Malmö 19 – 20th September! I should really go to this. Why aren’t I going to this? Argh!
I mean, Tetsuya Mizuguchi is speaking! Why am I not going to Nordic Game 2006?!!
"Making Seeds Not Forests"
I’ve been a fan of The Long Now Foundation ever since I was introduced to it! For those who don’t know:
“The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.”
They also host a series of seminars which are now available through podcast (yay!). Today I finally got around to listening to the Brian Eno and Will Wright seminar. What an inspirational force!! The combination of Brian Eno’s generative music (he mentions Wind Chimes as an example!!) and Will Wright’s Spore was just enlightening, amusing and extremely well…cozy, actually! At the end I started daydreaming about having them both around for dinner to discuss some more!
They’re attitude about their creations is pretty much summed up with Brian Eno’s “We make the seeds not the forest” comment. They were both really charming about their fascination of what they could learn from their fans. Eno has a great story about the re-release of “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” and how the record company came up with the unoriginal idea of adding some remixes. Apparently, David Byrne came up with the idea to instead make some content available for fans to remix themselves, which proved to be a big success! Yay! Ofcourse it would have been much better to have a visual handy when Will Wright was talking about Spore, but his words and mind are intoxicating nonetheless! Interesting to hear that he actually makes’real life’ models of his worlds! I’ve always felt really bad about knocking The Sims Online, because I truely am a Will Wright fan! But where The Sims gave the ‘player’ more creative freedom, The Sims Online did not. And I’m sure that has more to do with something he talks about here – simplistic and few rules. The Sims Online has way too many rules that just leave too little freedom for ‘fun’ – whereas The Sims, does not.
There was just so much interesting going on at this seminar – and I was busy chopping up lunch for the office while listening through it – so I couldn’t take any notes. Hearing Eno and Wright’s discussion on the verb ‘play’ was a true adrenaline booster! I only wish they could’ve gone on to discuss some more! There’s loads more worth mentioning like the creation of stories and narratives – and painting!!!
Personally I’m filled with positive adrenaline juices that have eluded me for some time now. Instead of treading myself more deeply into the dark depressive cold swamp and focusing all my energy in ALL the wrong places I’m starting to glimpse a path to dry land! Yay!!!
PS
Fredrik!!! I think you’d really enjoy John Rendon’s ‘Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short’ – just listened to it and I was moved! Think you’d enjoy it!
Index of/crap/myspace
It’s Friday, I’m at work, I’m tired and I just want the weekend to begin!!! Via Guardian Gamesblog useless entertainment has been provided to let the minutes pass more quickly! My Space banner games! They’re not really that fun! But I just HAVE to get through them all! Ti hi! What an excuse to not write anything of any value! ;)
Bush Backrub
This is a cute little semi-political statement game, or satire – I’m not even sure it’s a game, really. Huh…do points and scores automatically make something a game? Is it a sign that you’ve really lost your mind when you can’t even recognise what a game is anymore?! Anyway…just a minute or two of humor! Enjoy!!!
I’m in stitches and just need to share this!
Help!!!
Urgh! I’m stuck!! What’s the name of that little keychain electronic pet thing that we carried around in the nineties?!!! The name is completely eluding me! Help!
The oracles on my messenger are offline (idiots with a real life) and I’m desperately trying to finish off a thought before I loose it!!! Argh! The frustrations of not being an encyclopedia!
Woo hoo!!!!
Magnet and Funcom’s Dreamfall have been nominated for ‘Best Video Game Score’ at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards’! Excellent, excellent, excellent!!!! I’m so proud!!!! Oh…how I hope they win!!! Maybe then things will start blossoming in this country – and investors will be running after game designers!
Magnet being a ‘Bergenser’ makes my heart pound even harder!!! Hats off to them and congratulations Funcom!!! I shamefully haven’t played it yet! But is number one on my list!!!
Western vs. Eastern gamers!
This just desserved to be blogged about and not just del.icio.us’ed! Aleks at Guardian’s gameblog has posted a great piece about the ‘Cultural Differences in Gameland’. It focuses a lot about the differences between Eastern and Western gamers. She mentions a hell of a lot I didn’t know about. Like the fact that we don’t get so much ‘gore’ because of Germany’s strict rules. And there’s an excellent quote from Ren discussing Prof Rischard Nisbett’s findings:
“Another point that Nisbett makes is that Westerners tend to assume
linearity but Asians assume circularity. For example he gave in a recent
interview was a stable set of circumstances a Westerner will tend to think that
this signified a trend and that things will continue in the same fashion but an
Asian will tend to think that it is indicative of the potential for change and
ultimate return to some pre-existing state.”
Well that explains a whole bunch to me! The whole article is interesting! You truely should have a look!!!
Synthetic World News
Castronova’s posse at the Indiana University have started a blog called Synthetic World News! I don’t know why this has passed by me! Anyways…these are the folks behind Ludium (I’m still dumbfounded by their innovative creativity on research) so most likely interesting things will be revealed here!
First up is the Kuurian Expedition and they’re having a meeting at the Hall of Explorers, Ironforge, Silver Hand at 10 pm EST August 2, 2006. From what I gather it is a bunch of experienced researchers/players showing new people what synthetic worlds are all about and how we can learn and build from them. But I’m sure this sounds interesting to all you other WoW freaks as well!
I’m staying away from it all and trying to wrap things up! Although I’m suffering from some annoying syndrom that makes me fall asleep each time I open my thesis!! I will prevail though!! I shall conquer this beast of mumbo jumbo sadistic slime!!
Maretind (working title)
Nina Svane-Mikkelsen is a Ph.D. fellow (umh…I still get confused by university titles, so…) at my department (Information Science and Media Studies) and is working on a project entitled: Affinity and Battlefield. New media and museum communication – Communication design under imperative of database. Artistic intervention as a narrative grip.
They’re working on a computer game which is for the time being called, Maretind.
The research project represent a vast collection of data to the inspiration of the game plot. As one of the maritime researchers put it: ”Our data collection have ranged from oceanographic and acoustics, to various studies on organisms that range in size from microscopic plankton to large whales. Dephts ranged from the surface to 3000 meters and extended from the cold-water environment south of Iceland to the tropic environment north of the Azores.” (mar-eco cruise journal 1. july, http://www.mar-eco.no/)
Good games combine a number of complex elements such as situations, where decisions must be made, challenging goals and a satifying feedback. Without these basic elements a game will easily become boring. The result must be that the way the gamers interact with the game, the game process, is parallel with what the game is about. (almost-quotes from “Learning to play to learn” by Nick Fortugno and Eric Zimmerman, Learning Lab Newsletter)”
I’m so pleased that this is going on at my department! And oh what fun it would be to be a part of it!!! Anyways….they’re still at the starting line and I just wanted to wish them good luck! I just love the combo of museum, art, information communication and learning through gameplay!!
Remember What The Dormouse Said 