Mega Open Day Madness

Some of the audience. Captured with the big camera.

We had a really big Open Day today. Really big. We used the big lecture theatre and I had to do my talking bit twice. Because the Open Day was so big.

Great fun though. Two very good audiences, thanks for coming along folks and I hope you found the day worth the trip. I took the proper camera with the wide angle lens, the tripod and the remote release to guarantee the quality of the pictures. Unfortunately I then left the lens on manual focus and so most of the pictures came out a bit blurred….. Oh well, I’ll know for next time.

There was even a jazz band in Staff House. Good stuff.

Update on Monday, March 15, 2010 at 08:03PM by Rob

It seems like at least two people who attended on Saturday have bought a copy of my book! Well done folks, let me know how you get on.

Imagine Cup Game Development Competition Entries Close on Monday

The title says it all really. I had got it into my head that we had until the end of the month to get our entries together. Cue some meetings today to take a look at what we have and plan a weekends of frantic coding…

If you want to get your entries in, head over to here to register and get involved.

Alice in Wonderland Movie Review

I like the bar in Cineworld

Alice in Wonderland the movie is a Tim Burton realisation of the story, as paid for by Disney. It doesn’t tell a Lewis Carol version but dials things on a bit to send Alice back down the rabbit hole in search of the Vorpal sword to kill the Jabberwocky or some such rubbish(very impressed with the spell checker here – it seems to know the word Jabberwocky).

The plot is actually a bit thin and you can almost hear them checking things off as we go through the film. Blue caterpillar – check,  Mad Hatter – check, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum – check, Cheshire Cat – check, all though we’ll call him Chess to make it seem a bit more modern.  Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter is a highlight, played as for Willy Wonka with a different hairstyle, no chocolate to speak of. And a hat.

I quite liked the film. It was in 3D, which made a difference to the price but didn’t add much else for me. I wonder if one day they might do an experiment, where they turn the 3D effect off for an audience and see if anyone notices. I doubt they will ever do this though, as they might find out that nobody does.

In fact, I’ll put on my gadget pundit hat at this point and say that I don’t think 3D will ever really catch on.  This is not just because, with my dodgy eyes, I can’t actually see in 3D, but rather because we don’t really need it. Sure there will be set pieces like Avatar where the effect is very well integrated into the production, but if you had said to me last night “Two quid off the price to watch in normal 2D” I would have taken the money like a shot.

3D in the home sounds even more unlikely. Having to put on dorky glasses to get the full benefit of Question Time in 3D seems a pretty fruitless exercise, and I’m not really up to spending a huge wodge of cash on upgrading my TVs again just for that. And apparently in the wrong hands the effect can make you more than a bit seasick. Maybe I’m wrong here, but bearing in mind that we haven’t even got High Definition TV yet (which is worth the money by the way) then I think 3D will be a long time coming.

Platform 2010 Free Games Conference at Hull

I’m going to be doing quite a lot of speaking in the next month or so. Good thing I know lots of jokes.……

Anyhoo, in a couple of weeks or so, on March 25th, I’ll be treading the boards at Platform 2010, which is a digital gaming event in Hull. It is at the spiffy new Hull Truck theatre and they have some really good speakers lined up. And me.

It is free to attend, so if you are in the neighbourhood and want to take part you should head over to here and register your interest via the “Contact Us” link.

http://www.platform2010.co.uk/index.html

…so I built a centrifuge to find out

This post and video is amazing. I don’t think many people would build a centrifuge in their living room just to find out if a lava lamp would work on Jupiter.