Read about the background of this trip here.
We got the move controllers water-proofed and were excited to try our underwater idea. We thought of having an underwater minefield of floating move controllers. If you touched one, a chain reaction would start, and you would hear sounds played from above the water.
Ready to get wet
However, as soon as the move controllers were submerged, just a bit, they stopped working. Apparently the Bluetooth signal from the controllers is not strong enough to send through water. The medium is of course tougher than air to propagate in, but we did not think this would be an issue. Apparently it is. There went all under water ideas!
Luckily we made two new findings.
- The move controllers float and work while floating
- They start working again as soon as they emerge from the water! (As long as they have not been under for more than 5 sec, where the built in hardware disconnect kicks in)
These two findings together we thought was really cool and could be turned around from a bug to a feature. We figured out that we could count for updates in the code, where no there was no activity from the controller. If the duration is longer than a prescribed threshold (for us 0.5 second), then the controller had been submerged.
This got us to think about the games in another way, and even though an under water game would have been beautiful and atmospheric to play, being above water is more fun, since you can communicate and interact more with the other players.
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Read about the background of this trip here.
At our third day here we wanted to get to know the local culture more. We wanted to hear some local fairytales and folk stories. That’s why we arranged a get-together with some of the locals at a café on a Malé suburb – Villingili (it’s on another island, and you have to take a ferry to get there, but yes, it’s a “suburb”).
Telling stories to a crowd can be a bit daunting if you’re not used to it. I remembered a classic danish parlour game that my friend Anders Børup taught me. It is a collaborative storytelling game where people take turns at saying a word that is attached to the current sentence and then it goes around in a circle. Anyone can always end the sentence by saying “full stop” instead of a word, which then changes the direction and begins a new sentence. It is best played fast and to a specific rhythm. This forces people to not over-think and makes it more silly and fun.
Here is a sentence we built that I really love. It’s a bit non-sensical and aaaalmost poetic:
“Malé is unpleasantly humid, yes, this will destroy mother earth if we want all the passionfruit all in one mouthful.”
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Read about the background of this trip here.
The last couple of days we have been settling in. Getting to know the “island time” and meeting local people and Amani’s family. All very nice people.
I got to play a game with the locals that they claim is the predecessor of the other games in the same variant. The game is called Ohlvalhu Gondi and is a type of Kalaha/Mancala and is played sea shells called cowrie. The cowrie used to be their currency, so playing this game would have an element of gambling involved. The cowrie is also depicted on their really beautiful paper money as a legacy of their history.
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Yay! We got invited to participate in this cool game design trip to the Maldives.
Amani Naseem of the Collective has invited a group of international game designers to go and design games and make playful events in the capital city of the Maldives, Malé. We will work with key artists, thinkers and organizers in the Maldives and create a playful event in the public spaces of Malé.
Image courtesy of Ida Marie Toft
There are more reasons why we go to the Maldives of all places in the world. Firstly; Amani is from there. She has family there.and knows a lot of the local community. Secondly, Amani was invited to join the Maldivian pavilion for this year’s Venice Biennale and decided to invite designers to do collaborative game design events in the Maldives and in Venice.
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By sbn on April 8th, 2013
So, our little game / compositional tool ERVAX for 2 has been nominated for the Most Amazing Indie Game of 2013. We are, of course, very honoured and find it a bit daunting to see the quality and scope of the other nominees.
The competition
Before this, I only knew of three of the other nominees. I’ve played (and bought) Dear Esther and was vaguely aware that David Kanaga (of Proteus fame) had been working on some MIDI-hardware controlled project. And I’ve played Space Team once, when I happened to be in a room with enough iDevices.
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Ohh noooo. Last week, some burglars went into Chassis Arcade, our favorite Arcade in Copenhagen (read: only arcade) and stole a lot of things. As we have written earlier, we really like this place. They have also been helpful with lending us machines for different events we have been hosting. Latest, the Nordic Game Jam’s pre-party, where we had the donkey kong arcade and Denmark’s best player, trying to beat the score. Good times 
But these guys are having this arcade because it’s their passion. They are far from making huge amounts of money (it barely goes to zero). And now some idiots broke in and stole what little equipment they already had.
This is why they have made this danish “kickstarter” (caremaker). Give some money to the Red cross. Then after that, give a little to Chassis Arcade too. We need a little more gaming culture out there.
This is why we’re also going to Spelkultur i skåne‘s event tonight (Spelrum:Digital). They are publicly funded organisation for advancing gaming culture in Skåne. They are doing a lot of cool stuff, so if you are in the Copenhagen/Skåne area, keep an eye out for them!
At their event tonight, they will collect money for the Chassis arcade, and in general play a lot of cool games! Our dear friend Nicklas Nygren is bringing his latest Game Jam game: Spaceship with a Mace (which got the most polished game award, but is also damn fun to play). We will be playing that on the Babycade (an arcade we made built into a baby carriage). We will also play our new party game MagnetizeMe there.
Go give some money to Chassis Arcade, or come and join us tonight at the event, and let’s have some fun
Nordic Game Jam is coming up really soon and Copenhagen Game Collective, as always, is hosting a pre-party the day before.
This year we have packed more activities into the program. There will be lots of music, social and physical games, so put your social gloves on and get down to Sydhavn to have some fun and meet some people before the big event!
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Not so long ago, most of us went to The Exile Game Jam. Well, we were hosting it after all. It is the bestest game jam of them all. I had brought some whiskey, a western board/card game (Bang!) and some magnets (yes, ol’ school magnets) and was all set. I wanted to create a game around at least one of those items (and at least use one of them for the idea generation. Whiskey proved to be good for that!). I was in a great group together with Amani Naseem, and we didn’t just end up making one game, we made two. One of them was fun, the other one was seriously fun! Here is a little preliminary video of the seriously fun game:
I had recently found out that the Playstation Move Controllers have a magnetometer in them! In other words: PS Move Controllers can detect magnetic fields.
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Many of us at the Game Collective are going to and hosting this Game Jam. We think that it is a great way to realize and to form ideas as well as socialize and build networks. It was at the last exile game jam that we developed Idiots attack the Top Noodle together with many other silly Kinect games (like Bitchslap and Ninjas don’t shoot). This is also where Tim Garbos developed his beautiful and weird game jam-winning photon boy game.
Activities:
Social game jam and playing/making party games (Wednesday)
More Game Jam (Thursday – Saturday)
Loads of social and physical folk games
Presentation and casual award show
Final Party
Presentation of some game developers current projects.
Where:
At the beautiful old folk highscool Vallekilde (Højskole), Denmark
More info:
http://exile.dk/
Signup:
http://vallekilde.dk/ugekurser/autumn-exile-game-jam/
Last weekend we were at the PlayPublik festival in Berlin, hosted by the amazing Invisible Playground. It was a blast, and we got to showcase a new version of Idiots attack the Top Noodle! We also tried to showcase one of our new creations: The Puddle Peddler. I say “tried” because we just could not get it running. Like with any other technology; when you add layers of complexity, the risk of failure increases. But though we didn’t get to showcase it at this Festival, we are making it ‘sturdier’ for the next. Still, read the concept description; it’s quite an interesting game.
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