Oh, and Rex Crowle’s delightful doodled overhead projector acetates. Indeed, the LittleBigPlanet graphic artist rather led the identity of the event, not only creating the graphics for Playful’s website, but those for a newsprint programme, which also contained various extra bits and pieces to the day’s events, including a couple of pieces by games writer Jim Rossignol and a themed crossword. For his efforts, Crowle was rewarded with a cake decorated as his knight’s helmet logo, and he also delivered the most charming talk of the day, in which he explained how he got to where he is today. It was all down to games, you see – messing around with clip art in Deluxe Paint on Amiga was a direct precursor to LBP’s cut-up visual style.
Crowle’s love of collaboration and interaction with his audience through LBP was mirrored by Tim Wright, a writer and ‘cross-platform media producer’ who spent this summer tracing the route of Kidnapped’s main character, David Balfour, from the island of Mull to Edinburgh. Uploading videos of readings and blogging it as he went, Wright quickly found the audience reaction changing the project.
Audience reaction is a huge part, too, of tech artist Chris O’Shea’s work. Inspired by a mixture of model villages and Lionhead’s Black And White, he created Hand From Above, a video installation for the high street in which a live feed of the street is interrupted by a giant hand that tickles, flicks and picks up members of the public. He also created Audience, a room full of mirrors that track people as they pass by, and Air Guitar Championship, which uses similar technology to Natal’s to lend sound air guitar performances in real time. His videos of each project notably concentrated on the reactions of the people experiencing them.
A second major theme of the day was games’ power to change people’s behaviour. Branding agency Naked Communications’ Katy Lindemann’s presentation was on how game mechanics can do just this, from Chore Wars to Fiat’s Eco Drive. “Advertising can only go so far,” she said. “Playful experiences can go so much further.” Further evidence came with what turned out to be a rather popular project for the day, Volkswagen’s initiative to turn steps leading out of a Stockholm metro station into piano keys. It reportedly led to 66 per cent of users choosing the stairs over the adjoining escalator.
Molly Ränge, from Stockholm-based agency Fabel, had a similar view, showing off such projects as Parfyme’s Harbour Laboratory, in which it used play as a way of discovering how Copenhagen’s residents thought the harbour should be developed. Designers of play wield great power, she said.
Most speakers, however, referenced stories and narrative. Robin Burkinshaw, a game design student and the author of blog Alice and Kev, which traces the affecting story of two homeless characters in The Sims 3, was interviewed by Channel 4 Education’s Matt Locke about the project and how the game supported the close interpretations he made about the two characters’ actions. At the end, Burkinshaw explained how he intended to design a game – Locke offered a meeting to discuss whether it could be made for Channel 4.