CultureTech
Iain Simons casts his excitable red-eyes over the entire sphere of CultureTech. He will in turn be commentator, evangelist, analyst and oft-frustrated lover as he ambles along the cutting edge
SWTW: Superstruct
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 10 October 2008
Each week Iain Simons finds you a game to while away a few hours at your desk. This week's Something for the weekend is Superstruct. Enjoy wisely...
Q: What does "superstruct" mean?
Su`per`struct´ v. t. 1.To build over or upon another structure; to erect upon a foundation.
The Institute for the Future is a think-tank based in California and on October 6th they launched their new project, Superstruct, which bills itself as the “World’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game.” If that sounds a little lofty, it’s because it is. Superstruct is concerned with nothing less than [...]
ELSPA vs BBFC: Round 2
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 10 October 2008
(For some background on this, see our previous post)
The battles in the gaming world are not just on your screen
In a curious editorial featured within EDGE online, BBFC boss David Cooke rubbishes suggestions that his organisation is involved in any kind of ‘spat’ with PEGI and / or ELSPA. Since the Byron report and the opening shots in their very public, public consultation at the Westminster Media forum, things have been getting progressively more bitter. Even if the BBFC aren’t engaged in a spat with ELSPA (the [...]
Something Orisinal
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 03 October 2008
SFTW - 'if Raymond Briggs went into casual web-games they would probably look at bit like this'. Iain Simons chooses some fabulous games for you to while away a few hours with. Enjoy wisely...
We’ve had physics games, rhythm games, toolset toys - today I thought it might be nice to point you towards a collection of work by Ferry Halim - the frighteningly talented American designer who makes flash games on his site Orisinal. Halim’s games are often very similar to any other one-click flash game out their on the web in their design, but they’re elevated above the masses by their [...]
Evolution of LittleBigPlanet
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 01 October 2008
With so much discussion in creative education about the barriers between arts and science work such as that by Media Molecule is hugely invigorating
This is what a modern creative industry looks like.
A few weeks before the global release of LittleBigPlanet, their much anticipated Playstation 3 project, the artists at Media Molecule have released a fascinating piece of process film for those who need their faculty of wonder stimulating.
You’ll know that software is made up of thousands of lines of code. In order for teams to collaborate effectively and [...]
SFTW: Nitrome
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 26 September 2008
Each week Iain Simons selects a game so you can while away a few hours at your computer. This week Nitrome. Enjoy wisely...
Getting your dog to its dinner...
The brilliant Nitrome have released a new game, a neat twist on the sliding puzzle games that populated the playgrounds of old. In the Dog House is a logic puzzle which challenges you to create a safe path delivering your dog to it’s dinner. The less moves with which you do this, the higher the score.
Beginning simply the game rapidly builds into a complex and satisfying puzzle [...]
The G-boys' Android
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 26 September 2008
It is the item that's got the blogosphere buzzing - Android. But is Google's latest effort to dominate the marketplace a winner?
The G1 - iPhone killer?
It's difficult to not write about them. After an insanely busy few weeks, the folks at Google have capped it all off by releasing a mobile phone, the G1.
The gPhone began as one of the greatest Internet-meme, a long running rumour that was finally put to rest by a post on the Google blog last december. Google weren't going to go into hardware, rather they were going to [...]
Campaign
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 19 September 2008
Every week we give you something to while away the quiet hours at your desk. This week a knock-about and stylish game of political strategy. Enjoy wisely...
Games about politics are notoriously tricky to pull off. With so many variables in a campaign to model, an election provides a compelling challenge for artificial intelligence designers. Notable entries in the genre include Elixir Studios with their thrillingly overambitious Republic: The Revolution, and Elixir alumnus Cliff Harris’s Democracy and Democracy 2 over at his progressive indie studio Positech. Infact, the only digital element that seems [...]
US politics and the internet
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 18 September 2008
Were the election to be decided on clicks alone the Democrats would be walking away with both a landslide victory and lots of Facebook friends
New media is key in vote USA 2008
The internet and social software has already been a highly visible force in this extraordinarily connected US Election contest. The candidates are seemingly wanting to join us in every conceivable way, as well as utilising third-party services like Myspace and twitter, both camps have created social networks of their own in my.BarackObama and the wonderfully named McCainSpace.
This isn’t necessarily translating into active engagement from all voters [...]
Boomshine
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 12 September 2008
Each week Iain Simons finds you something for the weekend - a chance to while away some hours at your desk. Enjoy responsibly and don't let the management catch you...
Relax, at least to begin with.
Danny Miller’s Boomshine delivers a cloud of coloured dots which float hypnotically on the screen. Your challenge is to destroy them by choosing a point, clicking your mouse and setting off a chain reaction of explosions. The simple aim being to reach the set goal of detonations for each level. Boomshine starts off as feeling almost like a gentle therapy, with the first [...]
Google's brilliant salesmen
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 11 September 2008
Google became a verb some time ago, through its suite of services it’s now graduated to being an entire workplace
Having just celebrated their tenth anniversary, the boys at the big G have been so busy doing no evil of late, it’s becoming difficult to keep track.
In the last week or so, Google has launched a new web browser, version 3 of its image management software (with face recognition), sent a satellite into orbit (part financed by the DoD) to take pictures for use in [...]
Powder Game
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 05 September 2008
Every week Iain Simons gives you something to while away the hours. This week it's Powder Game. Enjoy responsibly and don't let the management catch you
Relax. Unlike last week's entry, this is just pure experimentation.
The word ‘interactive’ is bandied around a lot these days, being applied to everything from television to whiteboards - Powder Game is the real thing. A java web-application that’s a simple or as complex as you want it to be, giving you a wide set of wildly varied tools and inviting you to play with them and see what [...]
Who scrubbed Palin clean?
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 02 September 2008
How the Wikipedia entry of Republican vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin was mysteriously scrubbed clean in the hours before John McCain revealed his running mate
The role of technology in the US election remains a talking point
Perhaps it was to try and make up some ground following the Democrats announcing Obama’s running mate by SMS? Intentionally or not, this week it’s the Republican campaign that are finding themselves at the centre of the debate on new technology.
Following the announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate, her Wikipedia page has undergone a frenzy of contradictory edits, the making of which has foregrounding the problems [...]
Naturally Firefox...
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 01 September 2008
A way of joining up different uses of the web so when you want to invite someone out to dinner, say, a browser finds a restaurant, finds a review and then emails it all over with a map. Iain Simons reports
For the early adopters amongst you, Mozilla Labs have released a very early version of new Firefox (you are using Firefox, right?) extension Ubiquity, which they describe as “an experiment into connecting the web with language”. Like most 0.1 releases this is a long way from a tool you can rely on, but there’s enough here to warrant a download to get a hint of what could be [...]
Fantastical contraptions
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 29 August 2008
Newstatesman.com picks out another diverting desktop distraction to ease you into the weekend
Another brilliantly executed physics adventure this week. Having built the bridge and other assorted structures Fantastic Contraption now tools you up to build a vehicle. Don’t be fooled by the simple design and kids-tv colour scheme though, this is a hugely demanding game.
One of its great strengths is in the limitations presented to the player. Quite often the tools on offer in building sets such as these [...]
Lost in maps
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- Posted by Iain Simons
- 21 August 2008
Newstatesman.com picks out another desktop distraction to help you waste time over the long weekend
Sometimes games are engaging not because of the promise of success, but the sheer improbability of it. Today’s distraction is another one from the stable of Google Map Mash-ups, which was highlighted as a featured project on Google Code back in June. (Incidentally, Google Code is well worth checking regularly - as some interesting and left-field projects are often released on there... )
Placespotting is a wonderfully [...]
