Extended Play

Meet-up in Plymouth! Unity3D! Adobe! Thursday 7th February 2013

iainlobb — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:39:16 +0000

Meet-up in Plymouth! Unity3D! Adobe! Thursday 7th February 2013:

Explay monthly meet-ups return in style, with indie developer and Unity3D expert QuickFingers coming all the way down from “that London” to talk about his work, and the Adobe games team providing amazing sponsorship, freebies and prizes, including a full copy of Creative Suite that we’ll be giving away! Plus all the usual silliness and a chance to meet and chat to other people interested in making games.

It’s at The Roundabout Pub, Plymouth…

In the *3rd FLOOR* upstairs room - NOT the 2nd floor balcony. KEEP GOING UPSTAIRS UNTIL YOU FIND IT! :D

Speaker: http://www.quickfingers.net/

Sponsor: http://gaming.adobe.com/

Venue: http://www.screampubs.co.uk/theroundaboutplymouth

ExPlay Game Jam Winners

benje — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:45:08 +0000

I’d like to offer a belated congratulations to all Game Jam participants at the ExPlay Festival the other week. There where 13 teams in total who managed to create some fantastic games in just 15 hours!

For those who didn’t participate, a Game Jam is a hack-a-thon for game developers, artists and creative’s allowing them flex their creative muscles and create something awesome in an intense period of game-creating action.

Each game was judged on 3 criteria: Innovation, Fun and Concept. The judging panel consisted of four experienced indie game developers: Andrew Smith from Spilt Milk Studios, Ana Kronschnabl from Fluffy Logic, Ed Fear from Curve Studios and Paul Taylor from Mode 7 Games.

The Teams

Team Gold Team
Theme Potato
Mongoose
Theme Appropriate Name
Name Appropriate Theme
The Mystery Squad
Team Stuther
Love Lamp
The Latecomers
Fun Saturated
Team Hat
Lasers of Understanding

The Winners

Theme: Mirror

Space Buds - Men in the Mirror Galaxy
Mirrornaught
Team Vanity - Vanity is Sin

Theme: Colour

Team Gold Team - Radiant Spectrum Rangers Endless Battle
Team Hat - Racest
Fun Saturated - Pantone Pooch

For a more detailed write up, check out the fantastic blog post on the average gamer.

Again, congratulations to all participants, it was a fantastic weekend.

Plymitron launched at ExPlay '11

cultofmonkey — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:53:05 +0000

If you attended the Extended Play festival this weekend you probably saw (and hopefully played) the UK’s first Winnitron arcade cabinet: The Plymitron!

A small group of people - Rich Searle, Gaz Williams, Dan Stubbs and myself (Mike Cobb) - spent numerous evenings and weekends renovating an old yellow cab donated by PCAD into a sleek black and neon blue beauty. Sarah Welland and Chris Mayoh collaborated on the marquee, and it was all made possible by donations from the Plymouth Indie Game Community. Thanks everyone!

Of course, the real stars are the games! The Winnitron Indie Game Arcade Network is an awesome (and growing) collection of fantastic Indie games - all free to play on the Plymitron.

The Plymitron now resides in the Roland Levinsky Building on the Plymouth University Campus. It’s open to the public, so everyone can drop by and have a play.

Here are some photos of the launch (more on my Flickr page):

Meet Draw Presents... Silicon Beach!

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:32:10 +0100

Hello Ex Players… we have managed to secure a deal with out lovely friends across the coast in Dorset, Meet Draw, who have said they will slash the price of their conference Silicon Beach by 50% for you lot!

Silicon Beach is a two-day exploration of the most innovative advertising and design techniques taking place in Bournemouth at the end of September and South West Design Forum members are being offered an exclusive discounted package on tickets AND accommodation.

A collection of the UK’s leading experts from organisations such as Ogilvy, BBH, Skype, Adobe, Virgin Media, Made by Many, Grape Digital, Microsoft and more; will spend two days at this intimate conference delivering talks and engaging with the audience, all the while being steered by David Worthington, the Chair of the UK Design Alliance. They’ll be offering insights into the latest brand building techniques, how they implement them and how they measure the impact and Return on Investment on behalf of their clients.

The themes of this conference are perfect for client service teams - who will learn about all the latest innovations, how to offer them to their clients and how to charge for them. They’re also perfect for the creative and planning teams who will not only learn how to use these same latest techniques but also they’ll learn how agencies such as Ogilvy and BBH use Innovation Labs with their clients to dream up new propositions.

It’s going to be an exciting and informative two days. But don’t worry, if you don’t think you can afford to lose one person out of the studio for two days: Share the Ticket - one person attend Day One and another attend Day Two (you’ll miss the party on the night of Day One mind).

Meetdraw Presents… Silicon Beach is the inaugural conference organised by the Dorset Design Forum (Meetdraw) and they would like to extend an exclusive offer to all South West Design Forum members to ensure the whole of the region gets to benefit from this exciting event. They’re offering a 50% discount to members, so tickets are now just £99 (normal price £199) and they’ve arranged a deal with the fantastic Trouville Hotel who are able to offer B&B for just £49pppn.

If you’re interested in taking up this offer and attending this awesome event, email the conference organiser and SWDF Vice Chair, Matt Desmier: matt@wiseolduncle.com for more details.

Extended Play Monthly Meet Up - September 1st 2011

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:23:35 +0100

Another great Extended Play Monthly last night. The new venue at the
Roundabout worked out well, giving us more space. As always a huge Thank you to everyone who came to the event, any feedback on the structure of the evening would be fantastic.

A special thanks to Ella Romanos and Ben Reynhart for opening with the line up for Plymouth’s first interactive games festival: Extended Play 2011. Please find all the information to get involved here: http://explay.co.uk/
Thank you to Phorxy Bastin with an insightful presentation about ‘How we can make games and education work’, Iain Lobb’s talk about HTML5 games and love for Math, Matt Sephton lost art form of intro/attract/menu screens, the wonderful sounds of Jamie Hamshere with Building Blocks and Dissecting Music, and Gareth Williams ingenious silent disco radio game experiment.

Look forward to seeing you all next month 6th October 2011 :)

The Train Project

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:05:59 +0100

Hi Everyone, here is my crowdfunding page again for anyone who would like to join the project and send something cool to someone anywhere in the UK. Theres only 10 days left, so hurry if you want a ticket :)
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/investment/the-train-project-323

Extended Play Festival - Request for proposals

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:40:27 +0100

Hi guys,

As you all know, Extended Play festival is going to be held this 3rd-5th November. The festival is being announced nationally this week and has already had some great press on the Guardian site.

We have been working over the last couple of months to get things organised and the website has been updated today to reflect that, with some speakers announced and info about what is going on: http://www.explay.co.uk

On the Friday and Saturday of the festival we are hosting talks, panels and fun activities throughout the day and we would really like the community to get involved by submitting ideas for more activities.

Some examples which are already in the pipeline are Thunderchats (a chance for designers, developers and creatives to talk for 5 minutes about their best work, new ideas, live coding, mashups, etc.) and a LAN gaming event, other ideas could include ARG’s around Plymouth, a Winnitron machine which needs public access all day, use of the 4D cinema (ask us for spec & more info), multiplayer gaming sessions, live demo projections, interactive experiences or anything else you can think of! We want ideas that will engage audiences through them either participating or watching.

Any activity submitted will be organised by the person or group who have submitted it, in coordination with the rest of the festival. We have a few different spaces available, including the green room, which is (approx) a 4x4m space and the auditorium which seats up to 100 people. If you have equipment requirements let us know and we will work with you to try and source those.

These activities will be hosted within the main Aquarium conference facilities and we are looking for submissions which fit into an hour slot. However, we don’t want to discourage ideas that might be a bit more crazy and need more space or time, so if you want to run something which doesn’t fit within those restrictions please submit and we will see what we can do to support it!

Ben from Mutant Labs and myself will be doing a short talk at the next meetup (Thursday 1st September @ Roundabout) to give you an overview of the festival, but we are open to ideas now, so any questions or submissions please email me at ella@explay.co.uk by 16th September.

Thanks!

Ella

Deep Chalk 4

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:40:25 +0100

I’ve published Deep Chalk 4. It’s a Kongregate exclusive, so you play it here:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/ZackLivestone/deep-chalk-4

Thanks to those at explay for their feedback and encouragement.

ZL

10 Things Popcap hate about casual games.

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:40:24 +0100

10 Things Popcap hate about casual games.

Photo

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:40:22 +0100

Myths and video game storytelling

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:40:18 +0100

As a follow up to the talk last night, here’s some links to stuff around myth and storytelling.

Making the Most of Mythic Structure - GamesU 2009

A talk from game script writer Matthew Grau, giving a great rundown of the hero’s journey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFhyDsxlZus

the book: The hero with a thousand faces

http://newworldlibrary.com/BooksProducts/ProductDetails/tabid/64/SKU/15936/Default.aspx

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hero-Thousand-Faces-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0586085718

resources about the heros journey for teachers

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/hero.html

The Joseph Campbell foundation

http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php

Hero’s journey game - create your own character and situations here!

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/herosjourney/

If you can get hold of this documentary, i reccommend episode 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth

The 36 dramatic situations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations

Creating Emotion in Games: The Art and Craft of Emotioneering

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creating-Emotion-Games-Emotioneering-Riders/dp/1592730078

FreemanGames.com

http://www.freemangames.com/idea/

interview with David Freeman, author of Creating emotion in games

part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbUUfzaFav0

part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAZrCmNl0nA

part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJf1MnOdYnQ

part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_9Gub0lwpY

Wall-E clip from interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWf4sVCwo1s

Clip from Lord of the rings from interview

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfepiw_test-clip-2_creation

Ria trying to do a haduken using Mike Cobb’s Kinect...

benje — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:39:50 +0100

Ria trying to do a haduken using Mike Cobb’s Kinect setup

A huge thank you to everyone who attended last nights Plymouth Monthly Games Meet Up. It was a fantastic turn out as ever.

Special thanks to Dan Livingstone, Luke Angell and Mike Cobb for sourcing equipment for last nights meet up. And thank you to all those who presented, that’s Mike Cobb, with ‘Kinect Hacking for Dummies’, Matt Sephton with ‘Terra Firma’, Isaac Livingstone’s ‘Deep Chalk 4’, James with ‘Myths in Video Games’, Ben Reynhart’s ‘SUPERFRIENDMATCH’, Scott Burns with ‘You Are Not Unique’ and new prototype game, Luke Robinson with ‘Making Space’ with Arduino and finally a big thanks to the fantastic Plymitron hack team, Gareth Williams, Rich Searle, Dan Stubbs and Mike Cobb.

Don’t forget its Plymitron hack day part deux this evening, details here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=236987303007486

Short intro to component architecture

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:05:47 +0100

Short intro to component architecture:

This is actually intended for push button objects in AS3 but is equally applicable to unity and or the decorator design pattern… For those who are interested :)

A little showcase of the new Explay ‘11 rebrand

mutantchris — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:32:08 +0100

A little showcase of the new Explay ‘11 rebrand

Meet up on Monday 1st of August 2011 at Ride, Plymouth. Hear...

iainlobb — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:40:09 +0100

Meet up on Monday 1st of August 2011 at Ride, Plymouth. Hear some developers talk about their games, maybe show your own work. Also find out how the Winnitron and festival projects are going. See you there!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=151689071574991

Papercrafty: Foldschool Heroes

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:54:39 +0100

Papercrafty: Foldschool Heroes:

Tom told me about this link, I love papercraft so I was all over it

Job opportunity - game developer

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:39:44 +0100

Any programmers out there looking for a job in games? We’re hiring! Flash skills crucial, any knowledge of Android, iOS and/or Unity a plus. Pls pass this on and email ella at remodestudios dot com if you are interested!

Blog Redesign

benje — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:38:00 +0100

Hey guys, just letting you know that this blog will be undergoing a custom re-design in the next couple of weeks - so don’t freak out if it changes! The new theme will resolve a lot of issues with the current blog and offer the following improvements:

Easier navigation & content submission
Cleaner layout
New ExPlay 2011 branding!

Keep your eyes peeled!

Ben

Deep Chalk 1-4

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:46:30 +0100

You can play the first three Deep Chalk games here:

http://www.lazycore.co.uk/

Recent blog posts detail my thoughts and progress on the fourth, along with some recommendations of indie (and not so indie) games I’ve been playing recently. Cheers for the feedback, I expect the tips about Flash’s default settings cutting down the sound will prove very useful.

- Isaac

Film & New Media Composer/Sound Designer in Plymouth looking to work on games

paulwilliamlloyd — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:46:29 +0100

Hi my name is Paul William Lloyd, I am a Composer/Sound designer looking to get involved in the game industry. I have worked on interactive games. installations such as the ICCI, worked for the nhs and last year worked on a international feature film called “Ika Sampu” which was released in cinemas in December. My website is www.paulwilliamlloyd.com which is currently being updated, I would be interested in attending the monthly extended play meeting to discuss working on projects, does anybody know when and where this takes place next? if you would like to contact me my email is contact@paulwilliamlloyd.com or please contact me on 07722 959 699, cheers

Paul