Platform 2013 is here!

I've just got back from experiencing the various delights of Platform 2013, the biggest gaming convention ever to hit Hull, and it's been pretty awesome fun.

Platform has pretty much taken over Hull City Centre today and tomorrow, being in force in the City Hall, Guildhall, Studio School, and Ferens Art Gallery.  In the City Centre the main gaming focus is taking place, with a mixture of games developers and gaming-related firms in prescence.  It was great to see the Multiplay guys commentating on some fantastic Hunger Games Minecraft and Ace of Spades games.

One of the indie developers there, Beard Bandit, was on hand to feature the first-ever public showing of their new game, Comet Chaos.  It harks back a little to Missile Command, albeit with far better gameplay, graphics, and insane powerups - swopping your missiles for a laser is ridiculous fun!  And watching the stellar chunks bounce off a handy shield is very satisfying.

Comet Chaos - don't be put off by my low resolution picture - I just need a new camera!

One of the chaps from Beard Bandit does an interview while his colleague gets the important job of "playing the game so the interview has it in shot, whilst sitting on the floor behind a table to keep out of the shot himself"

Elsewhere, in the Guildhall, two rooms are set up with all kinds of retro gaming computers and consoles available, from Acorns and BBC Micros, through Ataris and Sega Master Systems.  They only had one Spectrum but it was a +3 - oh how I wanted a ZX Spectrum +3 when I was a kid!  I tried various games, and reminded myself just how bad I am at them.  Today's games are a lot easier, you can pause them and save them and go back whenever you want, and if you die you restart just before where you died... I remember the family playing one game for a month, and that meant that the Spectrum stayed on for the month.  Amazing that the power supply didn't burst into flames really, knowing how hot they got!

BBC Micros.  At least they didn't have any of those nasty Commodores around.

I also popped over to Ferens Art Gallery to see what was going on there, as I sauntered in a Platform volunteer said "are you here for Platform?", I answered in the affirmative and within twenty seconds found myself in a lecture hall, with no idea of who was speaking or what about.  Fortunately the speaker was the very impressive AJ Grand-Scrutton who gave a fantastic talk about his experiences of working in the games industry.

Special mention must be made to Hugh of Let There Be Light Productions - great to finally speak to you in person!  And if he reads this, hi to Nana, I'd be interested in challenging you to a chair-breaking contest sometime, I understand you're quite an expert at it!

All in all a very entertaining day!

Not LANning, and Not a Real Race!

Just popped on the PC for a few minutes - it's my son's birthday tomorrow and I've spent the evening blowing up balloons, wrapping presents and the like ready for the morning.

My partner and I also went to a training course run by the Speech & Language Therapy Service within Humber NHS this evening to help us in developing the little ones speech, it was really good and I'm looking forward to the next session.

Well, Dreamhack, basically the worlds biggest LAN party, in Sweden, has just ended.

And in a handful of days, the latest i-series, i47, the biggest LAN party in the UK, will be beginning.

I am not going to either.

I'm not bitter.

Honest.

Anyway, the ace thing I wanted to point out today is this website - http://www.ridiculo.us/

They do ridiculous things (surprise surprise) and currently what they're doing is faking a marathon.

Basically the way it works is this:

You donate some money to them via their Kickstarter page (Kickstarter is another fantastic thing by the way for people to raise money for their project, whatever it is), you get a pack of stuff like a sticker to put on your t-shirt with a number on it, you then post on your Facebook all about the race - that you're gearing up for the race, etc - get a photo of yourself running by a road somewhere, and get that on Facebook - and when the race ends, you'll also go up on their website with a finishing time and everything.

It's just like taking part in a marathon. Except for the getting tired bit.

Ace!

I accept the embarrassment.

Something that I did in my past keeps coming back to remind me of how...odd... I can be.  So to deal with the various people thinking that they can embarrass me by referring to it, I decided to blog about it.

About 4 years back now I went to i36, one of the LAN parties organised by Multiplay.  Had a great time (as I always have done at an i-series, get down there)

Now at the opening ceremony, they were dishing out free stuff, t-shirts, lanyards, the usual stuff.

Plus some of these:

These is a Sennheiser PC 350 headset.  A very nice piece of kit, great for gaming, an all round excellent headset.

And not a cheap one.  Even today you'll do well to pick up a pair for less than £100.

Anyway, they threw one set into the crowd, and kept the second back to do something with at the end.

I thought to myself   They're going to make someone do something embarrassing on stage, then give them the headset.

I kind of have an objective when I go to i-series.  The tickets to go cost about £95 now (less if you book early) so I kind of like to try to get free stuff to the same value or more.  This sounds tricky but bearing in mind at another one I also won a Intel Quad-Core processor which I then sold for about £150, it's surprisingly possible if you take part in the various competitions and games (which I always think forms part of the festival experience anyway)

So, I made sure I got my hand up first.

And went on stage.

And did this.

For those unaware, I was attempting to replicate the female night-elf dance from World of Warcraft.  I'm aware that I missed a chunk of it out (you can see it here) and obviously wasn't that good, but at least the crowd (and many people who have seen it on YouTube since - I never thought about it being recorded!) got a good laugh.

Surprisingly to me, I got a lot of positive feedback afterwards, from people impressed that I was willing to do it.

The other thing I get is people asking for a repeat - I always say that if they're willing to give me another £100+ headset for a minutes work I'll consider it!

Am I pleased that I did it?  Ultimately, I guess so.  We're on this planet for such a short time (where we go from here we all have our own views on) that shouldn't we really make the most of it?  I'd rather be considered weird than boring.

And just to put up some pictures of other people doing stuff...

Here's a photo of my dad playing Just Dance 3 on the Nintendo Wii.  With his first attempt ever using a Wii, and using the controller with his other hand (he's left handed) he still did better than me.

And here's my son controlling the touchscreen on my tablet with his nose.

Work Related For Once... and then not

Got home about an hour ago as this evening I've been on G4C duty.

It's actually been really good - this evening I met with the Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Branch of the Association for Project Management to discuss G4C and how we can work more with the APM.  The meeting was really positive, but also I was very impressed with the branch meeting and how much emphasis was placed on students and getting them involved.  As G4C is all about the future of the construction industry I really do see students as being part of our key audience.

Just straying onto the topic of construction best practice, the 2012 Yorkshire & Humber Construction Best Practice Awards are open for submissions.  There's a few new categories this year so do check out the categories, if you have not applied before it might be that there's something for you this year.  Details are on the website at http://www.constructionsectornetwork.org/best-practice/best-practice-awards-2012/ - do be aware that although the website says the submission deadline is Friday 24th August, I've had email notification (as well as some tweets) saying that the deadline is now 5pm on Friday September 14th, so you've got plenty of time to think about your submissions and get them in.  The awards dinner is due to be held on October 12th and promises to be a good night.

I'm starting to relax now as I'm not back in the office until next Wednesday now - I've got a teleconference in the morning to talk about some work around intelligent clients that G4C is involved in, that should be interesting and I'm hoping to be able to provide some good input.

Moving away from work I'm aware that right now something like 3,000 gamers are thinking about (if not already done) packing up tents, sleeping bags, snacks, drinks, and their PC, to head down to Telford for insomnia46, the massive gaming festival that kicks off this weekend.

For those that don't know what a gaming festival is, essentially it consists of two elements.  Firstly, many many stands from various manufacturers of gaming-related stuff, be it computer builders, component suppliers, snack providers, game retailers, you want it (and it relates to computer gaming) it'll be there.  Lots of competitions and fun activities.

Secondly, a huge room (or rooms) of rows and rows and rows of tables and chairs populated by gamers hooked up to the Internet for a long weekend session of gaming.  There is various tournaments as well, with the best gamers competing for various cash prizes with somewhere in the region of £30,000 up for grabs.

It's really hard to explain to non-gamers because they say "But can't you just play at home?  I mean it's the Internet, why go somewhere to go in the Internet?".  But firstly, there's a lot of LAN gaming done (a local network as opposed to going on the Internet) which you can't necessarily do at home - unless you have several PCs hooked up to a home network.  Secondly, the whole festival vibe is unreal.  Everyone there is a gamer.  Everyone.  You become part of a mass of geeky, fun loving, gaming people who have the freedom to wear crazy stuff and live life.  Last time I was there one of our PCs wasn't working, so I put a message on the forum asking for advice - within ten minutes a guy in a leopard suit wandered up and fixed it (the leopard suit was really handy for tracking him down to deliver beer as thanks too).  It's just that random vibe that anything can (and does) happen.  Social barriers break down because although you might not know anyone, you're all gamers.  You can all admire someone's flashy case with UV lights and watercooling.  You can get pizza delivered to your desk (oh yeah).  And then you make friends because you can't finish your pizza, so you shout out "who wants pizza?" and someone turns round to you and starts chatting.  You can, for a weekend, not feel guilty about gaming because that's what you're there for.

I love i-series.  Last time I went was last August, as you can imagine it's trickier to disappear for a long weekend when childcare is an issue so I can't see us making it there this year (it's too late for August and I can't see me getting the cash together for the November one) but hopefully next year I'll escape for a few days.

For more info check the website - http://www.multiplay.co.uk/