thinkARK - mini games festival announced

We have finally announced our 1st birthday party arrangements. This year once again we will be holding an event during the Cardiff Design Festival, this year we are going to be producing a mini games festival, from paper, scissor, stone through to city wide treasure hunts. email us for further information info[at]thinkark.co.uk

We also have a new twitter feed @arkinthepark and we will be updating the website with news. Also if you want to help out let us know. We will be doing some game testing on the 4th September if your interested also get in touch.

Finally thank you to Andrew Hong for the illustration we love it.

Cycling scheme london

24 hours of the London Cycle Hire Scheme from James Cheshire on Vimeo.

I came across this from Howies blog. It is a set of screen shots of the newly introduced cycle scheme in London notice how the bikes leave the suburbs in the morning and move to the centre and then back again at night. I love this type of video. Chaotic beauty.

Spectrum Results night

Last week saw the end of Spectrum the game we had set up as a test for future games. This wednesday was results night, Carwyn from Hoffi won with a staggering 95 points. There were a number of things that would have probably been done a bit differently maybe length of time the game was and their comments about making it less complicated. I think the thing we noticed mostly was that you need to commit alot of time to make it happen for the players to get the best out of it. We will be looking at other games over the next few weeks ready of a mini festival in October so if you are interested in getting involved please let us know.

Story telling basic themes

I came across this little article about storytelling and basic good and ill fortunes as stories develop. This is particularly interesting as from the very beginning of us meeting and working on projects we have always come again and again to story telling and it's importance in explaining issues to people.

Conspiracy for Good - event

Last weekend was the final instalment of the pilot of Conspiracy for Good. Made by a team including NOKIA and Heroes creator Tim Kring. Conspiracy for Good was a four episode pervasive game set in the the city of London. The basic story being by joining together we could fight a huge corporation (Blackwell Briggs) which has been guilty of taking advantage of local people from far off countries through their drilling and mining activities.

The forth episode was one of infiltrating the corporation and getting to the mole to give them vital information to bring the corporation down. So what did we think? well firstly the scale of this game was huge and the depth of the story impressive to say the least. As a group who came into the game in the fourth episode we were behind from the beginning and found it hard to get into the game as we would like. After speaking to other people who had been to every episode and those who had maybe come to one or two previously it was reassuring to hear they felt the same. With many saying they had preferred the first two episodes. But this is what I love about games. They are not stationary and they are there to be developed and improved over time. there is a bit more information about the game here and you can see Tim Kring below talking about the game.

Dead Spaces and In-between Architecture

Last week whilst walking round London I was pleasantly surprised by this simplicity of this beautifully lit tunnel. Firstly I noticed the internal architecture of the tunnel and somehow the gently changing coloured lights made the tunnel feel safer and accessible. It is also a great example of how litter free spaces make public spaces more desirable to walk though.

On my travels I also visited the amazing 'Architects build small spaces' exhibition at the V&A. I particularly liked the In-between Architecture dwelling by Studio Mumbai Architects. An representation of one of the many 'un-authorised' dwellings built in Mumbai between buildings in unused spaces. This was an extraordinary use of an dead space to create a slim but functional home for 6 people! It felt like a childs play house simply because of the scale and maze like quality of the twisting corridors and the tiny fort like windows.

Both spaces got me thinking on how differently design can be used to make a dead spaces more functional - either through a practical need i.e. somewhere to live or an considered aesthetic approach to make someone more accessible. Does anyone have any more interesting examples?

A subject close to our hearts

The people at IDEO have just launched their open IDEO have a look at the video to see how they hope it will work.

Introduction to OpenIDEO / OpenIDEO.com from IDEO on Vimeo.