Recently I came across a couple of DVD’s which shared my passion for play. Always excited about new views on play, I purchased them from US-based Giant Impact (they were unavailable from within Australia).

Kevin Carroll

Before I ordered them, I had never heard of Kevin Carroll, so I was interested in finding more about him, and his views on play. Carroll is a motivational speaker based in the United States, and has had enourmous success with this book Red Rubber Ball, in which the ball serves as a metaphor for your dreams and goals in life. While primarily catering to a business audience, I found synergy with his views on play and my own. He finds play something powerful and important in life, enabling people to innovate, create, problem solve and analyze. While he does not explicitly speak of mental models, visualization and conceptual thinking, I would appear to exist as an undercurrent to his work. In his DVDs he espouses to his business oriented audience, the potential and true power of play, and engages them to become more playful in life and work.

Both DVDs are mostly excerpts from a live presentation by Carroll to a largely business oriented audience. Carroll’s details the role that play and games has had on his life in quite a powerful way using the red rubber ball in both a real object and metaphor for the pursuit of dreams.

I found these DVDs both valuable and affordable (around US$20 a piece), and useful addition to my library. If you’re interested in purchasing, then contact Giant Impact directly, especially if you live outside of the continental USA so that you can arrange appropriate shipping.

Links
Kevin Carroll: http://www.kevincarrollkatalyst.com
Giant Impact: http://www.giantimpact.com

Wow! What a blast. I found Game Jam Sydney 2010 to be a real success… congrats must go out to Dan Graf (IGDA), Malcolm Ryan (UNSW), the Powerhouse Museum, and all those behind the scenes who contributed. And of course… to all the game developers who took part. Unfortunately, family life got in the road for me and I was unable to spare a full 48 hours the weekend before school started for my son to get my hands dirty. Nonetheless, I did drag the family down to the Powerhouse Museum on Sunday to listen to the panel, and watch about 40 developers emerge from the bowels of the Powerhouse Museum, into the bright lights of the stage, and allow us to bear witness to their mind’s creations. And while I was there I managed to fire off a few shots with my stills camera. So I thought that I’d share a few images of the event.

First off, I have to say that I was impressed with the diversity of games designed over such a short time frame. The standouts for me were Gnilley (yelling spelt backwards). While the gameplay was interesting, it was the interface design which was to control a character by using the speech volume which was a real blast. It was a single player game, but I wondered what it would be like to have it as an interface for a MMORPG… knowing that thousands of people around the world are keeping their neighbours up from screaming at a TV screen. Also, this was created by a design team of one… which was an awesome effort and deserving of taking out the Most Original Gameplay Award.

The other game that caught my eye was Tentacle, which really took the 80’s theme to heart (the Powerhouse Museum which hosted the event is currently holding an 1980s exhibition). This was just straight out fun… use your character (with its tentacle) to splatter ‘enemies’. It was a simple idea, executed very well. So well in fact that it was awarded Best Overall Game.

I wish I could spend more time to go through each of the other games to do them justice. All I can say is go check them out at the Global Game Jam website, download them and have a play. In the meantime, here are some other photos I took at the event.

Paul Callaghan (Freeplay) MC’s the event

The Games Panel (L-R): Nick Montfort, John Passfield and Jarrad ‘Farbs’ Woods

Dan Graf (IGDA) introduces the design teams.

(L-R) ‘Farbs’ and Malcolm Ryan (UNSW) discuss Farbs’ game Breakup

Links
Global Game Jam Games: http://www.globalgamejam.org/games

Sydney Game Jam this year will run from 6pm Friday 29 - 6pm Sunday 31 January at the Powerhouse museum. The event is part of the Global Game Jam which sees people from 100 cities from across the globe conceive, design, and prototype new and innovative game concepts over a 48 hour period.

This year the event sees veteran developers John Passfield and Steve Wang sharing their thoughts as well as indie developer Jarrad “Farbs” Woods and MIT Professor Nick Montfort (author of ‘Racing the Beam’). I hope to see you there .

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Links
Sydney Game Jam 2010: http://www.gamejamsydney.com/
Powerhouse Museum: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/
Global Game Jam: http://www.globalgamejam.org

With January 26 fast approaching, Australia Day celebrations are ready to swing into action. Beach, BBQs, board shorts, and beers are mainstays of almost every Australia Day celebration. But for the second year now, Australia Day also surrounds the arrival another celebratory “B” word… boardgames! Originally in Albury up until 2008, the Australian Games Expo has found a new home in Canberra, and has gone from strength to strength in its new city and timeslot. The event now coincides with the Canberra Games Society’s CanCon, the Canberra-based game convention, and provides plenty for aspiring game designers, educators, boardgame fanatics, and families.

There’s plenty of things to see including game tournaments for Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne, plus the inaugural Australian Alhambra Championships. There’s also a Rubik’s 3×3 Cube Australian Games Expo Championship. Plus there’s an open gaming area where you get to play games to find out what you like.

The Australian Games Expo runs from Saturday January 23rd to Monday January 25th, at Exhibition Park in Canberra and entry is FREE. You can find more at the Australian Games Expo website; http://www.austgamesexpo.com/.

Links
Australian Games Expo: http://www.austgamesexpo.com/
CanCon 2010: http://www.cgs.asn.au/cancon2010.htm
Canberra Games Society: http://www.cgs.asn.au/
Exhibition Park Canberra: http://www.epic.act.gov.au