I went to the third day of the Gamecity festival in Nottingham, mainly to see Alexander Kohlhofer of
soda/plasticpilots fame speak about weewar which I fell in love with at first sight a couple of months ago. it was great to enjoy a long chat with his afterwards as well! (Thanks Alexander)

In case you havent seen weewar or played it, weewar is a very addicitive multiplayer turn based strategy game which currently has over 20,000 players. see Techcrunch, Kotaku coverage. Its a really nice recent success story and Alexander’s talk was really enjoyable all the more so because he was outlining/sharing/dissecting how they got it right with nearly every slide. He had some very valuable wisdom to impart which he presented in a very humble, well executed way.

In fact it was one of the most polished talks I’d been to in a while and one of the most inspiring things I’d been to all year sitting right next to Brendan Dawes‘ talk for our final year students.

Alexander covered many areas in his talk and referred to the key points in the weewar strategy, as well as mentioning how it came to be.

he said he was (like many of us):

• too busy to play
• stuck in an office
• had nobody to play with

..and he was interested in creating something which would make many people happy instead of just a limited number of clients.

Some of his talk was also about how they’ve dealt with the community building aspect of weewar (tangler), to the challenges of stable infrastructure and growing needs (API access, google apps use, invites mechanism to cope with server capacity), as well as principles of design and ways of listening to users and legitimising their interest and enthusiasm which had resulted in the wiki etc.

I was in awe when i realised that weewar was a two man designed and implemented game, just Alexander and Bert!

Things I picked up specifically in relation to design and etched firmly in my mind:

• you cant get it right but you can improve it all the time
• getting it wrong is okay
• keeping users in the loop
• not to try and shoehorn a game into a browser
• being agile and iterative
• release often and listen

also

• giving users self regulating responsibility (allowing them to make the rules)
• be part of the community and mean it
• dont use players with overly complex systems
• dont have a closed system

I think Weewar was essentially at one point described as a web 2.0 app and thats possibly very apt, that train of thought reminded me of Amy Jo Kim’s Etech Presentation from 2006 which is essentially about
how similar Web 2.0 apps and their features/functionality are to the mechanics and components of games.

Anyhow, needless to say weewar is very enjoyable game with lots of attention to functional detail, go sign up for an invite or drop me an email to send you a game request.

The rest of the day, well the morning I attended a panel discussion about indie games with the indiecade folk, IGF and Gamasutra as well as Channel 4 represented on the panel.

I was briefly starstruck to see Cory Doctorow behind me with his iconic specs, I tried googling him on my phone to see a recent pic to make sure. but then one of the panel members made a comment about indie games / the concept of giving away games for free and mentioned Cory and his books and my suspicions were confirmed.

I went to an ARG talk as well in the afternoon by Guy Lewis Parsons who gave a very energetic talk in place of Dan Hon.
Mr Katamari Damacy (was there with his new game nobi nobi boy) his keynote talk was covered in depth on Wonderland. It was nice to see almost full HD from the the PS3 on such a large cinema screen.

Photo from Wanderer and Wonderer

Global Cities looks at the changing faces of ten dynamic international cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Exploring each city through five thematic lenses – speed, size, density, diversity and form – the exhibition draws on data originally assembled for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2006 Venice Biennale. This unique show presents existing films, videos and photographs by more than 20 artists and architects to offer subjective and intimate interpretations of urban conditions in all ten cities.

I went on Saturday - the combination of larger than life human geography and the arts was hugely absorbing. You can’t help but be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff, and a second trip could well be on the cards. It’s on until August 27th.

Three things I liked:

Yang zhenzhong’s video installation ‘Let’s Puff’

Kendell Geers photographic study of Johannesburg’s secure ‘Suburbia’ (navigate to suburbia via images)

Dryden Goodwin’s short film ‘Reveal’

With work dating back to 1988 Cai Guo-Qiang’s website has a great collection of his art online. It’s great to look at a retrospective collection by an artist who consistently carries a wide variety of themes throughout his career. Animals, shadows, floating and explosions are to name a few.

Cai is currently a core member of the creative team and the director of visual and special effects of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. He is also preparing for his large-scale retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York with subsequent international venues.

Is the theme for this years Architecture Week. Last week I attended the AW onedotzero evening event, which showcased sustainable design work from Jason Bruges Studio, XCO2 and DIY Kyoto. The showcase reinforced the need for artists and designers to produce work which is powered by renewable forms of energy, aswell as create products that support us in our efforts to reduce our consumption of non-renewables.

Jason Bruges took centre stage first, starting with a quick introduction of the studio’s work, which for me is a mixture of information design, architecture and interactive / art installations. Following the intro Jason proceeded to present a series of the studio’s projects that have explored visualising prevailing winds, which have culminated in the studio’s RIBA London and onedotzero comissioned ‘Wind to Light’ installation at the Southbank centre (pictured above). Wind to Light uses ‘500 mini wind turbines to generate power, which illuminates hundreds of mounted leds, creating firefly-like fields of light, with wind visually interpreted as electronic patterns across the installation’. It will be onsite until September, to find out more read the project blog here. Following on from Jason, XCO2 (a group of engineers and designers) also spoke about the use of renewable energies to create function and aesthetic value in their work.

Finally, Greta from DIY Kyoto (who’s name is a reponse to the Kyoto protocol) presented the Wattson, a product which simply makes your electricity usage tangible. I first read about the Wattson in the papers a while ago, but what I didn’t know about was the development of a Wattson online community. This is a place where users can register and track their electricty consumption, a place where international comparision can take place. It was also suggested, tongue in cheek on the night that a dating group could be developed in the community where users could pursue those who used attractive amounts of electricity, now that would be sexy!

A great collection of photography and Art from many brilliant contributors.

tinyvices.com

Systema Metropolis is Mark Dion’s latest exhibition at Natural History Museum.

It’s true to say in 2004 when I was finishing my degree the internet wasn’t so communitytastic as it is now. So today in 2007 it’s great to find 5oup, an online community for student artists, which on the surface looks like a healthy mix of graphics, fine art, interactive and illustration. Its graduation time right now and all the design blogs are featuring student portfolio’s, from those I have had a quick glance at - Mr.Robert Holmkvist’s graphic design abilites have impressed me the mostest!

Just the way you like it…

1. Consume typographic excellence at Studio 8 Design.

2. Nice interface touches on the microsite for Richard Serra’s MoMA show.

3. I WANT MetaSerif Book.

British sculptor and Turner prize nominee Richard Wilson had produced a new piece of art called in Liverpool named “Turning The Place Over.” An 8 Metre slice of a building rotates in a spectacular fashion, allowing onlookers to view the inside of the building. I love it.

Read more on icLiverpool

Watch the video on YouTube