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Thursday, May 08, 2008
Very into Nerf lately, still a bit confused that SteamPunk is everywhere all of a sudden including spicing up the Nerf guns! Love it!
By courtesy of Gizomodo. Find more pics of this gun at: http://gizmodo.com/383943/steampunk-nerf-rifle-lets-you-get-victorian-on-someones-ass
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Love love love it!!
Electroplankton on a NDS and two iPhones = Win!
Did I say I totally love it? I say it again!
Their website:
Flash Flash Revolution craziness
Saturday, March 15, 2008
I recently rediscovered Flash Flash Revolution (thanks to my students), a webbased version of Dance Dance Revolution, which is playable with the directional keys on the keyboard. People can share videos of their skills, some real craziness to be found there!
Monday, March 10, 2008
This is great, people really have a nick for doing unexpected things with given technology. In the next youtube movie (from CNET) a couple of guys took some codes, laptops and guitar hero controllers and turned it all into a device that can be used to make music or synthesized sounds. The movie explains it all:
Ever seen a pizza slice play Guitar Hero? Now you will! This slice even has a double-neck guitar!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Currently trying to set something up for game preservation. I came across the Gameology emulation blog post from Laurie, which asks the question: when is emulation enough?
Myself I appreciate the emulation scene to preserve games that way, as digitalizing through emulation saves a lot of space and issues with hardware compatibility. Personally I prefer however the game as it was originally perceived, which means as much the visuals as the playability. A game is not only the graphics mixed with the gameplay, it is also the materiality of the hardware it is played on. My preference has probably also to do with my preference of perceiving a game not as something that is played with the mind alone but also with the physical body. Differences in controls, control schemes makes for different bodily actions. Every gameplatform has its own materiality one way or the other, disregarding that is throwing part of the game experience into the bin.
The IGDA has a special interest group (SIG) dealing with game preservation. More about it can be read at the igda wiki.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Ohh never saw a connection between Boingboings Cory Doctorow and Wonderland's Alice... but seems they have been an 'item' for quite some time now, resulting in this wonderful little 'mutant' as they call it. Congrats both of you! That's gotta turn out to be one helluva tech-savy, home-knitting, gadgetminded, writing, amazing girl. Hurray!
Oh and check out this brilliant Little Big Planet puppet. I soooo love it! Even after just having a lil' mutant Alice still managed to pick this one out. 
Everyone wants to dip into the success of the Wii. And no I'm not talking about the Sixaxis controller of the Playstation 3, but the 'cheap' versions of the actual Wii. In the Netherlands a gameconsole got released called the "Vimax", 50 Euros for a crap computer with a 'vimote' that registers some movement but is not really sensitive to all your movements, images are not even vaguelly resembling some trademarked characters, but seem to be blatantly copied: Jerry and Donkey Kong anyone?
You can watch a review of the Vimax at Gamekings (for the dutchies).
A seemingly cheap copy of the Wii got reviewed by Kotaku and seemed actually not that bad. Love the reviewers accent and way of reviewing, made me chuckle. Oh and wait till the endbit when the plastic cover is taken off, amazing what is actually inside of it! Watch it here:
Kotaku: Chinese Wii Rip off.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Was looking for some numbers and figures about the gamesindustry, more specifically the general number of game (software) releases in 2007. Haven't found any real numbers on it, wonder if those stats are available and if I'm just googling with the wrong terms.
According to ELSPA, NPD and ESA the industry faced a staggering growth in sales last year (2007) which is great of course. As many people as possible should enjoy games. Anyhow, I came across several different organisations/associations that keep themselves busy with market research and other business- and consumer research on the interactive entertainment industry. Found one for the UK and one for the US, so.. where is the Dutch one? Of course we aren't that big yet, but some nice initiatives, universities/educational institutes and small companies are trying to give a face to the Dutch games industry, so gief numbers! And one place where I could address all my questions to.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Currently preparing classes and considering using some social networksites and tools for teaching. Ning seems to be useful to create your own social network and there are even options for educational purposes (see education.ning) such as ning availability without ads for free. I signed up for at least two ning networks: Classroom 2.0 and Bibliotheek 2.0 (Library 2.0) recently. But with all these networks it's actually hard to keep up with everything. Nevertheless it is a great way to see how others deal with the whole 2.0 things in education and within libraries. Also good to know that people are actually actively thinking about it instead of shunning it.
Another treasure I came across today is VoiceThread. It is basically an online media-album that can hold loads of different types of media such as images, documents and videos. Nothing new there you say. But the beauty is that anyone can use voice, text or video to comment on it. There is even the possibility to comment by telephone. The coolest feature however is "The Doodler": it captures a drawing as an animation on the image or videofile and syncs it with the voice or text comment. The latter makes it not about the end doodle but exactly the process of doodling, which makes it all the more interesting.
A file that has been uploaded can be commented on (in all its forms) by many different people which makes it a collaborated work and experience. Brilliant! The comment system sort of works like it is used in Viddler when it is a video or slideshow. Comments can be made at certain segments of the video and the doodles can also jump from segment to segment. The person that made the comment appears to the side of the mediafile with his or her name and picture.
Have a look at this voicethread. Just click a couple of images and see or hear what people have to say about the classroom of the future.
Labels: 2.0, education, voicethread. Ning
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Greg Pattillo and Eric Stephenson doing their thing on the cello and flute.
I especially like the part from 01:22 on. I want to hear more cello pieces like that.
Amazing Beatbox Harmony in Subway
I love to watch Beatbox vids, as it is amazing to see and hear what the human voice is capable of. Everyonce in a while I go through these stages that I watch a whole lot of them. Today I stumbled upon the brilliant one you can watch below. In the Paris subway a group of people suddenly burst out singing and beatboxing. And what a superb job they do!
Obviously I had to find out who they were and turns out they are a group called Naturally Seven that's touring the world. They also got some cds but to be honest their own music is not really my taste, but I guess it's all about live performance for them. Luckily there are loads of youtube and other vids out there which shows their amazing talent. Anyhow love that they started singing in the subway and blew the passengers away with an amazing show. Please note the passengers around them. It's interesting to see how they all have different reactions to it. The guy that is next to the leadsinger looks actually almost annoyed at the performance and an older woman joins in with the singing at the end. Great stuff!
To be honest, I never heard of these Paternosters, until I saw this vid, the comments on it all focus on the dangerous looking elevators. And they really -do- look dangerous! People stepped in and out cabinets that moved up and downward without stopping. Of course I was curious what they are and where I can find them to try it out myself. Apparently those elevators are called Paternoster, and are supposedly not any more dangerous than a normal evelator.... uhuh. I hope they keep childeren far away from it. Anyways on Youtube you can find quite a few clips on Paternosters. One such Paternoster can be found in Leicester University. See clip below!
Monday, January 14, 2008
Interesting quote which is related to a short note about the whole affair with Jeff Gerstmann, a Gamespot game editor that supposedly got sacked for writing a negative review about that one game, all of the gamesindustry got buzzing about it (see Penny Arcade Comic also) :
If you pick up your average lifestyle magazine you'll note that nobody is hauling Karl Lagerfeld over hot coals because his latest line of pantsuits shipped late. Nobody is saying that L'Oreal's new face cream "sucks rhino balls." Instead you have content that is all about getting people in the targeted lifestyle excited about upcoming products they might want to buy.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
familiar...
Yes I can relate to a bunch of what Stacey, freelance writer in NY, has to say in this Escapist column.
Might be an oldie for most, but felt I had to share it anyways:
"Women Working in Games" interviews
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Useful and interesting read: MTV's Multiplayer blog interviewed five women working in the game industry one way or another: G4's Morgan Webb, GGA's Jane Pinckard and others. There was a lot of reader response and Multiplayer gave the women the opportunity to respond to comments such as:
“Let’s say you’ve got someone who’s championing the cause of women in a specific industry, and she’s all about empowering women, and against their denigration. Sounds great, right? Then you look back at her own history, and find that she’s done some of the exploitative things to herself on her own, like writing an article about how she used a gaming peripheral as a sexual aid, and posting pictures of herself doing so.” (as quoted here).Read all of it at:
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Labels: women-and-games
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
There was some discussion about not enough information about gameresearch and different cultures readily and publicly available.
Gamescultures.org should cater to that.
"The basic philosophy behind GamesCultures.org is to share information
between researchers, and to situate it within some, particularly
geographical, social and cultural contexts."
Everyone is invited to contribute.
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