everything

I am not sure if it is just me but I go through phases of writing alot on various blogs and then not writing any for ages. There is the stock response of I have been busy and now let me tell you what I have been doing. However what I really think it is, is that we as people are always learning and testing naturally we are curious and looking for new things to experience. These events are generally so different and diverse that they make you challenge your thoughts about many things. This then leads to the fact that you are not immediately able to articulate exactly what you think about the new learning and then what value that learning has.

So this last year there have been a load of experiences that have in many ways changed my thinking about a lot of issues. So for those that are interested I am listing a few issues that have stirred these changes:

- good businesses evolve and become more experienced.
- the only way you can get better is through testing and prototyping.
- i am not good at anything :-)
- owning is wrong but there is something nice about it.
- being social is a lot of effort, but saying yes is way better than staying at home.
- ideas are really not that new. making them happen is HARD.
- you are always going to meet someone who you can't have a conversation with.
- people love people, why else would you day on day cram yourself into the smallest places to get to work.
- one man occupancy cars in the morning should be band.
- every so often there will be an amazing tv advert that gets things just right.
- street games really, really, really create amazing life changing experiences for the players.

I think that is about it. I am going to try and write about all of these as soon as I get a chance. IS there any one in particular people would like to hear about first?

Blast Theory exhibition

This weekend me and Allie went to Exeter to have a look at the Blast Theory exhibition. After twenty years Blast Theory have created some great projects. The exhibition covered five of their best from stampede to can you see me know. It's the first time I have been to Exeter and it's a bit bigger than I thought so there were to delight of Allie some vintage shops to have a look in (she recommends them to anyone if you go there).



Anyway back to the exhibition. I am not going through all of the pieces but basically I loved them. I think there is something about Blast Theories work that they have done everything you want to do. They inspire you to go out and try something which I think can only be a testament of the pieces. I also really liked the way it was exhibited in Space X. I think what was also really interesting is looking back at how technology has allowed them to do new things but fundamentally the artistic nature and idea of what they were seems to have been there right from the start.



I think the thing that most stood out from the projects shown was the idea of the individual experience. Which for me personally is an ongoing issue with us trying to create games that have narrative and a mass participation nature yet feel individual. And above that again can make them to be sustainable. There is always going to be a debate about how games and story do or do not work together. And games such as everwake for us are experiments to see how this can work. slipping between technology and the physical. And this is what I felt Blast Theory was really investigating in an exciting way.

So that was it, a great day a bit cold but brilliant day. And then just as we decided to go home we chanced upon the sixth blast theory experience of the day. While walking around the museum in Exeter we saw the below. Allie had in the back of her mind that she had seen the name and we decided to give the number a ring. And we were taken through a very different tour of the museum.

Coming of age

While the game itself is still very much the lowest common denominator of a game, the basic shoot'em up. Does the trailer now begin to recognise it's plight? is this an very poignant moment of realisation? will the shoot'em up always be successful? Who knows.

But it is nice that the producers have begun to provide some form of humour instead of the mainstream movie trailer. Hey maybe it was just a blip!!!!

playARK - christmas game

We have a great christmas game in store for people. If you are interested you can find out more and buy tickets at http://jokulfrosti.eventbrite.com/

everwake part 2

Well this week it begins. All over again. The plan was to have a break, however recent events have pushed part 2 of everwake forward. I am personally really looking forward into developing the second story of everwake and most importantly how we can get the game at the heart of it all. I think I have always wanted to use everwake as a huge experiment in terms of pervasive gaming. Trying to serialise it like you do with tv shows such as LOST. But I think for a game this is harder. How can people be kept abreast of what has happened up to that date and then not feel out of the loop? Well that's the challenge, plus seeing where and if there should be online content for the game.

But before that, I think it maybe time to put on a seasonal game for all of you guys getting a few withdrawal symptoms. We should be announcing it this week so keep your eyes peeled.

when are you role playing? and when are you just being you?

The pervasive game genre, is an interesting paradox for me and one I have been wrestling with for the last year or so. What I am struggling with it the idea of role play and being yourself.

For me I really got interested in pervasive games because in my mind you did not 'play a character' you were just yourself within the rules of the game given to you. But the more and more I get involved in this there are as ever more shades of grey than there is grey shades. So is there a difference? are there pervasive games that you can be yourself in? and are there games that you have to be a character, and are both of these pervasive games?

So lets go through it and see why I have been thinking about this recently.

Last summer myself and Allie were lucky enough to get to London for the groundbreaking game Conspiracy for Good The game was created by Tim Kring of Heroes fame. The game itself was huge encompassing four weekends around London town. NOKIA sponsored the game and so there was a load of technology involved in the game. For such a big game I was a bit disappointed by it, but I think now a year or so later, I am wondering if it was because I was given a 'fake' character name with certain character traits. So in essence we were asked to roleplay a character. During the game I think there was always an element of detachment, and I wonder now if it was because of the role play element.

In contrast something like 2.8 hours later where you are merely yourself and are asked to interact with the world as yourself feels real and immersive. I am still not sure. Yet it seems like it maybe a mix of both. i.e. the game itself needs to be something you get into so then maybe roleplay doesn't matter? and you have to believe in the story.

Allie's 31st

After last years birthday I thought the another treasure hunt was in order so Allie could go out and find out clues for her birthday. You hopefully get an idea from the image above as to the game. Very fun making it.

what's in a genre? apparently a lot.

Since finishing the first episode of everwake we have been looking at ways of developing it for the future. In time we hope to develop it's complexity and make it of equal complexity of some tv series but across different media channels and obviously through games.

Now this is not an easy thing and we are aware it will take along time to bring this to the players but we think the different levels and complexities will make a truly brillant game and experience. But there are two points that have been nagging me about the project. Firstly the argument that games are not stories and indeed stories are not needed to make a game work, and when people say this to me I always think about how I skip through the story of contemporary games such as call of duty which further re-enforce this in my mind. Yet is this the case when it comes to pervasive type games that have real world elements surrounded by a theme.

A really quick way of describing this is thus. If we describe a game through a story or more importantly a cultural understanding then instantly there are rules, fears and all manner of information that people instantly recognise. So as I am talking about stories I will give you two examples:

example one - You are the survivor of a zombie apocalypse, you have to stay alive and make it to safety.

example two - The population of earth has been infected by a virus. billions of people have died from the virus with some people coming back from the dead but having a lust for blood and a desire to kill anything that is considered alive. Among the billions of people who died there are some people who seem to be immune from the virus and are looking for join together for safety reasons. You have to try and find these people are get to safety.

So through your cultural knowledge of zombies through books, films and general myths and legends you understand the who premise of the game and in someways a number of it's rules (such as run from zombies), in a single line. In contrast example two says the same thing but is so hard to understand and also more importantly 'get into'.

So this is a very simple example and I guess you could argue that the game can still be separated from the story. But I think the question is for the pervasive gamers. Is does the story add to the game? but more importantly does the story change the way you play the game? if yes then surely the story is hugely important to the game?


So on to the second part of the blog. The issue of making a story and how it is classified. I was having a conversation a week ago with Kev and allie about how everwake could develop. Looking at if it could have sci-fi elements in it or should it turn more into a thriller or simply stick to a ghost story? while we made no decisions what became apparent is that all three of us had a totally different view point of what stories and films fit into genres.

So as a test what genre would the following films/series fit in for you?

- X MEN
- Misfits
- Heroes
- LOST
- BATMAN
- 28 Days Later

So Sci-Fi, Paranormal, fantasy, thriller what would they be?

I think what I am getting at is that just as things are converging within the media, could that mean that generes are becoming twisted together?

playARK - Games & Talks

So at the heart of thinkARK we wanted to do projects that hopefully helped us explore social issues within our community. We also wanted to then share knowledge between the group of skills and expertise. More so in the last few projects we have made this aspect of shred knowledge being part of the actual projects we have created.

I think this has been at the fore more than any other event than at the recent playARK festival. As this was our first event fo this kind both in terms of thinkARK but also in terms of games we wanted to explore what play, creativity and games was to people and rather than keep the learning internal why not share the knowledge between as many people as possible? And then for those who have this knowledge or have just learnt this knowledge through the talks how about them practicing certain aspects of game and play through the second day of games.

I think the idea of a multi-discipline event if you like is something that I would like to explore more. In some ways as well I wonder if it could be incorporated and integrated even more. A lot more work i know but I wonder how much more people would get out of it?

HHHhhhmmmm I will have to have a think.

Everwake a social breakdown

I think alot of people struggle to see how a ghost story could be in anyway a FOR GOOD pervasive game. There has been loads and loads of things written about how games can be designed to make people aware of climate change and also others about how through a game you may do good things.

But what if you want to do this kind of project but think the audience maybe quite small at this kind of game and also the knowledge of how games and games mechanics work needs to be looked into?

Option 1 - You wait and don't do the project because you never quite have the right amount of experience/skill

Option 2 - You start to create games and slowly bring more and more social issues into the game.

Well I guess by now you know I took Option 2. So the initial everwake game has a very small social element (most of these being the intrinsic nature of pervasive games). The social aspects being people coming together to meet talk and share. These are some of the most powerful aspects of pervasive games and what set them apart from other experiences such as theatre and film.

Secondly there is an environmental aspect to the game with people 'experiencing' a place they thought they knew and a places being revealed to them. There was also a re affirmation with everwake of good and bad, which while quite broad still seems relevant to bring up.

So as everwake is hoped to be a series of episodes the questions is can we develop the game to have more and more sophisticated ways of introducing other socially good elements?

Well simply for me yes. We are working on an over arching story line for everwake as we speak but we have already broken it down to 6 episodes. With each episode slowly gaining more and more 'socially good sophistication'. It's an experiment and something that in time we will be able to give some idea of how it is going.

experience and a life in BETA

Over the last two years I have tapped into something that has always been with me. The concept of journey and experience is within us all but there is a difference when you decide to use this within how you live and how you work. I am passionate about always pushing and developing and ultimately doing.

This has led me and a group of others to be constantly developing new projects that challenge everything from time restrictions right through to technology and how businesses operate. I think what is also interesting is how this has always been with me but never really focused on it some how. The work I do for Hoffi for example is always very different we try to look at the company and design things to fit we do not design something to a house style for example. This has gone even further with the recent projects with thinkARK and the games I have been working on with Allie through everwake and playARK.

So what am I getting at? Well I think the concept is to realise failure is GOOD and should be embraced. And while I don't want to get too philosophical you only get one chance in this life, so why not leave it with the idea that you tried everything you could have in all the fileds you thought of. Remembering every minute you put into a project or journey is a minute closer to the goal or a minute more of rich content and understanding within that field. You put the time in and you get the results (in time). I guess finally the one point to leave you with is the idea of if things arn't moving fast enough in a project then keep at it and if you find yourself with some extra time on your hands why not start something else that might feed into the project later on down the line?

Everything will help you even if it to simply say that isn't what I want to do. Hope that wasn't too much of a rant.

everwake

Well I have not posted here for a while. Mainly due to us setting up a personal blog on Hoffi.com. I think however with the production of everwake it might be an idea to reopen this blog. So I have somewhere to discuss and think about the idea of game and what I am really interested in.

"How technology story and game come together in physical and non physical spaces."

So for as long as I can remember me and Allie have been working on everwake. It's now pretty weird that it's all over. I think because we did it at the same time as the playARK talks and games festival then in retrospect we probably bit off a bit too much, as I still havn't recovered a week or so on. But what I have been really shocked by is the emptiness and almost depression of the event being over. I am slowly coming around but the first few days were really very challenging.

What it chowed me was that everwake had obviously touched a nerve in an area of my brain that i have rarely accessed. I remember the last day of uni I had a similar reaction. The moment it's over there is silence and then nothing. The world moves on and the event is gone. Well at least for you anyway.

So back to everwake this is about the third tim eI have tried to sit down and write about it. I got pretty far on some occasions but then lost interested and either deleted it or forgot where I wrote it. I think everwake is something that has always been there for the last 10 years. The need to develop something that is an experience for people in many levels. A story first and foremost that you participate in rather than merely just view. A hybrid between story and ARG and a pervasive game. None of them really seeming to fit the description of it.

The idea of leading with a strong story a narrative people can be drawn on to create culturally understood rules. An ability to bring people together who may have never met and to give them an experience of a lifetime with an element of empathy and genuines choice. So many things were thought and planned during us creating the game that it was clear we would not be able to do it all. curating it down to something manageable was key to us creating a great game and also keeping within a very veyr very tight budget (thank you all the volunteers :-) ). This realisation led us to realise that an interesting thing was possible. Why dont we do a serialised pervasive game with story and online content?

Why don't we use the routines and language that has been established through television to create a six episode series? exploring the abilities of each platform/media such as audio, paper, blog, video, physical, app to best bring narrative to the players and viewers or lurkers.

but what about the reason I started doing games. What about the social good? what about the exclusivity of the game (only having 60 people being able to play the street game for example). Well while the initial game it is not immediately obvious there are huge amounts of commentary built with in the game. The good and evil the choice of should I shouldn't I and also the more basic social aspect to the game have all started a small community centred around everwake.

What we have really done however and more what we now hope to do is we hope to develop more and more social aspects within the makeup of the game to bring more obvious signs of good and effect. So as the player develops within the game so does their understanding of the issues that surround us. As it has been said 1,000's of times a journey starts with one step. I guess we hope that the steps are so easy that they do not really notice and they develop as the game develops.

But I think what has come back to me again and again. Although this is so hard to do when it is your work. We have come to realise that failure is good. Testing, prototyping and developing are the key elements of developing stuff that works. This kind of goes beyond the game word. In everyday life for example come back again and again and you will succeed.

I realise that has not really covered anything about what everwake was in terms of story and perhaps I will write that up in another blog. But what I have realised on this project. I have realised that there are some people in Cardiff that are truly world class at what they are doing in their fields. The skills and creativity we have available within Cardiff is really quite staggering. Also creative integrity is a really interesting paradox its a pain in the arse when you want to move forward but you know that it's key to listen adapt and develop or you lose exactly what you are paying for. Let the people do their job.

Which I think for this blog gives me my final thing to talk about. That is basically management and producing a story like everwake. Basically its huge. I think in the future there is indeed something to be said for the development of what a producer really does. Traditionally on one platform a producer would pull all the threads together about the same story told in the same way through the same channel.

But now we have the producer developing a project on multiple platforms using multiple types of media to create fragments of a single story. Each being pulled together so as a whole they can be consumed and totally understood. Yet also consumed individually and still seen as enjoyable and worth while. And finally the biggest I think of them all working with 'real' and non real. So basically on and offline line content and as it develops further how things like apps bring a further step in complexity.

This has been one hell of a ramble but I hope it has given an insight into initial unedited thoughts on everwake.

playARK - Games festival and talks - 30 September - 1 October

As most of you know thinkARK have been meeting at Cardiff Arts Institute every wednesday for nearly two years. During that time we have created loads of events and projects that have tried to bring the people of Cardiff together. You can see some of the projects on our website. This year to celebrate our second birthday we are putting on a great event centered around games, learning and play called playARK. The day is split up into two days. The first being a series of talks surrounding games and storytelling and how people are becoming participants as opposed to mere spectators. The speakers, are a great range from Alice Taylor (formerly channel 4), Matt Locke (founder of storythings), right through to Dan Dixon who will be talking about games for good.

The event is perfect for anyone wanting to know about the latest thinking in interacting with customers and how storytelling is key within that. 

On the second day there is going to be a great event where people will be able to actually play a load of games. You can see a video of a similar day we did last year that will hope fully give you an idea as to what the day will be like below. But this year it is going to be alot bigger. As well as the street games you will also be able to play the latest board games, and digital games and even relive your youth by playing retro games.

It even happens in NYC

This isn't exactly a grouping of cups, but it was heartening to see the same starting point of how cups collect on things happens across the pond as well as in the UK. This was found in the heart of New York.

Scalability

The week after New York has been knackering. For the first few days it was like I had cotton wool in my head, and I woke up in the middle of the night at least twice for no apparent reason. It was also busy work wise. Ecodesign Centre held another of their E:DN events on the tuesday. The event concentrated on Design & Social Entrepreneurship, with recent work in this area both through Hoffi and also thinkARK, what I came away with during the event was scalability. Over the last year this has come back again and again. I think for many years the idea for many in the social area has been that you pilot a scheme and then scale it up to affect as many people as possible.

The funding and the way these schemes have been developed in the past have all been gauged as successful if they are able to become big – or 'scalable'. Yet what was refreshing about this weeks event was people discussing the idea of projects have a certain size that shouldn't then be increased, because if it did then by scaling it, it may then become unsustainable. This fits with a number of elements within marketing and also with recent projects I have been involved in.

If for example there are a number of businesses that all need space and they may all need admin, and other resources, but they would struggle to provide that for themselves then maybe by producing multiple projects/companies these resources could be shared. Secondly in a social entrepreniual sense, it fits into the old traditional marketing plan of multiple exposures to a brand or product. So by producing a number of businesses/projects that all have the ultimate goal of some kind of 'social good' you could setup a number of small niche type businesses that all do their small things towards 'social good'. you are much more likely to like on of these businesses due to it being niche small and personal and the business then is more likely to be successful. Yet it needs the bigger group to help out with admin etc.

So through a hub and spoke type setup multiple businesses can be setup and be successful each paying for things that they all need.

Back from the second snowiest month on record

A month or so ago I wrote a piece about the snow we had in Cardiff this Christmas. The piece was about who clears the roads and gets the city moving again. Recently me and Allie were lucky enough to go to New York. It was my first time in New York so I was interested in seeing how their service culture compared to our's. We were greeted by the second snowiest month since records began. As you can see from the picture above it was pretty big, all of the snow however had and was pretty much cleared in one evening allowing roads and pavements to be walked on and accessed the next day.

I wondered how this was possible and what had made it possible. I wondered if it had anything to do with it's service culture. Well generally it is pretty much true the service you receive is high and so different than in the UK. There are obvious reasons for this, firstly there is a tipping culture, in general 15-20% of the bill. The tipping culture has gone so far that it is seen as almost a right with people telling stories of waiters chasing after them to ask why they have not been tipped.

There are other things that seem to be reasons how the snow was cleared. Obviously there are a lot of tall buildings in New York with a number of them having a reception with someone working to take delivers and look after the general deals on the apartment block. Interestingly in New York City law residents are responsible for the pavement directly outside their house or shop. So when snow comes they have to clear it. So the mass action of the people of New York clearly has a huge effect on clearing snow quickly.

What about the roads? As well as gritting they have a number of ways they tackled the snow. Firstly they had their own city workforce and also hired in help from the private sector to further strengthen their work force. It is also interesting to see their rubbish trucks were used as snow ploughs, So instead of needing a whole set of new vehicles to deal with the snow they could use vehicles that already existed with an additional bolt on. Finally I also think the personal nature of having a mayor that seemed to be responsible for the success or failures, so people had something/someone to be represented by.



So that's one way to look at how mass actions can be achieved in this case through a mixture of the individual and the state. I am hoping to get out to Sweden to visit a friend soon and will be interested to see how their system differs. While all of this for me is interesting to see how people deal with the same situation. I wonder if there are also other benefits that the New York setup have instigated. Firstly their is a different feel to New York people are more social, brasher, they seem to be part of something that is only for New Yorker's.

Seminar's at Hoffi

Cardiff City bars - losing their soul

As I sit here writing this post, I can hear the repetitious thud of base from yet another anonymous dance song. The song is coming from a bar next door to my flat. With the bar in question going through a major change over the last few months. For those that don't know the bar it is known as Floyd's and until recently came with a clothing shop below that was open in the day.

The clothing store was recently victim to a fire and has since been closed with it only recently being cleared up. At first it seemed like they would expand the bar downstairs, however with a recent extension to a nearby clothes store also opening a cafe it seems like they may have changed their plans and decided to let it out instead (still vacant).

So this brings me back to the bar. With the bar now seeming to be the only source of income it has been re-branded and opened for longer. It still has the same name but as you can see the new mark has fallen into the standard generic black with metallic treatment. This 'shouty' type brand has also been continued to the new barriers outside the doorway and also the loud speaker which now pumps out their dance music (which as you may now have guessed the music is also brand new). So where am I going with this?

Well let's describe my first experience of Floyd's BAR. I was around 19 and I was with some friends from college and one of them suggested Floyd's BAR? I was intrigued because firstly I didn't know about it and I didn't know where it was. So we started walking down one of the main streets into one of business areas of town. We were by a doorway with a buzzer. Hair pricking up on the back of my neck by now we press the buzzer and are greeted by a voice saying hello and to come up. We walk up a narrow set of stairs and we are met with a small intimate bar with some tables and chairs. The lights are low and the music was mellow allowing us to talk. So the experience of exploring and finding a unique intimate bar made me feel part of something special and different. It has also led me to take great delight in introducing other people to the bar and it's experience.

So time will tell if the 'new' Floyd's is successful. But for me the experience has now been lost and changed forever. No more finding it, the speakers find you now and the secrecy and exclusivity has been lost. It seems to have lost it's story and also it's fundamental values.

NOTE:
since I wrote this I have learnt that the café was rejected planning permission due to their saturation policy. Due to the café being on the same street as many other bars and clubs the plan was rejected. It seems also in the next few months there will be further pressure for empty shops within Cardiff as they will have to start paying rates even if unoccupied.

Seminars for 2011

We have three branding seminars available for businesses looking to gain more understanding of how it can be used within your business. The first one is in April so if you want to learn more drop me an email. Will pop a fuller post on the blog as soon as we have the confirmed dates etc.

Stepping back

We went through some of Allie's old boxes this year. I had the same tape as her, spider ate the fly remember anyone?

We also came across this electronic battleships game which we managed to play for about two hours, although were never quite sure if it was working properly. Also check out Allie's 80's jumper, retrotastic.