Ooh it’s been a while since I last blogged. Much news at this end (more of that later). I’m off on holiday for two weeks where I will be blissfully offline, then updates and news-a-plenty will resume. However, in the mean time, the lovely and very talented John Willshire is working on a very exciting project with Cadbury called pocketgame, to encourage lots of people to have fun making games. Which is a bloody cracking thing in my book. He very kindly asked me if I would join some very smart and generally awesome people on the pocketgame judging panel, which I’m dead chuffed about.
We’re contributing over at the pocketgame blog, so crossposted below is my latest post all about social games:
Hello pocketgamers. Like my esteemed colleague Mark Earls, I’m definitely not a game designer. Or a game expert. Though I love games, gaming and most of all, plain and simple play. Stuff that’s just fun to do.
Stuff that’s fun to do together. Lots of games are great fun by yourself, no question, but playing with other people adds a whole other dimension.
Games have always been a social activity – and it’s awesome that more and more digital (console, mobile, computer, whatever device you choose to play on) games are becoming increasingly social, allowing you to play with – or against – both friends and strangers.
The term ‘social games’ has come to refer to social-networked-enabled web-based games, like Farmville or Scrabulous – which are absolutely ace, but it’s a bit of a shame to think of such a narrow meaning. Any game you play with other people is a social game – such as those illustrated in this fantastic infographic illustrating the history of social games from game designer Jon Radoff
And of course, you’ll notice when you look at this image that loads of these games aren’t ones that require loads of technology. They’re real life games, played with real physical things, with real physical people. And there’s something pretty magical about playing with your mates right there and then, together. Sure, you can all be sitting in the same room playing Xbox, and that’s ace. But it’s also pretty ace to be able to play a casual, pick-up game, that doesn’t require a shedload of specialist equipment, something you can just pick and play with, for that spontaneous moment of fun.
And wouldn’t it be just brilliant if that something was something you could, say, fit in your pocket…
I’m really excited about seeing what you all come up with. Let’s play!
Blogging: Let’s Play! http://bit.ly/9ZZ8E0
This comment was originally posted on Twitter