Category: play-and-games

Olympics woman’s football: Canada vs Team USA

Canada vs Team USA Woman's Semi-Finals in Football

Congrats to the Woman’s Team of USA, as they won the London 2012 Olympics football.

Canada vs Team USA Woman's Semi-Finals in Football

I had the pleasure of watching Canada vs Team USA in Manchester Utd’s Old Trafford stadium.

Canada vs Team USA Woman's Semi-Finals in Football

Thrilling game ended in the last minute of extra time 4 goals to 3.

Canada vs Team USA Woman's Semi-Finals in Football

I was cheering for Canada but what surprised me was how dirty this football match was. Quite a few tackles were missed and I’m really surprised no one got sent off.

Canada vs Team USA Woman's Semi-Finals in Football

It was a excellent experience and I finally got a chance to see Old Trafford from the inside. Good stuff for £20 and a seat with no leg room. Really felt like London 2012 Olympics was a good thing that day…

Manchester Werewolf Chapter – June

manchester werewolf

Its werewolf time again! This Wednesday June 20th at Barcelona Bar

…we are very excited to be back at Barcelona Bar on Wednesday 20th June for another meeting of the Manchester Werewolf Chapter, for an evening of deception and accusation in classic social game Werewolf from 7pm onwards. It’s a free event, but it’s thirsty work so bring money for the bar. If you’ve never played before, it’s easy peasy and the rules will be explained as we go along, so please come and have a go.

Manchester Werewolf Chapter – March 2012

This is Wednesday in my busy social week

Manchester Werewolf Chapter March 2012

If you’ve missed the other Werewolf games we’ve been playing recently, shame on you!

We’re getting quite a few people coming along every 2 months. A big part of which is working with Larkin About.

On Wednesday we had another great game of the Thing, then a game of Werewolf finished off with look down look up.

As usual everyone had fun (except I got killed at the very start as usual, which game me plenty of time to do lots of photos) and the villagers just won at the last moment even through there was some disagreement with putting 4 werewolves in a game for 25 people. Barcelona Bar is still a excellent place to do Werewolf and we’ll be back again at the end of May for sure, so look out for it.

Manchester Werewolf Chapter March 2012

Next Manchester Werewolf Chapter – Wed 28th March

Were back for another Manchester Werewolf Chapter with the guys at Larkin About again.

On Wednesday March 28th, the Manchester Werewolf Chapter and Larkin’ About will be running another Werewolf game at Barcelona Bar in the Northern Quarter. For FREE!

Werewolf is a simple game of strategy and deception, played by a large group of people.
The game is all about making accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, and social engineering.

All are welcome! We have a great location with a bar because we all know lying is very thirsty work. The event is suitable for all levels of experience from absolute newbie to Werewolf expert.

The Pancakes and Cocktails are worth it alone… And its happy hour right up till 9pm…

To register your interest, please visit our Facebook event page, or send us an email to larkin.about2009@gmail.com.

Manchester Werewolf chapter – Wed 25rd Jan

Manchester Werewolf Chapter

Manchester Werewolf Chapter is back for 2012 and were teamed up with the guys at Larkin About again.

On Wednesday January 25th, the Manchester Werewolf Chapter and Larkin’ About will be running the first Werewolf game of 2012 at Barcelona Bar in the Northern Quarter. For FREE!

Werewolf is a simple game of strategy and deception, played by a large group of people.
The game is all about making accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, and social engineering.

All are welcome! We have a great location with a bar because we all know deception is thirsty work. The event is suitable for all levels of experience from absolute newbie to Werewolf expert.

To register your interest, please visit our Facebook event page, or send us an email to larkin.about2009@gmail.com.

Manchester Werewolf Chapter with Larkin about at Barcelona bar

Manchester Werewolf chapter

Wednesday we had a very successful night of werewolf…

I didn’t have my DSLR with me, so I only captured a few low rez photos of the action. Almost everything just worked…

Working with Larkin About (remember that ARG) was a great success and I’m sure the reason we got different players is simply because they were involved. The Location was great because the bar owner really wanted to help make it a successful event. He (Mike) even said next time he will happily do service to the circle, so people don’t even have to leave the game to get drinks. Its also staged happy hour when we’re playing, so cocktails start off at 2 for £5 and rise to 2 for £9 a few hours later. And to be honest the cocktails are actually not bad at all. I was drinking Cosmopolitans (as I do) and they were actually much better than average. Not quite the quality of NoHo, Scho Rehab or Aphotica but not far off.

Barcelona bar is a great venue with the slightly raised platform where we were playing werewolf and the space around it for people who were dead (as such) or just people not playing… The raised platform isn’t exactly round but its good enough to fit a good number of people looking at each other.

Playing the Thing to start the proceeding was a inspired thought, because it meant as people joined us, they could also just join the next round. In the end we played the thing then 2 different games of werewolf.

Everyone really enjoyed themselves and we played till bar closing time…

Werewolf closing stages

Only two slight negatives

  1. Not having food and consuming a ton of lovely cocktails (yes someone had to do it). Barcelona bar is due to start doing pancakes, and I had thought they were doing them already. So assuming I would be able to grab a sandwich somewhere I thought a savoury pancakes might work. Next time I’m sure they will be up and running in this area
  2. A lot of the regular players from MadLab, BarCamps, etc… didn’t turn up, which was a shame. However we did have a ton of new people and we even roped a couple in for a small drink, into the game actual game.
Anyway we’ve decided to do Werewolf on a bi-monthly schedule. So look out for details of the next game in January 2012… Thanks to everyone who turned up, and remember I am never the werewolf…

Manchester Werewolf chapter joins Larkin’ About – Wed 23rd Nov

Manchester werewolf chapter poster for november

Manchester Werewolf Chapter is back after a long delay and this time we’ve teamed up with the guys at Larkin About. Larkin about are the Manchester equivalent of Hide & Seek. They do social experimental games in and around Manchester. So its a perfect match. If this goes well, there will be many more…

On Wednesdays November 23rd, the Manchester Werewolf Chapter and Larkin’ About will be running a game of Werewolf at Barcelona Bar in the Northern Quarter. It’s totally FREE!

Werewolf is a simple game of strategy and deception, played by a large group of people.
The game is all about making accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, and social engineering.

All are welcome! We have a great location with a bar because we all know deception is thirsty work. The event is suitable for all levels of experience from absolute newbie to Werewolf pro. We hope to continue to host games of Werewolf as a regular event from this date onwards.

To register your interest, please visit our Facebook event page, or send us an email to larkin.about2009@gmail.com.

 

Online Werewolf, the Manchester Chapter and the Thing

The Thing game

One of the sessions at BarCampBlackpool was the idea of playing werewolf, mafia or even the thing (which I will get into in a second) online. There’s been many attempts at this including the commercial ones. But every once in a while theres an attempt by someone to setup an open online version.

Werewolfapphb is one such example. Now to be honest I only walked in half way through the talk but from what I can see it was a lot like the IRC style werewolf games I’ve seen in the past. Seems perfectly fine but I started suggesting a whole bunch of things including status about players and leaderboards. All suggestions seemed to go down well.

I did also point out that there’s a trend towards playing werewolf using Google Plus Hangouts, which to be honest is a lot neater than doing it on IRC or even a Jabber/XMPP conference room.

I was introduced to a new style Werewolf game which seems to work well with a smaller number of people. Its called the Thing and has the advantage of people being involved through-out the whole game.

People also noted there was now a Leeds & Preston Werewolf Chapter which begs the question, what happened to the Manchester Chapter? Well fear not, it will be back and I’ve got ideas and scenarios… Watch this space…

 

TV show and a MMO in one universe

Defiance

I like the idea of Defiance…

Defiance is a number of things. It’s a third-person shooter, but it’s also an MMO. It’s a PC game, but it’s also coming to consoles. It’s a video game, but it’s also a television show. A multimedia collaboration between Trion Worlds—the developer behind the MMORPG Rift, launched earlier this year—and the SyFy network, Defiance is nothing if not ambitious; events from the game will have an impact on the show, and vice versa.

Although not a totally new concept, its a good tie up and certainly something which more TV companies and maybe broadcasters will/should follow suit. The worry is that SyFy/Trion won’t get the tone right and it won’t be a success in broadcast terms or even in gaming terms. It needs to be very strong and each one should be great experiences in themselves.

However, Hill was quick to point out that even though the game and show work best in tandem, both Trion and SyFy are working hard to ensure that they also stand on their own as pieces of entertainment. “To get the full experience, though, you’re going to want to do both.”

One of the obvious ones I was thinking about when you think of this concept is The Sims. On the TV show, you could get people who play characters and interact as virtual characters in the game. The best interactions become storylines on the show… But there is the notion of who’s leading who?

How would the BBC be able to pull off such a project? Well with BBC Childrens and BBC Games Grid based in MediaCityUK, I don’t think it will be too long before it starts to naturally happen… You can certainly imagine a Radio Drama based around a live playscape.

Intriguing…

Manchester’s first Northern Quarter street party (a R&D viewpoint)

The Official Northern Quarter Street party

Manchester’s Northern Quarter was transformed into a massive street party for the northern quarter hipster crowd yesterday. Billed as an alternative to the royal wedding It was all over the press which was great [men][guardian][cubicgarden].

With the help and support of Madlab, the BBC North ran a gaming wonderland during the street party.

The gaming wonderland included 2 wii’s running wii sports and a early glimpse of BBC R&D project called Virtual Maestro or Kinect Orchestra.

Wii Bowling

On the wii’s we had bowling running and the scores of everyone who played was put on the board just like they do on top gear with lap times. We had a total of 40 players put up there scores over the hours of play. Ages ranging from 8 to 55, but the winner of the day was Rachel Norris with a high score of 188 over 10 rounds. We will be contacting Rachel with her prize. There was some controversy with some of the players as they claimed a score of 210 but as it wasn’t seen by any of the team, we had no choice but to question it. So maybe Helena Rice will also receive a slightly lesser prize too.

Conduct

Virtual Maestro, an installation we’re developing with the BBC Philharmonic. Using a Microsoft Kinect and some custom code, a person is able to ‘conduct’ the BBC Philharmonic in glorious HD video and 3D surround sound using nothing but their arms to control the tempo and dynamics of the piece…

Conduct

The Virtual Maestro or Kinect Orchestra will be back soon for the Manchester International Festival in July. But at the street party it went down very well with lots of people trying it out. Lots of photos can be found on Flickr. On the version we removed the HD video and 3D surround sound but it didn’t stop the public interest in the system.Conduct

As Max said in the r&d blog post,

As well as being brilliant fun for the public to play with, demos like these are a great way to illustrate some the technical work that happens here at the beeb.

Not only did we have lost of interest in the bowling tournament and the virtual maestro, but we also had people asking about BBC R&D, Madlab and BBC jobs.

Although it was a bit of a solo effort (no disrespect to Andy, Nicole, Hwayoung and Dave as there help was great and very much needed) it was worth it. We had maybe about 150 people come through our ground floor madlab space, which isn’t bad for a bank holiday.