From the highs of finally releasing the Chromaroma Osyter card game to the lows of killing off Mercutio in a Twitter-adapted version of Romeo and Juliet, Mudlark's managing director Toby Barnes has had a very busy year. And 2011 is not about to get any quieter.
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• What will 2010 be remembered for?
"This year we finally moved beyond a screen, or at least made using the screen more interesting.
"Microsoft releases Kinect - a controllerless gaming peripherial, so basically a £2,000 camera and software kit with a USB plug for £150, and the most engaging and demanding games ever made. When the drivers were open sourced and 'leaked' it became the new must-hack toy of the year (see the Kinect Flying Robot of Death, for one). 2011 will definitely see a rethink of which of these are good and useful, and which aren't.
"Apple launched the iPad. My back rejoices; finally trips back and forth to London don't feel like a hike with a five-stone person on my back. A battery that lasts all day, connectivity that just works, and enough distractions to keep me from work (favourite apps have included MultiPong, Kindle (my first ebook experience, and one that has revolutionised my brand new book purchases), Spotify (not really an iPad app but still amazing on the move) and the stunning Korg app (I have returned to making awful space drone tunes). The kids and I have also found a device where we can all play games together in one room again.
"Mudlark released Chromaroma, a game that exists in your head. Swiping your Oyster card unlocks points, missions and achievements, but essentially it is a game you need to imagine you are playing.
"We got to play with a number of second screen interfaces that worked with television content, rather than competing for eyeballs. Starling was designed by Kevin Slavin and a team of game designers I have high hopes for, and, as a friend said to me, 'if we were to start another business it would be in connected TV apps'.
All our talk of social connectivity really came into play this year, with travel news being far more accurate, localised and timely on Twitter, to discussion and action on Wikileaks being mobilised across social networks and the return of student protests again organised through free cloud-based tools.
"And just in time for any review of 2010, Somethin' Else releases an unbelievably good iPhone horror game - a game that has no visuals. Designed by some of London's top notch games design talent, Papa Sangre uses 3D sound in a game of blind hide and seek. Not only does this game make you jump out of your seat, but it forces the player to concentrate more than many console games."
• What was your best and worst moment?
"Bruce Sterling wrote about our work with Transport for London on Chromaroma. I only need recognition by William Gibson and I can die happy.
Photo by tobybarnes on Flickr. Some rights reserved
"The other great moment was at Playful 2010 - I was rehearsing a speech to our team that I had written that 'apologised' for opening pandora's box over the whole gamification thing; in 2008 various speakers including Tom Armitage, Iain Tait, Philip Tripenbach and myself had all done talks about the power of gaming. Our fucking company strapline is 'making life playable'. But many people took this at face value and didn't move beyond what Margaret Robertson calls 'pointification'.
"This year I wanted us to look again at those terms, and at other gaming verbs that we felt were important, like pretending, exploring, discovering. When I took to the stage I was nervous that I'd be the lone voice holding back a tide of anger. Instead, the audience were totally behind me, and what followed were 16 other speakers who not only agreed but helped us look beyond the adding of leaderboards as a way to gamify a website.
Photo by tobybarnes on Flickr. Some rights reserved
"At the beginning of the year when I said I wanted to unlock some of TFL's data, and 'give back' data that people create as data shadows, Tom Loosemore said "you will be ******* lucky". Twelve months on, and not only have TFL released API's for much of their service information, they have moved to provide data for developers to make their own useful apps. That change is amazing in 12 months; a large victorian steam-driven public sector organisation completely changing direction is like the QE2 on jet fuel. Well done TFL and Chris MacLeod, and to Emer Colman at the GLA."
"This year we worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company on a modern production of Romeo and Juliet with actors using social media tools such as Twitter and YouTube to tell their personal stories. My darkest moment of the year was when we gave the green light to kill one of our characters, because we wanted to know how people felt when someone they followed on Twitter died. Someone they knew that was fictional, but still cared for, someone they knew might respond to their messages, someone who clearly was watching X Factor and the general election - and someone who they might be able to save. People did try and save him, and though he was a character most knew had to die there was the hash tag campaign #savemercutio. In the end Mercutio took 48 hours to die, like a scene from Hancock's Half Hour."
• What's your hot tip for 2011?
"I hope 2011 will continue the trend for 'glance-able media'. This year we've seen the Really Interesting Group's DEXTR project (a Twitter client for a second screen) and Romance Has Lived Too Long Upon This River (a single-serving web page that tells you how high the tide is at London Bridge: explicitly close up, but also, roughly, at a glance) and Berg's work for Dentsu.
"This year in the studio we've been looking at how to augment paper. From receipts, and tickets (inspired by another BERG video and the output from the Gowalla app) to atlases and maps. How can an iPad or an iPhone become an interactive lens or macroscope over something printed or written down? How can simple physical outputs be connected to the net and handheld devices like my iphone?
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"I do hope we find new ways for new work to be supported. The BBC seems to be entrenching itself in the late 80's, and Channel 4 - once the bastion of everything different, exciting and innovative - seems to be reverting back to a television-centric model of not rocking the boat. In the last 30 days we have seen the amazing and daring work of 4ip (Papa Sangre, Chromaroma and Fitfu) starting to be released to critical and commercial success just as the department has been shut down. A channel who over the last few years started to change the face of broadcast and how public service education services may look, is now starting to look far more conservative.
"For the last three years I've been saying that branded content will find its feet - content that is truly useful, fun or engaging. And with brands still struggling to be heard over the noise of the social chattering, this again is the year where interesting products well be developed. Agencies have started to pull people from other industries together, creative technologists are being allowed to play with brands, and planners are making things, things that can grow, and things that will teach the industry how to work and play with us, not shout at us."
From TechCrunch
From GigaOM
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