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Feb. 22nd, 2008 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squirmeliaLast week, I went to the Sandpit, "a project of Hide and Seek: London's First Pervasive Games Festival", which took place in Shunt. Inside London Bridge Station, there are a few actual streets, which I didn't even realise were streets, and in one of those streets, was a little doorway which led to an incredible underground club. It was dark in places and the venue seemed gigantic and dotted with random things, like a milk-cart, which people sat upon, and a large treasure chest, which seemed empty when I opened its heavy lid.
I played the Gossip Game and pretended to be a cross-dressing electrician, but failed to gossip enough to reach many conclusions.
Pieces of paper were passed around that may have involved biting and games such as this certainly seemed reminiscent of the playground. I remember a particular playtime when a whole school of children were turned into bats.
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mikej_uk and I got into a discussion about unethical games from the 1980s and tried to think up our own. A whole range of strange games were available for the Atari 2600. such as the infamous Custer's Revenge, where Custer was supposed to have sex with a Native American woman tied to a pole, but also Bachelor Party, and Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em. As a child, I remember playing a quite explicit text adventure, but that seems quite normal in comparison to those games.
imomus also commented on the Hide and Seek Festival and pervasive games: Pervasive urban gaming: count me out, and in and raises some interesting points. He also links to a book review of Ground-up City. Play as a Design Tool, which links to an article about a playground for the over 60s. My parents seem happy to still play in playgrounds that were designed for the under 60s and I hope I still will be when I am 60.
Hide and Seek then wrote a response: Thinking in (and out) of Pervasive Urban Gaming and also raises some points that have also been mentioned in some of the papers I've been reading about pervasive games.
City of Sound also give a lengthy description of the street of the future: The street as platform.
I've also been reading about card-games such as Gloom: The Game of Inauspicious Incidents and Grave Consequences (viafridgemagnet) and wearable electronics, such as the Lilypad Arduino and satin_candy's Catbag. I've also been reading about the Maida Vale sand creature and hope one appears in Highgate.
I went to the Digital Geography in a Web 2.0 World conference and listened to a talk on "Web 2.0, Neogeography and Virtual Worlds" by Andrew Hudson-Smith, which showed a demonstration of MapTube, which allows you to mix up maps, and apparently all maps created on there also appear in Second Life. He also talked about how games can use visualisations of cities and gave out a booklet on "Digital Geography: Geographic Visualisation for Urban Environments", which tells you how to make photographic planets (such as by using Flexify), creating photo-overlays in Google Earth (using PhotoOverlay Creator). I also listened to a talk on "3D Visualisation: From Lab to Field", which showed demonstrations of software that could tell you exactly what mountain you were looking at. I often confuse mountains.
I have also been doing some work and reading papers about pervasive games, immersion and presence in games, and gameflow. I just need to actually write my project proposal now,
Adventures? Well,robinbloke and I sat on strange stools that had tails and drank smoothies in the Rainforest cafe, amongst the fake vines, and the constant announcements saying, "Your adventure is about to begin", so perhaps it has.
I played the Gossip Game and pretended to be a cross-dressing electrician, but failed to gossip enough to reach many conclusions.
Pieces of paper were passed around that may have involved biting and games such as this certainly seemed reminiscent of the playground. I remember a particular playtime when a whole school of children were turned into bats.
mikej_uk and I got into a discussion about unethical games from the 1980s and tried to think up our own. A whole range of strange games were available for the Atari 2600. such as the infamous Custer's Revenge, where Custer was supposed to have sex with a Native American woman tied to a pole, but also Bachelor Party, and Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em. As a child, I remember playing a quite explicit text adventure, but that seems quite normal in comparison to those games.imomus also commented on the Hide and Seek Festival and pervasive games: Pervasive urban gaming: count me out, and in and raises some interesting points. He also links to a book review of Ground-up City. Play as a Design Tool, which links to an article about a playground for the over 60s. My parents seem happy to still play in playgrounds that were designed for the under 60s and I hope I still will be when I am 60.Hide and Seek then wrote a response: Thinking in (and out) of Pervasive Urban Gaming and also raises some points that have also been mentioned in some of the papers I've been reading about pervasive games.
City of Sound also give a lengthy description of the street of the future: The street as platform.
I've also been reading about card-games such as Gloom: The Game of Inauspicious Incidents and Grave Consequences (via
fridgemagnet) and wearable electronics, such as the Lilypad Arduino and satin_candy's Catbag. I've also been reading about the Maida Vale sand creature and hope one appears in Highgate.I went to the Digital Geography in a Web 2.0 World conference and listened to a talk on "Web 2.0, Neogeography and Virtual Worlds" by Andrew Hudson-Smith, which showed a demonstration of MapTube, which allows you to mix up maps, and apparently all maps created on there also appear in Second Life. He also talked about how games can use visualisations of cities and gave out a booklet on "Digital Geography: Geographic Visualisation for Urban Environments", which tells you how to make photographic planets (such as by using Flexify), creating photo-overlays in Google Earth (using PhotoOverlay Creator). I also listened to a talk on "3D Visualisation: From Lab to Field", which showed demonstrations of software that could tell you exactly what mountain you were looking at. I often confuse mountains.
I have also been doing some work and reading papers about pervasive games, immersion and presence in games, and gameflow. I just need to actually write my project proposal now,
Adventures? Well,
robinbloke and I sat on strange stools that had tails and drank smoothies in the Rainforest cafe, amongst the fake vines, and the constant announcements saying, "Your adventure is about to begin", so perhaps it has.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-02-22 05:35 pm (UTC)Also, I bought Dave a copy of Gloom, and whilst its a great idea, it fails in practice. The transparent cards, when stored, shed their text onto each other, so that everything is illegible, and the game unplayable.
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Date: 2008-02-22 06:02 pm (UTC)Shedding text must have made you feel gloomy, so maybe it did work somehow?
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Date: 2008-02-22 06:05 pm (UTC)Maybe there's another club under there too though! I wonder if they ever meet?
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Date: 2008-02-23 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 12:28 pm (UTC)Teenage Queen, a 16-bit strip poker game, was meant to have a rather unethical twist at the end, but I can't see evidence of that in any current online reviews.
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Date: 2008-02-24 11:03 am (UTC)Amazing text!
Date: 2008-03-24 04:59 pm (UTC)