Global Game Jam 2016 returns to Londonmet

48 hours of game production as part of the Global GameJam 2016, streaming live on twitch

Read about the weekend here: http://www.thinkmakeplay.co.uk/?p=688
and here: http://kavitakapoor.org/2016/02/game-jam-2016/

See pix here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkmakeplay/albums/72157663983583452

See what the kids came up with here: http://goodomensgame.blogspot.co.uk/

Play our jam games here: http://globalgamejam.org/2016/jam-sites/london-metropolitan-university/games

Digital Toybox 2015

This year's Faculty of Life Sciences and Computing annual summer show, Digital Toybox 2015, took place on 11/12th June.

Information and photos can be seen here:
http://www.thinkmakeplay.co.uk/?page_id=10
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkmakeplay/sets/72157653057800024

XX GameJam 2012

Brainstorming in Mind Candy office

The first XX GameJam, in association with Ada Lovelace Day and London Games Festival, took place in Mind Candy offices on Oct 26 and 27, 2012, sponsored by UKIE. The theme was "Clockwork".

Second year BSc Computer Games Programming student Nikki Gordon’s team came second with "The Dastardly Carillon" developed in Unity … Nikki created all the sound effects using Reason.
Fiona French mentored one of the other teams, helping to develop  "Tick Tock Terror".

Links: http://www.thinkmakeplay.co.uk/blog/?p=189

Press: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20186937

Penguin catches fish

Knitted glove puppet with hand-made sensors in flippers, controlling its on-screen avatar. 

See http://www.itknit.com for details: early prototype glove puppet used as game controller.

RAT RACE

Tested simple mobile app at the Digital Shoreditch Festival on Saturday 7th May, 2011.  Thanks to Chris Lane for organising the event since I was remote.

Rat Race links sms messages to a Flash client via SQL and PHP.  Players are represented by the constantly-orbiting rats, which they feed by texting the answers to clues.  This makes their rat grow bigger and faster.  The game screen also shows how many times clues have been answered correctly - represented by girth of small cheeses.

This screenshot shows the game in progress on Saturday afternoon.

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 ...

Global Game Jam LONDON 2009

48 hours of innovation, creativity and experimentation: the first ever Global Gamejam comprised 1600 participants in 23 countries including USA, France, Denmark, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, South Africa, Venezuela, Norway, New Zealand, Spain, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Israel, The Netherlands ... We hosted the London event.

"In a Game Jam, participants come together to make video games. Each participant works in a small team on a complete game project over the course of a limited time period, usually over a weekend. With such a small time frame, the games tend to be innovative and experimental.

"The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the first of its kind: a Game Jam that takes place in the same 48 hours all over the world! The Global Game Jam will start at 5:00PM Friday, January 30, 2009 through 5:00PM Sunday, February 1, 2009, (all times local). All participants in the Global Game Jam will be constrained by the same rules and limitations, with each time zone having one distinct constraint."

from GlobalGameJam conceived by IDGA and its Games Education SIG

DETAILS
Shoreditch Building, 35 Kingsland Road, London E2 
30 Jan - 1 Feb 2009

You are a developer, a student, a programmer, a designer, a thinker, an artist, a musician etc etc. Come by yourself and form a team when you arrive.

Fri 14:00 Registration and social entertainment
Fri 17:00 Keynote and brief
Fri 18:00 Form teams and start jamming
Sun 15:00 Deadline for handing in - games uploaded to globalgamejam
Sun 16:00 Show-off and chill

We supply refreshments and snacks, breakfast on site, access to kitchen area, tokens for delicious lunches and suppers in Shoreditch. Bring your own laptop and software, wireless Internet on site.  Sleep? Forget it - go home or crash with a friend if your stamina runs out. Bring a fresh t-shirt. Open-access 24/7.

PHOTOS http://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkmakeplay/sets/72157613294689027/
VIDEOS http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EC54B9F62CFC0CF5
DOWNLOAD GAMES http://globalgamejam.org/games  Filter for London
BBC ARTICLE http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2009/02/13/global_game_jam_feature.shtml

Why do girls avoid us?

French, F. (2009) Why do girls avoid us? 
Presentation for British Computer Society on Feb 12th, Southampton Street, London

Here's a brief synopsis of some of the points:


1. Consuming not creating
Although women seem to be using computers as much as men, they tend to be utilising software rather than actively developing it. 
2. Back to school
Problem - we don't recruit as many women as men into computing at higher level.  Distance from technology kicks in around age of 12 - why?  Peer pressure, angst, snobbery (technical not professional), lack of role models.
3. Teaching
The ICT curriculum...
4. Poor image
Games programmers can't win - they're either too "geeky" or too "macho" - either way they're all men, aren't they?  Crunch time!  But industry is maturing, isn't it?
5. The nature of games
Look at what's predominant, check out the characters and the action.  Who designed it?
6. What do girls like?
Same as what boys like + social stuff (chatting, dating) + girly stuff (hair? handbags? you tell me) + personalisation (stretch to fit)
7. Media representation of women
Say no more...

Grl Gmrs Tournament

www.thinkmakeplay.co.uk/grlgmr

The Rocket, Holloway Road - Saturday 25th Oct 08
5 games, 5 winners, 1 champion

Inviting all female gamers to an action-packed celebration of prowess in the virtual arena - the Grl Gmr tournament will kick-start the annual London Games Fringe, a week-long festival where you can enjoy all that is great about games and interactive entertainment.

Winners 2008:

- Wii Tennis - Simone
- Tekken 5 - Jennevive
- Unreal Tournament - Andy - Supreme Champion
- Kuri Kuri Mix - Andy
- Mario Kart - Jennevive

The event garnered positive press coverage from Dollymix, BBC London, Islington Tribune.  It also provoked an extreme reaction from dozens of game fan sites as soon as the press release went out. Thousands of posts protested about the very idea of holding such an event, siting reasons such as the inability of women to play computer games with any competence, the sexism inherent in a "girl-only" event, the poor choice of games on offer and the strange design of the flier...

On the other hand, Nintendo TV covered the event for their channel and the footage appears to show a mixed crowd thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Flickr pix

Dr Zoogles Bestiary

http://www.txt4treasure.com/

Dr Zoogle's dangerous bestiary escaped into Central London but intrepid treasure hunters tracked down some of the fiercest beasts over the weekend, during the London Games Festival Fringe.

The treasure hunt ran on Saturday and Sunday 27/28th Oct 2007, from 11am. There was no time limit, and everyone who reached the warm and exciting finish received a goody bag. Some teams started hunting on Saturday and came back on Sunday in the rain to finish. Dr Zoogle was impressed.

Winners and runners up have been sent a selection of games, including Sims 2, Fifa 08, Wii Boogie, Burnout, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon.

This event was sponsored by London Games Festival Fringe; developed in conjunction with Gamelab London (http://www.gamelablondon.com/) and Genius Telecom.

Animals on the Edge

This treasure hunt was designed as an activity to entertain and promote communication between teams of playerstaking part in Design Challenge 2004, sponsored by DfES and Nesta Futurelab, organised by Gamelab London.

Who took part?
Nine Design Teams from around England. Each team included multimedia developers, teachers and students. The route was around the Thames between Charing Cross and London Bridge.

Kit: Clue map, street map, mobile phone, polaroid camera, answer sheet to fill in.

The map showed where to locate clues along the Thames. Teams texted requests for specific clues when they were in the appropriate location and received SMS responses. They then texted back SMS answers to collect points. They could check their score and the highest score at any time.

They had to collect specific polaroid photographs in zones along the route.  There were five actors on location:  a lion tamer at Trafalgar Square, a fisherman on Festival Pier, an escaped convict at London Bridge, a cook at Monument and a friar at Blackfrars.

There were also broadcast messages during the game, giving extra bonus questions and tasks along the route, and directing players to their final destination.

Players' final destination was warm and dry with catering facilities. They had an opportunity to give feedback and create a poster showing all the photographs they had taken during the game. Teams got extra points for taking pictures of live animals - a brief that was interpreted with imagination...