Oct
This year we had the honour of sponsoring Playful, a one-day event all about games and play. Organised by Toby Barnes and his team at Pixel-Lab, this year’s theme was ‘Cross Disciplinary Frolicking’.
Conway Hall was filled to the brim with great speakers, an eager audience and three gigantic tea urns pumping out tea and coffee all day. The day was jam-packed and I’ve written up some of my personal highlights:
'The Ashes'
I've met Tassos a couple of times and both occasions he has either talked about or has been watching cricket. His analysis of The Ashes as an ambient game experience for those watching, or listening to it was passionate and fun. He suggested the 'play' happened between the bowling and the overs and something we could all be involved in. It was a tough pre-lunch slot with enough mentions of cake to keep the a non-cricket crowd engaged. I loved it.
Read the full presentation on his personal blog.
Also, worth checking out his current project 'A Small Town Anywhere' running until 7th Nov down in Battersea.
Train sets & Pretending
Russel Davies talked about 'bubble building vs game building', referring to the non-direct game mechanics that he feels are important for playful experiences.
Amongst things such as 'collecting' and 'negotiating', he suggested that the motivation for play comes from the inner desire to 'pretend' – having a fancy watch is 80% about pretending to be a pilot and 20% about telling the time. Genius! He also suggested that the future of games may be about the subtlety of the experience and the ability to interpret and play with rules - cracking stuff and hilarious to boot, and he also managed to get some model railways in there!
Read the full presentation on his personal blog.
Customisation
Rexbox did a beautiful, low-fi presentation on an OHP, taking us on an irreverent journey from sketching with his mum to his Amiga Deluxe paint clip-art adventures, and ending with his game design days at Media Molecule. The serious(ish) point he made was that providing an audience with the rudimentary components to play with will result in the creation of stuff way beyond the original vision. He was charming and totally convincing (and was rewarded with cake).
Rolando Lessons
Simon Oliver gave us a mid-afternoon run down of some of the basic principles he believes are conducive to great game design. Entitled 'Things I've learnt and things i don't know' he talked about keeping it simple, the importance of prototyping and knowing when to be different. He also said that top-down game design is very very hard. I totally agree.
Collaboration
The theme of 'top-down' was picked up earlier in the day by Little Big Planet's Art Director, Kareem Ettouney. Without notes (or seemingly a plan) he talked about collaboration and his personal journey of growing a design studio and the inevitable interplay of egos and talents.
He talked about giving ownership to the team, but with that comes hand in hand the responsibility to see the bigger picture. Really interesting stuff and by far the most insightful argument I've heard against a traditional Art Direction structure in a creative studio.
It feels good to hear someone else talk about (and justify) how we've always tried do things. He also reminded me how important personal projects are and their value in making you objective in during the 'creative' process; "You can't be objective if you only have that one output for your ideas". Smart and endearingly chaotic.
Other highlights worth checking out:
- Leila Johnston's book, 'Enemy of Chaos'. Imagine Douglas Adams meets Steve Jackson - Thoroughly recommended - buy it here.
- Tim Wright's KidMapper – a socially-connected journey across a bit of Scotland.
The Playful team have done an official write-up here (and here, and here), where you can check out all the other talks I failed to write notes on. Big thanks to everyone at Pixel Lab and all the speakers for a great show. A thoroughly enjoyable day out of the studio. We're already looking forward to next year.