle, psychogeography, 'sous les paves, la plage'

ShiftRunStop - http://shiftrunstop.co.uk/
Podcast with Dominik Diamond

Sebastian Deterding - http://cargocollective.com/codingconduct
Talking about gamification, badges and stats used as marketing tools. But real play has to be voluntary.  Theodore Sturgeon
James Carse - Finite and infinite games - http://www.worldtrans.org/pos/infinitegames.html

Margaret Robertson - Hide & Seek
What is Mindcraft?

Bertrand Duplat - http://www.volumique.com/en/
Paper video games - pawns and cards on top of ipads, iphones sailing on top of maps

Alexis Kennedy - Fail Better Games
Narrative engineers created Echo Bazaar (Fall London) and why gamers enjoy delicious misery.

Dom Hodge - Frukt -  and Dave Haynes - SoundCloud
Music mashups, smule, geocaching music, disco snake, isticks, other hack-day musical ideas