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.

Watermarks

Lovely, lovely project in Bristol called Watermarks. Needs little explanation, ticks a lot of boxes. Very simple. Very good. Cheers drive.

Play Small

I've noticed something recently; city kids play differently to country kids.

Picture taken by Russell. Usual rules apply.

This isn't Mumsnet so we'll skip over the societal aspects of that observation. What I mean is that city kids seem to play within a small self defined boundary. They are happy to play smaller.

I guess we can generalise and assume this is because they live in smaller spaces. But I don't just mean smaller houses, I mean the whole area they have available to play in is smaller. If they are lucky enough to have a garden, it's a small garden.

Everywhere they go, the space available to play in is smaller. If they eat out, they are probably more used to small coffee shops and restaurants. The Pizza Express on Great Portland St is smaller than the Pizza Express at Meadow Hall. So they learn to play smaller.

This brilliant photo was taken by Matt. Usual rules apply.

When I was doing A Level Art my Mum used to organise a 100 mile charity bike ride. At the bike ride one year I made a series of teeny weeny sketches. A montage of the whole day, no bigger than a postage stamp, in my sketch book. It was the best bit of work I'd done all year.

When I showed it to my Art teacher he encouraged me to make it in to a big A3(ish) size canvas. You know, in that A Level art way. I spent a few weeks scaling the sketch up. And it was shit. I thought I still had the picture but I can't find it anywhere... sorry.

When it was small, it was the best bit of work I'd done all year. When it was big, it was shit.

Working at a really small scale is something you'll be familiar with if you've been lucky enough to have done an Art Foundation course. Wil Freehorn is a master at this. Take a look at his business cards.

Picture taken from Wil Freehorn. Usual rules apply.

Gorgeous, aren't they? Wil is an expert at working with this scale. Interestingly, it's not just the scale that makes these images so great, it's also the speed. The quick, light touch. The immediacy of his work is exhilarating. Here's some slightly bigger (but still small) sketches made smaller.

Picture taken from Wil Freehorn. Usual rules apply.

They're great too aren't they?

It's not just the physically small that I find interesting. It's small ideas too. Here's a wonderful small idea featured on innocent's blog.

Isn't that great? A small, simple, quick, straight forward, good idea.

One thing that really brings home Play Small to me is iPhone web pages.

Most people would assume that a mobile web page is a compromise. Not as good or as rich as the main page. The thing is, more and more I'm finding I like the mobile pages better than the main pages.

 Stripped of all superfluous content and navigation, devoid of over elobarate graphics, they're like raw 'what I came here for' in one handy pocket sized rectangle.

I now find myself opting for the small version even when the full sized is next to me on the laptop. I prefer the BBC News small. I prefer Typepad small. Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Financial Times, Telegraph - I prefer them all small.

These aren't iPhone apps. These are web pages designed for the iPhone.

Dopplr is pretty much the only site where the big version works just as well on the small screen, I'd even say it was better than the mobile version. Dopplr is very well designed and it's also constructed around a very strict grid and I suspect this is why it works so well small.

The full Dopplr site is on the left, the mobile Dopplr site is on the right.

It's a design truth that it's better to design something with restrictions. And it maybe that size is just another restriction, but I think it's more than that. Just like Wil's sketches feel light and quick, so do iPhone web pages. Partly because they are quicker (quicker to load etc) but partly because they're demanding less of my attention. I can get to where I want to go much, much quicker.

Make no mistake, we're currently leaving the era of Baroque brands and moving into a new period of austerity in communication. And as we move towards Depression 2.0 maybe Play Small will become a vital tool for all designers across all forms of media.

Tangible Digital Clock

I went to the brand new St Pancras station the other day. It really is a lovely place. What struck me most was the graphic design of the station clock.

The original St Pancras clock was made by a company called Dent who also made the clock for Big Ben. This was sold to an American for £250 in the 1970s. Workmen dropped it during its removal and an engine driver bagged up the bits, which were crucial in making an exact replica for the new station.

The clock itself is a lovely thing, all slate and gold leaf. It's quite dynamic and graphic with all those diamond shapes. But what I really liked was how they've used the clock, digitally, throughout the station.




Here it is on the interactive information boards. They didn't have to do that, but it's a nice stylish little touch. It also adds a slight classy feel to those otherwise fairly soulless interactive boards. It helps to slow down the feel of the constantly changing information.



And here it is again on the announcement board thing. Good stuff.

That my friends is what we call Tangible Digital. Sort of.