Power Up

The Play Research Group, UWE, Bristol
studying the technologies and cultures of games and play

levelHead, development in progress

Game artist and founder of selectparks Julian Oliver is developing levelHead, a 3D spatial memory game in which player moves a small cube in front of an EyeToy camera in order to walk a 'virtual pet' (actually a human character) 'inside' the cube. Each side of the cube is coded with a graphical tag that helps the program to replace the side with right animation on computer screen. Target of the game is to find an exit door from the cube. New layouts of a cube follow when the character is succesfully lead out from previous cube.

I assume that the game's simple tangible interface gives a feeling of special personal, bodily connection with the character inside the box. Whereas most of the Wii games build on simulating everyday human movements where controllers are just tools and Eye of Judgment for PS3 vivifies playing cards (see video), levelHead adds value to a real physical object (and not only to a flatten card), the cube itself. Similarly to Tamagotchis, cube may become something one wishes to carry with her as a house of "my own little human being".

I can see novel opportunities for game skinning and user-generated textures - it would be great to add looks of some important person to that little character or some familiar wallpaper on the walls of the rooms! Furthermore, I would like to see a female version of the character.

Looks very interesting, and will be out as an open-source project in the near future. See the project or go straight to a fascianting video. 

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Picture by Julian Oliver.

posted by: urbnomad at 11:32 | link | comments |

Visiting PhD Student studying Second Life

Eivind Kalvatn, a visiting PhD Student from the University of Oslo, arrived to Bristol some weeks ago. His study concentrates on many different aspects of Second Life, such as identity play and friendships. He writes that the "[...] main objective in this study is to grasp how inhabitants in Second Life perceive the experience of being in a shared virtual environment" (source). There will be a perfect opportunity to hear more about his work on 10th November when a research group Wii event takes place (date may be subject to change). Eivind is presenting his work on 21st November during the Play Research Group meeting.

posted by: urbnomad at 21:30 | link | comments |

War in games

War and struggle have always been well presented in games, but Guy Debord's The Game of War have gained special interest among media artists and game scholars recently. The game was reconstructed at London Games Festival as well as presented in digitalised form by Alexander Galloway and RSG (Radical Software Group) in Amsterdam last week. Pictures from London event can be found here. One review on Mediamatic event in Amsterdam is here.

Debord spent his childhood watching 2WW but wasn't able to do anything. Later he created a game about war and published a book about it with his wife Alice Becker-Ho. "For Debord, The Game of War wasn’t just a game - it was a guide to how people should live their lives within Fordist society. By playing this Clausewitz simulator, revolutionary activists could learn how to fight and win against the oppressors of spectacular society" (source). I hope that contemporary players do not need to end the game as Debord did. It has been argued that Debord's suicide in 1994 was his final strategic move in his 'game of war'.

English version of A Game of War book was published this year.

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Picture from London Games Festival and Guy Debord's The Game Of War by Rod Dickinson.

 

posted by: urbnomad at 18:36 | link | comments |

Women in London Games Festival 2007

The program for London Games Festival 2007 looks pretty good.  Will Wright himself will be giving a talk and Seth already mentioned the Game of War event. Furthermore, Women in Games network will have a WIG Mixer meeting tomorrow at late afternoon. I heard that already +90 people have registered and at least Helen (anyone else going?) is representing our group there. WIG Mixer event participants are

Nicola Bhalerao - Nicola is a lead games programmer at Rare and chair of
WiG2008 (official announcement to be made at event), she brings a focus on
encouraging girls and women to engage with games programming as a creative
and fulfilling career path.

Matthew Jeffery - Head of European Recruitment, EA has often appeared in
public talking of the need to broaden the talent base of development talent
and to attract a more diverse workforce. He brings a passion for attracting
more women to the industry.

Helen Kennedy - originating member of Women in Games, Helen is extremely
active in driving the academic context of the event forward. Helen's PhD is
in Feminism and Play and she brings substantial expertise in feminist and
gender studies to the event.

Helen will also be moderating Xfire Debate Club discussion on women gamers on Thursday. The discussion will cover issues such as online gaming, marketing and advertising, gaming communities and industry, and guests include Leigh Alexander (Editor, Worlds in Motion), Colette Bennett (Editor, Destructoid), Amber “AthenaTwin” Dalton (Clan Leader and Founder, PMS Clan), Robyn Fleming (Senior Editor, Cerise Magazine), Jasmin Kassner (Founder, PixelTamer Games), Christa “TriXie” Phillips (Community Editor, Xbox.com) and Lesley Smith (Freelance Games Journalist). Too bad I am not able to take part in these highly interesting events! I hope the happy ones attending have time to post something on these later on.

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FYI, I am hanna and I am doing my PhD at UWE on women players' participatory practices and productivity (skinning and modding in particular) and I will be posting here for some weeks from now on...

 

posted by: urbnomad at 17:00 | link | comments |
events

The Society of the.... Game

Play Research Group member Rod Dickinson is part of a team reconstructing and playing Guy Debord's Game of War at the London Games Festival Fringe soon. There is so much to say about this that I don't where to start, so I'll just give the link for now and comment later.

posted by: sethgiddings at 13:17 | link | comments |
events

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