Almost 100 pics here of the festival we can’t stop talking about. We’ll be quiet now. But not before congratulating Team Rubber on their Bristol’s Biggest Player win!

You may soon tire of igfest self-congratulation but we’re still buzzing from it. And here for your image-based viewing pleasure (though word on the grape-vine is that someone has uploaded a **VHS** recorded version to Vimeo) we enclose some funny little stills of our moment with BBC Points West on Friday, just before the headline game La Noche De Los Muertes kicked off.

Yup, there’s not just moose out today for igfest. Looks like the Apple app store could be having it’s long awaited makeover with the release of iTunes 9.

For a while now the store has caused a majority of app developers some real financial tension and many others, a few thousand (more…)

Thought Den have been working hard over the last few months helping igfest get off the ground. We were bought in to help with business development and festival promotions which involved talking with international brands, national newspapers, local heros and the great and good of Bristol’s media scene. Sadly Howies fell at the final hurdle despite their enthusiasm to come on board, but thanks to some fantastic support from the Arts Council the festival is going to be a huge success. The TV crews have been mobilised and the reporters are on standby. And best of all it’s going to be sunny!!!

The festival eases into action this evening with a Moose Safari, and the headline game La Noche de Los Muertes kicks off on Friday. It is already massively over-subscribed and is shaping up to be a spectacular chase across the city.

My other two personal favourite games Rainbow Rain and Sneaks and Blaggers are also fully booked, which is a shame, but I’ll be doing my best to bagsy a spot.

And before signing off I’d like to draw attention to a special little sub-game that will be running throughout the festival. It’s a battle between Bristol’s media agencies to see who is – Bristol’s Biggest Player! The ideas is that agencies get points for playing igfest games and the more they play the more points they get. Given all the press the festival gets, it’s a nice way to shout about the great media talent we have in this city, and encourage the agencies to get out into the streets and play.

Yup. The moose are currently de-camping at the Studio, brilliant!

We now can’t wait for this weekend. The whole of Bristol will be descending to play at igFest. This is the 2nd year running and it’s already over-booked again!

Check it all out at http://igfest.org/

Hello Thought Den blog, I haven’t paid you enough attention lately. But here’s some good news! The Fire Kills campaign managed and seeded by Team Rubber and built by Thought Den has clocked more 800,000 plays. The COI (Central Office of Information. Sounds a bit George Orwell dunnit?) are thrilled and plan to make a case study of it, because we’re all just so good at what we do…

In other news, Thought Den have joined Simon Games in the igfest engine room, provided commercial-minded support. This basically means we’ll be pestering some bad-ass brands over the next few weeks to get them involved. It’s too good a proposition to miss. Look at the similar event-based marketing activity of brands like Red Bull (Air Race, Formula 1), Virgin (V-Feset), Orange (Glastonbury), T-Mobile (Trafalgar Singalong etc) and Jack Daniels with their music programme.

If anyone has any thoughts on how we could pimp igfest, please do get in touch. And if you want to volunteer to help run the festival, please get in touch. And if you want to play – get your arse down to Bristol town centre on 11, 12 and 13 of September for some serious frivolous mental fun-ness. Over n out Cap’n.

One of the best weekends of the summer! Absolute chaos, such fun and that rosy glow of satisfaction at having done something different for a change. Simon Johnson’s igfest kicked off in spectacular fashion with

Journey to the Centre of the Night, a game involving over 170 people who were emailed a secret location on the day of playing and were told to meet at dusk. What ensued turned out to be a real highlight of the weekend for everyone involved. ‘Players’ following cryptic clues across Bristol, stalked by the fearsome ‘chasers’, encountering bizarre and wonderful experiences if they were stealthy enough to evade capture. Locations included gold-digging in Castle park, intense intimidation in the cells of Bridewell police station and a frantic dash across the river in a specially commissioned boat.

Rainbow Rain on a sunny Saturday afternoon was a glorious spectacle mixing the carnage of Battle Royale and the paint-spattering creativity of Play School Arts Day. Three teams, three colours, and eventually a paint spattered Castle Park even Van Gogh would be happy with.

Sneaks and Blaggers, an urban twist on Snakes and Ladders, was played out in a town centre Cark Park as the dust settled on a momentous Saturday. Players congregated for the briefing outside the high rise car park, some still paint-covered and exhausted from previous exploits, ready for the tower block battle – a mad dash up the stairs and down the ramps, collecting coloured strips, avoiding the ‘Blaggers’ stalking the car park in sleigh bells, to finish first with by shouting : “DULUX!”

Korean Laser Ball was an energetic start to Sunday, with teams of 5 battling it out in the Arnolfini Arena, commentated superbly by two visiting Americans. Each team had a theme song, a costume, a laser, 2 mirrors and one target. The battles were fast and furious, and only the highest scoring teams progressed. Team Perv, honourbly entering the arena to show how it was done, racked up a measly 6 to the following scores of 50, 68 and 100. Team Rubber suffered an ignominious defeat despite an awesome fightback from behind in the 2nd quarter…

A huge thank you to Clare Reddington, Simon Johnson, the Helens, Mobile Pie, Ed Nixon (for the poilcemen photo) and many many more who helped make this such a special event. Roll on next year

We know! So if you’re looking for something free and fun to do, like Alton Towers with no ticket booths then the ‘igfest – come out and play festival’ is making a grand opening at the Bristol Harbourside from the 19th – 21st September.

igFest (Interesting Games Festival)

Taking place around the Harbourside in Bristol, igfest is the first festival in the south west to invite people to discover and re-discover the city through playing games in the streets.

There are tons of games over the weekend, too many for anyone to play them all, but we hope you’ll love them all so much you will want to try as many as you can.

Here’s a few you’ll enjoy that weekend…

Moose Hunt

Moose will be making his autumn migration from the deepest Forest of Dean to Bristol over the week before the festival. Your mission is to find him and photograph him. Text ‘moose’ to 60300 to receive a map of the moose’s current location. But be careful, the moose will be told your location and if he ’shoots’ you before you ’shoot’ him you are out of the game. Prizes for photographs in various categories including first sighting.

Holla Lu Lu

Fill the night with your sound. Find members of your team across the city by hollering your unique cry.

Koreanlazerball

Korean Lazer Ball is the newest sport of the 21st Century.

Teams of lazer gladiators battle it out, scoring goals by bouncing the lazer beam from hand-held mirrors onto a super high-tech spot on the wall.

I personally suggest the Comfort of Strangers, a street game which was created in the media sandbox 07.

All the games’ start times can be seen on their Schedule and the only cost for you is your time (and the bus into town obviusly), ‘cos everyone & anyone in Bristol can play! For free!

See you there at the igLounge by the Watershed.

IgFest is organised by The igLab (Interesting Games Lab).