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Playing catch-up
It's been a while, hasn't it? Our silences are usually a good thing as it tends to mean we're hard at work on something exciting. That's mostly true in this case and we have some exciting news to share. However, we've also just been rubbish, sorry about that. So what's been happening at The Bunker? Well mostly out of The Bunker ...
Play Modena, Italy
Back in March, we were invited to attend Play Modena as a speaker on a couple of panels. The first session was a fairly open affair called "Games with the Designers", focusing on the practical issues facing independent designers, both large and small. The second was a Q&A with a workshop component on how to communicate through games. It was an honour to be on a panel with the illustrious Martin Wallace and Mac Gerdts. Their combined experience gave rise to some great insights and I think everyone at the workshop came away a bit wiser. The workshop session comprised each of us setting a theme and then the participants working these themes up in groups and then pitching them back to us. I'm proud to say that my "99%" theme produced some really lovely ideas, including an excellent idea that built upon the old game, Kingmaker. I might just have to steal that one ...
In terms of pure focus on play, Modena beats Essen hands-down for me (check out the photos for an idea of the scale of the event and size of the play area). It was a great show with a great atmosphere. The only thing I'd like to see is some of the (excellent) sessions taken out of the main hall. Way too noisy for productive or serious conversation.
Gamecamp, London
running round a classroom, screaming and pushing each other Gamecamp is a wonderful unconference run by James Wallace & co. It sees a few hundred (?) participants from a whole range of disciplines come together for spontaneous discussion and dialogue. Fundamentally, if you have something you want to talk about, you stick it on the board and book a room. Each session is just 30 minutes long and then a gong rings and you head off to the next room. It's not perfect - getting any meaningful discussion going in that space of time with a group of strangers is really difficult - but it does allow for a very broad experience. For example, the best session of the day was undoubtedly "Playground Games". Not an earnest dissection of how children adopt and spread games (which is what I'd imagined) but literally running round a classroom, screaming and pushing each other. This year's Gamecamp solidified it as an annual "must attend" for me.
As always, the best ideas happen down the pub and after the conference finished, I met up with four like-minded but diverse individuals and we started brainstorming a game for the Occupy movement (you'll notice a thread of obsession here, continuing on from my theme at the Modena Workshop). Tonnes of good ideas were had and that conversation is still going on. I'd love to produce a genuinely collaborative game that invoked spontaneous collaboration in the face of monopoly. Let's see what happens ...
Play @Digital Shoreditch
Finally, Play Day, part of the Digital Shoreditch festival was a most engaging affair. The usual industry analysis was peppered with really fun "tabletop" discussions (in the spirit of, but not quite the model of, an unconference) about anything from "the moral gamer" to "increasing player engagement". "Transmedia" was the word of the day, with a surprising number of discussions involving talk of televisions. The day was then rounded off with a kick-ass party in a big top tent, with physical games such as J.S. Joust and the 100 player co-operative shoot-em-up, Renga.
Other Stuff
We've been meeting almost-weekly with a couple of Cambridge-based board game designers - namely Brett Gilbert of 55 Cards and Matt Dunstan - for regular play-testing sessions. It's been hugely useful and inspiring (and slightly depressing since both Matt and Brett are prolific in their idea-generation). With their help, we've been working on a new board game about petty nation state squabbles, provisionally called "You Started It". It's still very early days, but it feels really good - the mix of theme, mechanics and the play that emerges from it are all tightly interwoven and feel really meaningful. Only problem? It's just not that fun to play! But it does feel like a game that's worth perservering with.
I've also been teaching myself some programming with the help of Coronoa SDK and have been thoroughtly enjoying it. Corona makes it pretty easy to make quick progress, even for a beginner like myself. While I'm still just messing around, I have managed to get a proof of concept going for an "anti-Tamagotchi" app. That's all I can divulge right now. More details and screenshots will follow shortly.
Finally, finally we have a very new and exciting development to announce, but that's best saved for it's own blog post ...
Posted by Andy S on 7 June 2012 - 0 comments