To celebrate the 10th birthday of their no1 puzzle game series Bejeweled, PopCap are giving away Bejeweled 2 for free today. I only just realised but luckily was in time to get a copy. I love puzzle games and have done ever since I was first introduced to Tetris many many years ago. When I first discovered Bejeweled I was distracted playing it for hours…I highly recommend it!
I was impressed to see this piece of playground equipment in the playground in St Stephen’s Green at the weekend. The learning braille section was part of a bigger piece of equipment. I didn’t see any children actually playing and learning braille but I was really inspired by the idea behind it. It’s nice to see this sort of design creeping into day to day places and things.
Reactable has gone mobile! Now the synthesiser is available as an app on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Now if only I had one of any of these… Find out more here.
Its the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the Buckyball, a spherical dome of exotic molecules of carbon. Google has an animated Google logo today in honour of the Buckyball. You can interact with it by rolling over it. Buy a magnetic Buckyballs desk toy here. Read more about the Buckyball here.
I find the work of Andre Michelle really inspiring. I was first introduced to him when I came across Tone Matrix over a year ago. It is very similar to Yamaha’s Tenori-On. It’s really addictive to play with and the sounds it creates are really nice.
tone matrix
His new audio toy Pulsate is really simple and brilliant. Play them both on aM laboratory.
I played the board game Ticket to Ride Europe for the first time the other day and I have to say I’m really impressed. Before this I would have said my current favourite boardgame was Carcassone but there is a new contender now for my favourite game at the moment! I really like how quick the game moved and how easy it is to learn. I am really interested to play the original Ticket to Ride to see the differences. One review says that the newer Europe installment of the game is far superior but is more tense and competitive. When I played it I have to say I didn’t feel this however I have only played it in two player. I’m looking forward to playing it with four players.
Went to an inspiring talk in the Science Gallery on Wednesday evening. Artist and designer Mary Flanagan spoke about her research and work on the idea of Critical Play, which is also the title of her most recent book. She spoke about old games as well as speaking about some of her own work. The talk was quite short as it was also the launch of the MSc in Interactive Digital Media Masters show. I really like this piece of her work, a giantJoystick. The idea behind the work is very similar to the goal of my work to encourage group collaborative play. It’s really inspiring.
giantJoystick by Mary Flanagan
More information on Mary Flanagans work can be found here.
I couldn’t help but comment on the similarity between the new PlayStation Move controllers and my project jogo. The coloured balls on top of the controller are so similar to my ping pong ball triggers and what makes it even more similar is the fact that I am actually using a PlayStation Eye camera for my motion tracking. It goes to show great minds think alike!
So on Friday I packed up jogo and we headed west for Galway to do a talk and demo in 091 labs on Saturday as part of Irish Hackerspace week. It was great to get to talk about my work to new people and to let them play with jogo so thanks to 091 Labs for inviting me down!
After leaving my adapter to connect my mac to the projector back in Dublin I had to frantically upload the presentation to google docs which actually worked out quite well in the end. I usually use slideshare but since I had videos to show this worked out much better. I’ve added some of my notes into the slides also.
My talk at 091 Labs during Irish Hackerspace Week
Me during my talk at 091 Labs during Irish Hackerspace Week
So I’ve finally committed to a design and have a sort of work in progress site up now..as I said it is a work in progress..there is a lot more work to be added and the design may also be tweaked and any glitches will be resolved but for now it’s at least better than an under construction page..
I just came across this project by liya mairson, a graduate from shenkar institute for engineering and design. The cardboard folding play area has been designed for small living spaces. Find out more on the designers site.
I found this perplexus imitation in Hamleys recently. It was cool to get to play with it even if it is an imitation. It’s just as fun and addictive as I thought it would be. I must buy one but will definitely buy the real one. You can buy it here. You can also read my previous blog about perplexus here.
