Noisy Decent Graphics

The Hidden Park - iPhone game

Yesterday we went to the South Bank to try out The Hidden Park, an iPhone game.
[website] [iTunes]

It's an ambitious game that uses the iPhone's GPS, the camera and the speaker  to create a sort of ARGish geo-cachingish mash up for families. You pick a park, head down there with the kids and run around solving clues and puzzles and trying to find the magical creatures.

I am not a gamer at all. (Apart from the iPhone) I have never owned any games console. The last time I played a computer game was Guitar Hero at Christmas and before that I have absolutely no idea.

But I have an iPhone and I have kids so I'm probably a good test case.

It's very hard to review this game for two reasons; firstly it's not as good as you're imagining it is and secondly that's because the technology is a weeny bit clunky for the full experience. I'll try a review and hopefully you'll see what I mean.

OK, first up, you choose a park. In London you can pick Kensington Gardens or the South Bank. That's a disappointment right there, in your head you imagined you could play it in any park didn't you? When you think about it, it's obvious that you have to play in a pre-determined place as the game play uses the features of the park, but that's a good example of the perception and the reality not matching up.

Anyway. You start the game. Trutton rings you up. This is brilliant, it looks and feels just like a real phone call and the kids identified with that straight away. Trutton gives you some instructions and off you go.

Most of the time the maps were pretty accurate, but a few times they weren't.

We weren't in the middle of the Thames. It says waiting for GPS Accuracy, but I waited a long time and it still didn't get the location. This is a technology/reality problem that's only occurs because kids are involved. They want the map to be right straight away and they don't understand waiting.

When the map works, it's ace. It picks up where you are and triggers the next chapter. There are little puzzles to solve along the way, simple ones that give you a great big rewarding 'well done'.

But best of all is the camera link up. The game tells you to point your camera at specific things in the park and then brings the screen to life with little characters.

It does this really well, the graphics are fab and animated nicely. The kids loved this bit.

The story is a bit weak and (obviously) it sometimes over relies on the iPhone's attributes. But my main complaint is that there's too much walking. We started off by the London Eye, then we headed over to the BFI, then back to the Eye and then across to the National Theatre, back to the BFI and then finishing at Gabriel's Wharf. That's a lot of walking with small children. Especially in a busy tourist location.

The best bit as far as the kids were concerned were these brilliant little photos created by standing in exactly the right spot.

They are pretty awesome. Especially as you (or the child not in the picture) can watch the creatures walk on to the screen.

In summary, it's not perfect but I think it's unreasonable to expect it to be. It appears (to me) to be at the forefront of a potentially massive market. It has the basics right, it looks great, it's fun, it's simple and it makes good use of the iPhone. It's sufficiently parent and sufficiently child.

It seems to make sense in an emerging post-digital world. It takes something you can't do on a screen (going outside and run round a park) and merges it with something you can't do with twigs or paper (animate creatures over pictures etc). But also it takes the best bits of those worlds, going to the park is a good fun thing and gps and camera etc uses the best of the iPhone. That's smart and importantly it doesn't feel forced or false. Throw in gaming on the top and you've got a very interesting mix.

We had a great time playing and I would play it again. For £3.99 you can't really complain.

I'm not interested in games, but this sort of thing could easily get me hooked.

12cm / 4.72 in - personal snowmatics

I wasn't going to do a snow post, but everyone else is doing one, so you know.

Most people have had a fun day enhanced by Flickr and Twitter and the like. Which is good.

I invented a system of Personal Snowmatics, mainly to let my Dad know how much snow was up here. So it was nice to see Mum and Dad joining in via their Flickr account. Remember their contribution to the saucers debate?

Flickr 366

Today is the last day of my Flickr 366. The end of taking one picture every day. I've only missed 8 days, which I'm pretty impressed with. After the jump, here's a short list of things I've learned.

1. It's hard
Remembering to do it is hard enough, but finding something to take a picture of is harder. Where possible I tried to include people. But sometimes you spend a day somewhere where people don't want you taking pictures.

2. It's creative
Even though it's forced it's still a creative act. You still have to think about composition and the like. It's a good discipline and I'd say it's worth trying this if you're a creative.

3. Sometimes there's a long time between 2 days.
7am in one country on Monday and 11pm in another on Tuesday, sometimes that can be 48 hours apart.

4. Camera everywhere = good
Obvious but true.

5. Series work well
That repetition thing. It works every time.

6. I missed less than I thought I would
Only 8, which is pretty good.

7. It's the best diary I've ever had
It's incredibly easy to remember where you were and what you were doing when there's a simple (dated) photographic record.

I'm glad it's over though. And I'm ready to try a new thing. 2009 - a sketch every day.

New Words 2008

During 2008 I bookmarked new words I learned under the tag newwords using delicious. To save you the trouble of hopping over there I've listed them all below. Note, some of them aren't new words, but rather words I've always been unsure of the meaning of and decided to clear up. You should try this, I recommend it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

unbidden - "Not invited, asked, or requested; unasked - ie unbidden guests."

insensate - Lacking sense or the power to reason

MacGuffin - A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise.

Meijin - Brilliant Man

equanimity - "The quality of being calm and even-tempered; composure."

Skeuomorph - "Skeuomorph is a term used in the history of architecture, design, and archaeology. It refers to a derivative object which retains ornamental design cues to structure that was necessary in the original." Brilliant! And it mentions Stonehenge!

Pinyin - Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin romanisation system in use.

mensch - "A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose" via Beeker

St Totteringham's Day - "St Totteringham's Day is the day when Arsenal fans celebrate the fact that Tottenham can no longer catch Arsenal in the League"

impetuous - "Characterized by sudden and forceful energy or emotion; impulsive and passionate."

ameliorate - "to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory"

Diegesis - the (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur

discomgoogolation - "Feel stressed if you can't get online? You could have 'discomgoogolation'. Psychologists studying the high stress levels caused by internet dependency have dubbed the phenomenon 'discomgoogolation' '' - I have this!

loquacious - Very talkative, garrulous, given to conversation. (A bit like me, maybe.)

grawlix - A string of typographical symbols used (especially in comic strips) to represent an obscenity or swear word.

chrysalid - Relating to or resembling a chrysalis.

Cerulean - Cerulean may be applied to a range of colors from deep blue, sky-blue, bright blue or azure color through greenish blue colors.

Rhizotron - A rhizotron is a clear-walled chamber through which one can observe roots as they grow.

micturate - To urinate.

Otaku - is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime and manga.

scatological - Meaning: offensive to accepted standards of decency. Not to be confused with the other definition of scatological which is literally "offensive to accepted standards of decency".

salience - The importance of a political issue, or issue dimension. The quality or condition of being salient.

cybergenic - able to surf, blog, IM and twitter their way into the hearts of activist netizens

disemvowled - as in "bkkeepr is a disemvowled version of book-keeper"

dizygotic - Derived from two separately fertilized eggs. Used especially of fraternal twins.

brackish - Having a somewhat salty taste, especially from containing a mixture of seawater and fresh water.

Epicanthic - An epicanthal fold, epicanthic fold, or epicanthus is a skin fold of the upper eyelid (from the nose to the inner side of the eyebrow) covering the inner corner (medial canthus) of the eye.

Psephology - (from Greek psephos, 'pebble', which the Greeks used as ballots) is the statistical analysis of elections.

Tensegrity - Tensegrity is a portmanteau of tensional integrity. It refers to the integrity of structures as being based in a synergy between balanced tension and compression components.

meretricious - Attracting attention in a vulgar manner.

Portland

I'll be in Portland, Oregon at the end of November and I wondered if anyone fancied meeting up for a coffee? Is there a coffee morning in Portland?

Maybe we can start a Portland Beersphere? Leave comment or email me.

D&AD 45 Years Exhibition Book

Anyone want this? I don't.

I don't mean that to sound ungrateful. It's a very nice thing. It's just that it'll sit on the shelf and you know, just sit there. Doing nothing. Adding no value to the world. So I thought someone might be able to give it a better home.

Errr, you can't read that, sorry.

It's designed by Build (I bet you lot love Build, don't you?) and it features all the text from the excellent D&AD exhibition. It's all the Presidents talking about their favourite piece of work from their year. Very good.

So pop over to the FAQ's, find my email address (think of that as an initiation test) and send me your address. First address I get - gets the book. Simple. Bosh. Break it down.

UPDATE: Competition closed. It's going to Matthew in North Yorkshire.

Life In The Muddle

Not graphic design related at all, but I know that lots of you would like to know that Life In The Middle is back.

GIS Professional

More exciting publishing news.

I've very flattered to announce that my map post has been published by GIS Professional magazine. It's a good magazine, you should subscribe. For those of you who don't know GIS is an abbreviation for geographic information system. So GIS Professional means hard core map people. And they liked my post. Good eh?

Whilst we're on the subject - sometimes people email me and ask if they can use something I've written, in a dissertation or a magazine. As I say in the FAQ's basically the answer is yes as long as it's not for commercial use and you credit me.

If you score first you will win.

I meant to turn this into a data visualisation infomatics piss take thing. But I didn't.

You know on the football commentary they keep saying things like "the first goal is so important" and "the first goal was always going to prove crucial". Over Euro 2008 the BBC kept loads and loads of stats.

From that we can conclusively state that if you score first you are more likely to win. In fact out of 34 games 22 of them were won by the team that scored first.

Help Required

Says it all really. That picture has not been Photoshopped in any way. My camera is fucked. Every picture has this funky effect on it. Not good. Can anyone help me get to the bottom of the problem?

I've got a Samsung NV10 which I love, and it's about 2 years old. There's nothing wrong with the lens as the video bit works fine. I haven't got a new memory card or anything, it just suddenly started doing this one day. It's driving me a little bit mad. Can anyone help?

Graphic Design Pub Quiz

I was on a winning pub quiz team the other day. That doesn't happen very often.

Picture by abroomhe, used with thanks, usual stuff applies.

I was on holiday in Yorkshire and we stumbled upon the quiz night at the local pub. Before the quiz started my companions and I all picked our specialist categories. My wife (who got 47 of our 52 correct answers) chose science as she has a Masters from Imperial. One of our friends chose history as she has a degree in the subject and has worked at some of London's most famous museums. The third team member chose music which was handy as he owns more albums than anyone I know and is one of those bizarre people who still buy CD's.

For my specialist subject I chose British and American Graphic Design from 1975 onwards.

You won't be surprised to know that very few graphic design questions came up. Actually there were none. There was one colour question, which I claimed as mine; which colour did Smarties introduce in 1988?

But it got me thinking, what sort of graphic design questions would you ask at a pub quiz? Sure, you could easily have a 'who designed this logo' picture round but what about the other 70 questions?

You couldn't ask 'what is kerning' as pub quiz questions have short, often one word answers.

I guess you could ask things like 'which year was the D&AD founded' and 'which type of printing is commonly used to print stamps'.

What other questions would you ask?

Month 8

Can you guess what the song is? Found via Russell who found it via Dan.

You're probably not aware but there's a team of around 42 (plus interns) working on Noisy Decent Graphics these days. It's time we all had some well deserved rest. So apart from the excellent Summer Of Design Books reviews (more on that later) that's it until Monday September 1st, when we shall be back.

Same Bat channel, same Bat place, same Bat fonts.

Meanwhile keep the Summer of Design Books reviews coming in, they'll still go live in August. They're always really popular and I love reading them. Find out how to post one here and someone from the team will approve them as quickly as possible.

Silicon Roundabout

The hottest place for the coolest cats at the moment is Silicon Roundabout.

I was fortunate enough to be in the Dopplr office the other day when Matt Biddulph had a eureka moment. "Silicon Roundabout!" he exclaimed. How we laughed.

But look! He's made a Google map of all the cool Boom 2.0 companies working off Silicon Roundabout and he's started a social networking site (that's what they do after all...) for Silicon Roundabout residents.

But the meme isn't just self propagating. The FT featured it on their blog and London's Evening Standard ran a story on page 11 today.

Silly season? You must be joking.

In other logo related news; whilst I was at Dopplr, Russell and I dropped off a present of some mugs.

Been meaning to do that for a while.

Exciting Publishing News

If you ask me Creative Review are doing a pretty good job of bridging the gap between print and online. Lots of good stuff from the magazine finds it's way onto the blog in an accessible fashion. There's enough of a gap between the print version so subscribers don't feel cheated, yet it still feels like fresh content. Good.

On that note, my ten years article is now on the Creative Review blog in full. Since the article was published lots of people have emailed over their ten years stories. It might be nice if people started adding these to the CR Blog.

In other exciting publishing news I think a cartography publication are going to reprint the map post.

Marti Pellow Sings The Hits Of Wet Wet Wet

Years ago I saw this album in Tescos. Or Asda. Or Iceland. I kept telling people about it. But I don't think anyone ever believed me. So yesterday I bought it.

Mad, eh?

An old colourful scrap book

I was going through some old stuff the other day and I found this scrap book. It's not revolutionary, it's not amazing, but it's colourful and I thought you'd like it. So I put it on Flickr.

Balloon thing: good or annoying?

So this balloon thing, good or annoying?

I've wasted a decent amount of time playing it today and I've had fun. I was even 5th at one point! But I can totally understand that it's very annoying seeing all those balloons when you arrive at this site.

On the internet some people seem a little confused by it (I was at first) and some people seem very annoyed with it all. What do you think?

I've made a list of what I think are good and bad points.

Good
It's genuinely fun when you start playing. It takes a while to get into it but once you do it's quite addictive. And I've never seen anything like it before.

It doesn't seem impossible. A lot of online competitions feel like you've got absolutely no chance of winning, this one doesn't feel like that.

The techie stuff is very, very clever. If you stop and think - what they're doing is pretty amazing and it's being done well and pretty slickly too.

It looks gorgeous. By that I mean the craft, the edges of the balloons, the little balloon loading bar, the detail on the strings - all fantastically well done.

Bad
There's no getting round the fact that basically it's annoying when you visit a site you love and all these balloons are there. I know you can click it off and I like it when I'm playing the game, but it's not hard to envisage people getting annoyed at this.

It's a little clunky. I mean a teeny, weeny, weeny bit clunky. Because what they're trying to pull off is so complex I can forgive a bit of clunkyness. But still, the clunk is there.

Sometimes it repeats that "your balloon has left this site" thing twice. I refer to my point above.

There's my site with a token on it!

I've had some decent traffic from playballoonacy.com today and I'm not writing this so that people from Orange or Poke come on and defend Ballloonacy.

I'd just like to know whether you, my beloved listeners, find the balloons annoying on this site. Should I take them off?

Cancelled

I'm terribly sorry but the Museum visit on Wednesday is canceled. Well, I'm not going, you of course can go without me. The was always one meeting that I'd have to cancel this for and that one meeting is on Wednesday morning.

I'll try and arrange for another time.

Here's my balloon

Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising

I've always wanted to go here, and so have loads of other people. But I (we) never quite get round to it. So how d'you fancy a group visit?

I was thinking Wednesday 25th June at 10am. Who's up for that? We'll all just meet outside, have a look around and then maybe go for a coffee or sommits afterwards? If you're interested drop your name in the comments.