Forgot to post this up for EpicWerewolf on Halloween… Josh or Tim or someone started this whole internet meme which isn’t going away…
Ian is the Werewolf… now don’t fuck with daddy
Tag: play
Epic Werewolf – This Halloween…
This Halloween, there is only one place to be…
Four times the deception, four times the lies and four times the paranoia. It’s a social game which you can easily pick up but is impossible to master. This Halloween we show social engineering like never before…
Islington Mill for some Epic Werewolf with Larkin About… All part of the Manchester Science Festival
EPIC Werewolf – Halloween
Its coming… this Halloween, EPIC Werewolf…
As part of the Manchester Science Festival, myself and Larkin About are going to take a look at Social engineering and Mob rule in the social game of Werewolf. Unlike most games of werewolf, we will feature running commentary from psychologists and behaviour scientists that will culminate in a finale game resticted to one room and broadcasted live to an audience.
Of course because its Halloween, there will be lots of dressing up and to be honest Islington Mill is located in deep and dark Salford. Far from the bright lights of Media City and the Quays.
Exact details are still being worked out but its going to be a great event which you don’t want to miss!
Tickets are available for the players and the audience only.
Manchester Werewolf Chapter – June
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
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.
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 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.
Textuality almost the idea we had but poorly done
A long time ago Channel4 posted a contest based around writing a play. Having never written a play before me and Sarah (my exwife) went about writing a play based around the interactions of people via social technologies.
The concept was simple, people interacted on stage in different ways, you could see what there really thinking about or mean via a large screen above them. Honestly quite a bit of the influence from my end came from the very early project by Jun Group called Welcome to the scene. (a candidate for something to re-look at me thinks)
I was intrigued when I read about textuality in my cousins movie collection of course in XBMC.
Now to be fair it only managed 3.4 stars out of 10 on IMDB so its not exactly inception but its worth watching to see how the concept we came to was executed by others. If I had the time and resources I would like to still see it as a play.
It was actually proposed to the contact theatre as their young and talented improv artists could maybe do something quite amazing with it, but I’ve never really picked up on it.
Lastly Revision3’s INST MSGS, rings a bell when re-looking at this whole area.
INST MSGS is a web anthology series that dramatizes social media. Based on everything from submitted instant message conversations to found Craigslists ads, INST MSGS shines a satirical light on modern (mis) communication.
TV show and a MMO in one universe
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 Werewolf chapter is back this Wednesday
(amazing what you can do with inkscape in a 30mins)
February 3, 2010 7 – 11pm : Manchester Werewolf Chapter at Pure Space, 11-13 New Wakefield Street, Manchester
We’re looking to play once a month, there’s no need to register or understand the rules just turn up and play along.
Be part of the game, beginners to pros its all good fun. Werewolf is a game that takes place in a small village which is haunted by werewolves. Each player is secretly assigned a role – Werewolf, Villager, or Seer (a special Villager). There is also a Moderator player who controls the flow of the game. The game alternates between night and day phases. At night, the Werewolves secretly choose a Villager to kill. Also, the Seer (if still alive) asks whether another player is a Werewolf or not. During the day, the Villager who was killed is revealed and is out of the game. The remaining Villagers then vote on the player they suspect is a Werewolf. That player reveals his/her role and is out of the game. Werewolves win when there are an equal number of Villagers and Werewolves. Villagers win when they have killed all Werewolves. Werewolf is a social game that requires no equipment to play, and can accommodate almost any large group of players.
E4: Every Extend Extra Extreme
Every Extend Extra Extreme is one of the games I’ve been totally been going crazy for recently. I tried the demo on Xbox Live Arcade and was instantly hooked. Explaining how it works is quite tricky… Wikipedia to the rescue
the player controls a ship which they can detonate at any time. This causes any enemies within a certain radius to explode, which in turn cause other enemies to explode in a chain reaction. As the game continues more and more enemies populate the screen allowing longer and higher scoring explosions. The player may halt the chain at any time to pick up power-ups (such as to increase enemy speed, add time, add temporary shield) or to start a new chain reaction.
The explosions add a percussive beat to the background music.
The player’s ship is destroyed when coming into contact with or being shot by an enemy while the player’s shields are down. This resets the level to its initial slow pace and bonus multiplier, therefore hindering the player’s scoring.
The one thing it doesn’t say is depending how your timing is with the beat, you get a small to large explosion radius. So bang on and you get something which can start a massive chain reaction while off beat and you only take out a few enemies.
Its pretty and glorious on a HDTV running at 60fps and fans of REZ HD will appreciate the finishing touches which Q! entertainment bring to their games. This is certainly my new Geometry Wars
I am not a werewolf
Next year I'm to make sure I get in there early and get a ticket for Hide+Seek on London's Southbank. I missed the conference part again this year but boy oh boy did everyone have fun playing werewolf afterwards. I believe at one point there were 4 games of about 15-20 people playing at once. Maybe they were a bit too close so you couldn't hear very well what was going on but there were tons of new people to play with and even some of my friends joined in who have never played before. Talking of which, a special award goes out to Hannu for picking two werewolves on his first ever game and in such a important role as the seer. So amazing that a mature player took this as werewolf tactics and almost voted him off. I also took part in a game when we almost got rid of all the werewolves without killing any villagers. Every night the werewolf would try and kill the seer (aka myself) and the healer would heal me. Ok to be fair the werewolves were new to the game but only after 3 rounds of no one dying on the nights did the werewolves start picking off other players. By which time the game was almost wrapped up for the villagers
Technorati Tags: werewolf, werewolves, gaming, play, hide+seek, hideseek, london, southbank
Flicker music podcast
My friend Paul Crowley has created a flipping awesome podcast for his and Gareth Cole's exclusively online music lablel Flicker Tracks.Yes Flicker with an E not without the E. Anyway his just launched a new EP called Minimus and decided the 30secs preview you get from the Apple iTunes store wasn't enough for slow building arrangements which you find in a lot of house and trance music. And he's very right, there's tracks which sound nothing like the first 2 mins because thats your build up period (or mix period) then the track comes alive with something amazing which suprises the listener. Paul says it much better that myself
We decided that it is important that anyone interested in our material can hear significantly more than the 30 seconds currently afforded by iTunes. This is particularly important with club focussed music, where lengthy intros facilitate equally lengthy and seamless DJ mixes. Slow-build arrangements don’t necessarily reveal the true nature of the track in the opening bars, or in fact, in any given 30 second sample.
It’s always been true that the medium has dictated the format and length of mass produced music (from wax cylinders through to compact discs) but in this instance, the promotional method is creating an artificial limitation – the medium is not at fault. It is as if when writing material, you should now produce the musical equivilent of the elevator pitch to have the greatest chance of commercial success.
Were we to write and arrange our material so that the first 30 seconds gives the casual listener a more representative sample of what’s to come, we would then risk rendering the material less appropriate for the intended context – a club (which of course is creating another restriction on form, but one that we choose intentionally). Anyway, all this technology is supposed to be about creativity and freedom of expression, right?
Your damm right Paul. I've added the podcast to this entry which I hope will give it even more visability and I don't think Paul will mind. It would be easier for others to do the same if there was a creative commons licence like Attribution-NoDerivs License attached to the podcast. Then people could play it, copy it and even play it on a commercial radio station. I would also add – it would be great to have included a little tracklist (maybe linked to the direct track on itunes) in the blog post. But it was great to hear louise's voice over the music, very professional sounding.
So about the actual tracks.
1st track minimus – is damm fat and heavy, I like it and might have to get it for net Saturday's Bash.
2nd track bring you too – is a nice rich leader track. Something I would use to bring the crowd to a new place. This is certainly what I think of when thinking progressive or tech house.
3rd and 4th tracks are not quite my style but sound like something I would dance to in a house club.
5th track skidmark – is another fatty track perfect for playing in a bar, warm and smooth, perfect for a slightly upbeat lounge club. Saturday is calling its name.
So Paul it worked, your elevator pitch of a podcast has made me considered buying some of your tracks. Now if it wasn't in itunes encrypted mpeg4 audio (AAC) I could use it in a DJ set next weekend. Oh well…