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How Wii Sports appeals to the Casual Gamer.
November 28 th 2008
"Nintendo have changed the game industry landscape by creating something so different and so successful its now accepted as a standard."
So this is my critique, it's on a game I can't stand but loyaly respect; Wii Sports. Read it here.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Games.
Reallustrator.
November 11 th 2008
Click for larger image.
Actually I think it's Photoshop, I just wanted to use that title. Pretty awesome.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Miscellaneous.
Reading List.
October 30 th 2008
This is the reading list for my dissertation (subject to change):
How the Web Was Born - James Gillies and Robert Cailliau
The Power of Identity: The Information Age - Castells
Dot-Com to Dot-Bomb: Understanding the Dot-Comb Boom, Bust and Resurgence - Tapan Munroe
.CON by John Cassidy
The Wealth of Netoworks - Yochai Benkler
Posted by Sean, tagged in Dissertation.
Hush hush busy.
October 29 th 2008
I like to blog every day or so, and I have, but on our games development blog for Wowzerware and my Big Project blog. Which are both hush-hush.
So here's two blurred out pictures of what ive been working on.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Miscellaneous.
Sunday Musings - are we witnessing a new genre of game, The Customizables.
October 19 th 2008
Consider these three brand new titles for a moment; Spore, Little Big Planet and Banjo Kazooie Nuts'n'Boltz.
They all fit loosely into some genres. Spore is a sim, LBP is a 2D platformer and Banjo Kazzoie is a 3D platformer. Sort of.
I think they all fit perfectly in to a new style of game I'm calling the Customizables. They have all the traces of Web2 integration and huge amount of control over freedom of design. Here what makes a customizable:
- The games core mechanic is freedom of control over your character or environment.
- Sharing and tagging of all the created levels and character.
- Online collaboration; level playing and fighting.
I think we are witnessing a new genre of game. Repeat after me The Customizables.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Miscellaneous.
Guy Injects RFID Chip Into His Hand to Open Gun Safe.
October 16 th 2008
So thats how the Jedi's do it.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Modding.
Brand the company or the game. Tough decisions.
October 15 th 2008
I was reading Aaron's notebook on their games company Epic, it was along the lines off "Were amazing, look out for us, we will be making a big impact ect." Their clearly strongly branding their company, which brings up the question can you brand both the company and the game?
I'm thinking no. You can only give one or the other that market definition.
Their going to have trouble branding there game if the company already has a carved out image. This isn't a problem, the game can be promoted from the marketing aura of their company, but Wowzerware is taking the reverse approach. Leaving the company unassuming for now and then releasing the game and its image on the world later on. The main reason is our game will be iconic. Far more iconic than our company could be (without a history or a campaign that is) and we want to launch the game without any style interference from Wowzerware.
Also game industry leaders like EA and Nintendo have there brand built out of their biggest franchises; Nintendo is Mario and Zelda. Bungie is Halo. Sega was Sonic. EA is shit. Our company will follow suit and let the game do the talking.
There is no right or wrong decision here, but its a difficult one. Do you brand the game or the company?
Posted by Sean, tagged in Games.
Dissertation Title and Abstract.
October 14 th 2008
Is internet freedom and network neutrality at risk by a corporate authority Web 2.0 built?
Network neutrality is the principle that all information which is sent over the Internet should be treated equally and Internet Service Providers should not influence any of the content or applications users choose. All websites will have the same connection speeds / load times and all sites can be accessed. Net neutrality means a students weblog and Microsoft.com will be handled unbiasedly by ISP's.
Since the big bang of the web, diverse cultures and sub-clutures have emerged in the light anonymity and near total uncensored free speech. Capitalism has been there from the start too, during the first generation of the web (Web1), it was in the form of e-commerce. After the dot-com bubble burst the cultures survived, however the e-commerce took a heavy hit. Out of the wreckage materialized a new type of business, one that deals in personal information and social networking. Web2 users subscribe their soul instead of their wallets, this combined with the walled garden design of social networking sites means a handful of monolithic companies have emerged.
Even though the web is arguably a free and open forum now it's at risk from two directions. Firstly on a subtle level, by the empowered giants of the new web who are manipulating our culture. Secondly on a grander commercial scale, by the telecommunication industry who want to commodify internet usage with the destruction of network neutrality.
A dark and realistic future is one where these risks get into bed with each other. The irony is that the telecoms vision of a tiered internet works best with a few big companies in competition with each other. A few big companies we have created. There is no central democracy controlling the web, by enabling this corporate authority we are jeopardizing the freedom of the web.
This dissertation will explore how we got into this situation, the current state of play and possible outcomes.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Dissertation.
A Possible Future: The Tiered Internet.
October 13 th 2008
Via brianmcguigan.com. Click for larger image.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Dissertation.
Wowzerware. We make games.
October 10 th 2008
The games module company has been formed, say hello to Wowzerware. Can't give too much away now, stay tuned, all will become clear in the Week 6 keynote...
Posted by Sean, tagged in Games.
Rejected Ideas.
October 10 th 2008
Here at Wowzerware we have our awesome idea pinned down. Here are some rejected ones:
Live Tower Defense -
Set up in a building around uni, all of the door have sensors and record people walking around. This is info is fed into a handheld screen where Tower defense is played with all the people moving around. You would set towers up by moving blocks around in the building. Or something like that. (Not doing it because - way too much could go wrong.)
Sort of GPS Pokemon -
An iPhone location based monster catching game around Plymouth. Monsters hidden everywhere, they could jump out any time depending on where you are. Venture around the park at night some scary monster would appear. Water monsters up on the Hoe ect. (Not doing it because - GPS is old news.)
Barcode Top Trumps -
Open your cupboards and scan in your food packets to build custom monsters. Scanning in Margarine would create big fat monsters. Salad would make speedy agile ones ect. Then battle them against other people. (Not doing it because - Way too simple and you can already play top trumps with your food based on there nutrition info.)
And loads and loads more... Our current idea is leaps and bounds ahead of this piffle.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Games.
My beef with the Wiimote.
October 8 th 2008
I thought the Wiimote was the best of this generation controllers until I saw someone in our house fumbling about with the wrong trigger when playing a new game.
Nintendo have mistakenly traded off usability for sleeky-coolness. The Wiimotes buttons should have been colored like the N64 and Gamecube's. The A should have been green, the B trigger red, the C trigger yellow. For a couple of reasons, firstly when you see a colored button on the screen you can match it faster by color, especially for new users.
Secondly for the longest time green has been 'OK' and red has been 'Back' or 'Cancel', this even hold true for most games on the Xbox. This legacy of a standard menu control is lost on the Wii. Sometime B Trigger is 'OK', some times its 'Cancel'. Impairing constancy and user experience.
Finally this one might be for me, but it doesn't feel like the Wiimote is from same heritage of Nintendo controllers, colored buttons would be that missing DNA to link them all together (yeah I know its the NES controller on its side). The Wiimote is the very very white sleek black sheep of the family.
Anyway, I'm off to buy some sharpies.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Games.
The Ubuntu Unloading Bar.
October 1 st 2008
I shutdown Richs EeeeeeePC today and saw a beautifully simple part of the Ubuntu GUI - the shutdown unloading bar. On turn off your presented with a full loading bar and then it slowly unfills as the shutdown process continues. Once its empty the computer turns off. Such and intuitive way of describing this task. Sadly it beats Apple's spinner, I hope they steal it.
Posted by Sean, tagged in UXDing.
An IDAT Timetable.
September 28 th 2008
Few days ago I started making an IDAT timetable micro-site for myself because the portal one is bearly fathomable. Its jsut a neat little page that breaks the timetable down into individual weeks and makes modules selectable.
It was pretty easy to adapt for everyone else so I hope it helps figuring out where your meant to be easier. Ive only tested it on Firefox, not sure if it works on IE. To be fair if your using IE6 and doing IDAT you need to be put down.
If theres time I wouldn't mind adding some features like specifying groups and clean linking to specific time tables.
You can use it here and if there's any problems or wrong times drop me and email.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Timetable.
The Idatometer - Are you Arty or Techie.
September 28 th 2008
Needed to pick a colour scheam for the IDAT Timetable modules. All of the modules have been plotted on and scale of Artyness to Techieness. So if you have a mostly green timetable your proably deisgn orintated, if you have a mostly blue timetable your more likly to be a coder.
Other idatters have winged about where the modules are so I dont want to hear anything about this scale, its staying the way it. These colours are final. :)
Posted by Sean, tagged in Timetable.
Think you know everything then FOUC flashes you in the face.
September 13 th 2008
After my brief holiday back home in Put-your-head-in-the-oven-ominster I started a freelance job with an ex-specialmover. It was all going to plan, just a neat simple site for Retriever, and a bastard IE7 bug popped up. Apparently there was a white flash between pages, so the content didn't look like it was smoothly loading. How odd.
Some googling later I discovered it was the Flash of Unstyled Content (FOUC), only occurring in IE, its intermittent bug where content is loaded into the memory before the style.
You can fix it with this in the head tag:
<meta http-equiv="Page-Enter" content="revealtrans(duration=0.0)">
Anyways thought i'd flag that up, incase anyone else was having a problem. You can read more about it here.
Posted by Sean, tagged in CSS and HTML.
So long Specialmoves. So long London.
August 22 nd 2008
Chi's poster of the Specialmoves team. I'm the one with the Mario/Apple hat.
Bye all. :'(
Posted by Sean, tagged in Placement.
The Eco Zoo - A most oustanding flash-papervison site.
August 19 th 2008
Strangely this also has some amazing usability too, thats why I'm blogging. You know instantly how to navigate all of it, the only instruction you are given is the two second of hand quickly moving the tree at the bottom. Thats it, the whole navigation summed up in a moment with no text or instruction. Just that simple swing back and forth.
Posted by Sean, tagged in UXDing.
Doll Me.
August 17 th 2008
The late Anna left Specialmoves last Friday (everyone will miss you.)
As a leaving gift she made dolls of us all. The long-legged blond button-eyes maroon brand whore you see above is me.
Cheers Anna and seeya.
Posted by Sean, tagged in Placement.
Casual game market worth $2.2billion. It prints money!
August 15 th 2008
And the key is repetition...
However, what casual gamers seem to hunger for is more of the same.
It's like watching a TV show. After it is over, if it's good, you want to see another episode. Casual game players are looking for additional episodes, providing another fun experience to them in a familiar framework. The market is willing to try out new game types, but they tend to stick to the current favorites.
Via Gamasutra.