Last night we spent the evening at Tine Bech’s + DCRC’s + PM Studio’s tracing light event.
The event was designed to carry out a public consultation using play. So, no never-ending online forms, questionnaires with leading questions and ratty ladies in the street. Basically, get a load of people together, tell them to think about what the space around means to them, then go out and draw it in fun light shapes. Which… was really fun!
It was also a pretty jammy’ night, a great chance to chat with great Bristol artists, business people & photographers. Never mind heading to the golf course for business, Thought Den do it next to the bar, create some art and do research on new media practices too. Bloody brilliant.
Here’s some more things other groups made, and to find out more, contact Tine Bech
The Essential 360 Storytelling Lab is the most advanced and comprehensive short courses in multi-platform media in the world and will be run by experienced cross-platform dramatists Rik Lander and Hazel Grian.
And it’s happening right now in the Pervasive Media Studio!
They’re broadcasting live from London’s National film School and all I can hear from our Thought Den hostdesk is lots of laughing, a very ‘Hazel’ presenter on the screen (she enjoys colourful bubbly characters) and lots of talk about Tweet games.
A question we asked ourselves last month as we wrapped up Parashoot. At first it seemed it definitely couldn’t be when the internet at your office fails and you have to establish a makeshift testing office in your front room. But what business hasn’t at some point eked out its existence, whether through infancy or old age, in the homely surrounds of an attic, spare room, garage or garden shed? Behold the rigour and beauty of our testing process, from iPhone to Dell netbook and Mac Book Pro.
On the plus side, having our server rack replaced by a fully functioning Ignis oven meant brownies were forthcoming, and thus IE6 was conquered. From here on in, IE6 will not be supported, in much the same way these admirable countries have stated their case against.
The team have been slaving away on some hard-core web development these last few months, with animation and interaction design as a side relish. Some of you may have heard of Parashoot before, without really knowing what we were on about. Well ITV are using it now!
Here’s a nice little animation we made to explain what it’s for and how it can help. Using Lemmings and a Tortoise. Essential for any ‘How to…’ movie…Enjoy!
We’ve not yet blogged about our latest game D’oh! It’s a neat little spin (you’ll see what I did there) on standard web bowling games put together by the dream team – a Thought Den / Team Rubber reunion with our star Flasher Corin and Team Rubber’s Dave doing the hard graft. You’ll need to play it a few times to get the hang of it, but that was the point…
As ever, we all got very excited with the brief, came up with some amazing game-play mechanics, tried to cram them all into one game, moved the goalposts a few of times and almost threw the baby out with the bathwater, but eventually ended up with a tight piece of work. Tear’s were shed but lessons were learned and here are our golden rules:
Team buy-in from the beginning
The sooner everyone involved can understand the underlying aim of the game the better. This means the client’s aims too. If the creative vision for the project ultimately only exists in one person’s head, an awful lot of management time will have to be committed down the line to ensure everyone is gunning for the same target. When the goals, creative vision and problems are shared from the beginning there less links in the communication chain and each member of the team has more understanding and ownership of the project.
Use the right documentation at the right time
There are client-facing docs, internal docs, technical specifications, flow diagrams, testing feedback and wireframes, all with their own valuable role to play. But we’re here to build the game, not make a million documents explaining why and how we’re going to do it. The documents are there to ensure everyone is on the same page, all boxes are ticked and limit nasty surprises along the way. Be strict on what information you are representing in which document. How much of it is really relevant at that stage, and what important details are being left out? Early input from the team and a shared understanding of the challenge at hand makes the documentation the best it can be but also means it is not the only resource to rely on.
Rapid prototyping and play-testing
The sooner a game can be played, the better, no matter what state the graphics are in. Forget splash screens, buttons, highscores and preloaders, we need to play it, get a feel for it, discover the fun bits and reveal any potential trip-ups down the line. In fact, a prototype is the best form of documentation in terms of game-play and what is a game if it’s not about playability? Cynics might say brand engagement or data capture, but the best way to achieve these is by rewarding the user with quality interaction.
Keep talking
The management process is a thousand times easier when you’re not left in the dark. And in the engine room too, it is essential the production team keep talking so that the pieces of the puzzle join seamlessly at the end. No matter how tight the production process, there will always be a desire to improve and innovate the output. In all likelihood the goalposts won’t stop moving until the 11th hour and the only way to prevent nasty surprises is to make sure people are talking to each other. Of course, it’s possible to over-talk, which is why development cycles and milestones are so important as checkpoints at which information is exchanged, keeping everyone up to speed.
Manage the feedback
The game should be played but the feedback must be collected, filtered and distributed correctly. The target audience are your most important motivator (besides the client I imagine) and it will be someone’s responsibility to make sure the game serves its purpose. With prototype feedback coming in from all angles, inevitably some of it will not be relevant and the build team need to be drip fed only the most pertinent information, organised so they can tackle it efficiently.
The War Room
As a project nears completion the loose strands need to be tucked in, the stodgy bits stripped away. This requires executive decision making from the project leaders and quick turn around from the technical team. If the shit hits the fan, this is where the team needs to be – all in one place for the final hurdle.
Make it good
Finessing a project and showing it some love when the build is essentially finished is the stage that so often goes by the wayside. This is when it can become something beautiful! Finishing touches like improving the user feedback, splash screen layout, calls to action and sound effects add the gloss and shine to a project that makes it something to be proud of. Unless, of course, you’re massively over budget and desperate to get the damn thing out the door. And then it’s for the seeding team to worry about!
It’s soon to be Christmas and the deadline looms…we’re hard at work on a beast of a project for the TV Industry – it’s kinda like Base Camp and it’s bloody hard core and it’s going to kick ass. Besides the technical development we’ve also created some lovely animations with Joe Snow and we’ll be sure to shout about these next year. Help bring us some Christmas sparkle by interacting live through the custom-built streaming app below. We’d love to hear from you! Merry Christmas from the Den.
Thought Den have been in London, invited down to a BBC Audio and Music Interctive christmas schmooze sesh off the back of the multiplatfom event at the Arnolfini a few weeks back. Don’t worry, those license fee pennies were well spent, no swanky venue and red carpet, but a great opportunity to bend the ears of some high-flying and genuinely interested indie commissioners. We talked IA, streaming, widgets, web cams and I even name dropped Happy Packages!
Our concept and prototype for the next level in locative rating systems really caught the attention and I found myself getting excited all over again. Two buttons, one red one green. Or one smiley one sad. Or one tick, one cross. And all you do is rate how you’re feeling at that time in that place. The iPhone fairy then takes over, sends the rating and GPS data to our servers and we create a happy heat map of the world…
In other news, touchscreens have taken over the world. Every shop front worth its salt within a square mile of Oxford Circus now has some form of large, interactive touchscreen wizardry for passing pedestrians. The battle is on for the hearts and minds, fingertips and hard-earned dollar of the casual window shopper. You Tube and 4OD have also teamed up in Carnaby St for a truly widescreen touch-off.
The exciting news is that Thought Den and Joanie Lemercier have been plotting some similar schemes over the last few months and our first prototype will be demoed at the TD offices in the new year. Watch this 3D space…
Things seem to take longer these frosty-morning-creaky-limbed days. Apologies for the delay in posting, but finally we have some lovely videos to shout about.
The first is very exciting – we were commissioned by the BBC to run a workshop at the Pervasive Media Studio back in October. The brief was to give the hottest new BBC design recruits a taste of pervasive thinking. What better company to run the event than the den thinkers. It was a fun day with talks from the likes of Tom Melamed of Calvium, Luke Jerram and a stand-up brainstorm session on the PM’s monstrous and curving white board. Nick Johnston (Hatboy to most and many) kindly videoed and edited the highlights, so please plug in for 3 minutes of Thought Den magic…And Dan’s hair looks much better this time, eh!?
Another somewhat delayed announcement follows – the igfest 09 highlights reel is in! Geoff Taylor has been hard at it in the edit suite, Simon Johson has been on the phone to his copyright lawyers and I’ve been keeping interested parties happy with taster emails packed with images. But the wait is over, moving picture technology has triumped, gorge at will. What an awesome event it is. Roll on 2010.
With seemingly the most popular tweet over the past few weeks revolving around spare Google Wave invites, you wouldn’t be the only one to anticipate a social media revolution behind the corner of the latest must have. However, I hope that its not just Thought Den who have been fairly let down by the much overhyped Google Wave…
Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration
“Within a Wave conversation users can communicate and work together with text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”
What is a Wave?
A Wave is effectively just a group conversation like you are used to having within Skype or MSN. However with Wave, any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants into any part the process.
“A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.” This is the most innovative part of Google Wave as no other application out there allows you to see a participants content update in real-time (IMO this is more of a selling point than the actual complete ‘Wave’)
The not so good bits
Although the only Thought Den experience of ‘Waving’ so far within has been between Rhys and Dan, within a much larger wave with dozens of employees i’m sure it would prove to be extremely hectic and confusing.
With the time taken for each user to understand the process of the Wave, and to build up an etiquette that will allow for a conversation that can take place in a more linear fashion, it seems at this point more beneficial to just have a conference call or use Skype chat. Although, with the product being open-source, i’m sure that there will be a plethora of apps released that are able to solve some of these initial problems.
Where could Thought Den benefit from Waving?
Sharing a PSD or Design in real-time between designers and developers, who could then discuss/edit/add to the design collaboratively become useful within the design community.
Furthermore, with a small number of users on a brainstorming exercise this approach could be more beneficial and structured than just passing around a long chain of emails with the latest versions of a document.
The real-time functionality (e.g collaborative zooming and positioning on maps) offers the most potential and will more than likely be a major player in future communication tools, although like most aspects of Wave, needs some tweaking.
Summary
Even though as of yet it hasn’t quite got the mix right, Google should be given brownie points for it’s attempt to provide a new slant on the modern format of social collaboration.
All in all however, the confusing complexity, steep learning curve and influx of functionality where simplicity is needed make for a generally unsatisfactory first experience. Due to the brand power of ‘Google’ there will be plenty of advocates that will prevent Wave’s demise; although for the time being it will create more of a ripple than a wave whilst everyone is still left wondering
Probably, he’s gotta have something interesting to distract himself away from the endless chatter of his babbling twitter-bird buddy down the pub.
So Yes, he would. And right next to it, he would so have the app being built by Calvium, the new company whose launch-bash Thought Den were all invited to last night.
Thanks =)
They’re a Phoenix launching from the ashes of a global corporation and are utilising their 70 years of shared experience for “making tools for enabling others to build exciting mobile apps based on sensors and context”.
The party was ace, fuelled with flowing champagne, tasty pizza from the Firehouse Rottisere and lots of chatty people. Also, they ran a game (as Bristol igfesters would!). Where each attendee had to twit their thoughts on where they thought the word “Calvium” came from in history. Here are Thought Den’s entries,
