Free maps!
The scale isn't everything we'd have hoped for but it IS copyright free.
« September 2006 | Main | November 2006 »
October 25, 2006
The power of detail.
I felt SOOOoooo virtuous picking out The Power of Maps by Denis Wood as my next bedtime book. For a start - no pictures (unlike most of the lovely map books out there), secondly I had found it whilst reading the recommended biblography for the only university module that exists (as far as I know), on location-based mobile media. Well if THEY say so..
I've never read such a detailed verbal count of a visual communication medium. Denis wood takes a long, leisurely chapter to fully demonstrate that maps are not objective, another to argue that categorising them would be like trying to categorise the world. In my opinion, the detail is unneccesary unless you're thinking of becoming a devout cartographer or making lots of cartographer friends.
I'm being a bit unfair because despite its' wordiness, each chapter leaves me enlightened.
if nothing else.....it's going to come in handy on 7th!
Plan to provide a summary of each chapter here, for those who don't fancy plowing through it themselves!
October 14, 2006
The Future of Entertainment?
Held at the massive Hippodrome last Thursday; with free booze, waiters, the latest games, films on big screens, thousands of attendees, famous names (Stephen Moore of Aardman, William Sargent of Framestore, Peter Molyneux of Lionhead and David Gardner of Worldwide studios), this EA and BAFTA presentation had the feel of something BIG. But when it came down to it the big future they predicted was not a new one, and their declared enlightenment was not necessarily backed by know-how or understanding. For example their commitment to the girls games market is well-founded and yet of the 1000 strong audience; I saw about 10 girls, and presenters? None. In addition, the games proudly presented were all gun-based with the exception of FABLE II - which is still the elven/sorcerer/monster mix that most girls associate with puerile role-players. In the same way there was a recognition that games needed to have more "serious" content and yet the games paraded were considered "great" primarily for their visual and physical "realism" - the game mechanics identitical throughout.
Other projections were more interesting and included a move towards:
Multitasking games that can capture our new ADD-style imaginations including shorter levels, cross platform, musical integration, web content integration
Games with new content i.e.serious and political games
Greater emotional engagement
Real worlds, real drama
The ability to share experiences and "show off" in games in other words networked games and user created content.
The most interesting speech was made by David Gardner who gave a very convincing argument in defense of games, and against politicians who slate computer games without ever having played them. He quotes from the book "Everything Bad is Good For You" in which Johnson, the author, asks us to imagine what cultural critics might have said had video games been invented hundreds of years ago, and only recently had something called the book been marketed aggressively to children:
"Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying—which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical sound-scapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements—books are simply a barren string of words on the page. . . .
Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. . . .
But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can’t control their narratives in any fashion—you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. . . . This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive one"
He's joking but it makes a strong point.
October 06, 2006
Indie and Improv
Yesterday I attended a short talk and exhibition on Artful Games as part of the London Games Festival Fringe. It introduced some encouraging trends in alternative game design.
Summerbranch
is a game exploring stillness, which addresses the use of disguise in dance and movement. I did play it, still don't understand what I was meant to be doing, but somehow the idea that it "radically subverts the well worn conventions and clichés favored by producers creating games for commercial distribution. " sounds good right?
Dave Green, editor of channel4.com/games introduced us to the world of casual games and casual game designers - this is a good place to look for alternative game designs.
A big "lightbult" turned on when Tanya Krzywinska discussed a new trend - a move away from "games" to "play". In other words a move away from goal based activities to social exploration, improvisation, and less structured gaming activities - exemplified by the increasing interested in games such as The Sims and MMORPGs (especially world of warcraft). This is especially significant for location-based games which by their very nature, take place in everyday locations with far less control over the gaming environment than in a virtual worlds or on gameboards and alrady embrace the coincidental and accidental.
October 03, 2006
Alternative game designs
Building on a previous post suggesting we take a fresh look at the design of location-based games, I have been giving some thought to some alternatives that avoid the need for speed and have a greater focus on strategy and rhythmn. My first thought was inspired by a conversation I had with Peter Rogers, one of the Mudlarking designers who was interested to create a location-based game in which distance and time could be stretched - for example every 2 meters walked in real life could be made to represent 4 meters on a map, or visa versa. It also springs from user experiences in the pilot of Docker Dilemma, where the fact that the map didn't rotate automatically as players moved, caused a certain amount of confusion and disorientation.
What would happen if the game map was distorted, or perhaps flipped so that left was right and right was left, perhaps certain areas stretched or collapsed, but the players movements still accurately reflected in terms of their position in relation to landmarks. I think orienteering with this kind of map would be similar to navigating in a maze of mirrors, where intuition would quickly let you down and every movement would have to be carefully thought out to avoid walking into a wall.
I was also inspired by my visit to the Science Museum this weekend (well actually, it was the Science Museum shop, which is often the way ;-), where I was intrigued by a game called Polarityinvolving magnets, their orientation, relationships and proximity to one another. Turn the board into any space, and the magnets into humans and you have a very convincing sounding location-based game!
October 02, 2006
The Map Designers Conference
A seminar for cartographers in Glasgow covering new ways to look at Maps. A sign of the times.
http://ccablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/map-designers-conference.html