The 13 Basic Principals of Game Design
I did not come up with these myself, you have Matt Allmer of EA to thank for that. Reading them over they make sense when you read them, but it is easy to see how they can get lost in the shuffle. From a game critiquing standpoint you can articulate why something seems off or doesn’t work. When working on a game it is easy to say that this feels boring and unengaging, or there is something wrong here I feel confused or it could simply be a case of nagging little man in the back of your mind reminding you that you are playing a video game and are not being sucked into the experience. Yes, you know you are playing one, but you do not want to know that while you are playing it. In these cases it is sometimes hard to know what to fix or even where to look. These principals I don’t think are the end all be all to good game design, but with creativity there has to be a level of structure.
Either way its a good read over at gamasutra. Read it here.
Kindle 2: The unboxing, part 2
So yesterday, I posted something on the Kindle 2’s packaging. Unfortunately, as it was a gift I could do the actual unboxing, but it is revealed today.
Removing the ultra light box from its paper slip, the container is a simple molded carton stamped with the product name. Simple enough. No excess use of material, no fancy glossy paper, all recyclable material to be environmentally friendly.
The Kindle 2 has a nice and simple keyboard, with pleasing “round button” tactile quality that didn’t exist in on the first keyboard. It also comes without the awkward shape of the first Kindle, finished in back with a sleek brushed metal.
And finally after removing the Amazon Kindle, one would then begin to reap the benefits of the ebook reader with its beautiful free web access… an attractive quality for even those who don’t do the ebook thing.
[Image from http://xkcd.com/548/]
The Kindle 2 can be found at Amazon here.
From The Shooting Range
These little personalities are part of Rachel Pfeffer’s Bullet Buddies collection. Each Bullet Buddy is unique labored over until it obtains its own form and expression. They have all been transformed from empty bullet shells, abandoned at shooting ranges, into quite the collection of characters. They are all made by hand, and are an interesting way of recycling the bullet shells into collectable items, pendants, or key chains, and can be personalized by the artist. I suppose one could consider this a sustainable solution to all those discarded bullet shells, a step in the direction of the modifying and repurposing concepts found in the English Retreads tire handbags or Droog Rag Chair. In any case, creator Rachel Pfeffer has taken on the task of recycling and giving new life to these empty bullet shells in the creative spirit.
More bullet buddies can be found on the artist’s own website at http://www.rachelpfeffer.com/bullets.html and on Etsy.
[ Images from http://www.rachelpfeffer.com/bullets.html ]
Solar Sailing Super-Yachts
Super-yachts owned by super-billionaires aren’t usually thought of as being environmentally friendly. They are, first and foremost, symbols of in-your-face wealth, (and, in some cases, possibly signs of having to compensate for something.) But a new interest in making sea transportation energy efficient has been emerging.
CNN’s article, “Solar sails could turn super-yachts green”, points out how Solar Sailor, an energy company based in Sydney, is working towards creating fin-like solar “sails” for large boats, acting as a sail but also as a large, energy-generating solar panel, minimizing fuel consumption.
Though not the greatest looking things in the world, the environmental benefits of a large solar-powered watercraft, ships, and shipping vessels are enormous.
A recent airing of Man-Made, on the National Geographic Channel, about the engineering that went into building the Queen Mary 2 (http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/man-made/3548/Overview#tab-Overview) pointed out the massive amounts of energy needed to not only put the ship into motion, but to keep everything on board functional. Maybe a future Queen Mary 3 could benefit from some solar power?
The CNN article can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/SPORT/11/04/solar.sails/index.html
[Images from CNN and Solar Sailor]
Fashionable Fitness: Stella McCartney’s New Adidas Line
Stella McCartney opened up the gym for London fashion week, complete with Olympians, to display her new collection of Adidas sportswear. Her winter collection for 2008 is currently available at Adidas, but her sustainable spring 2009 collection debuted this week in London. And what better way to show off sportswear than seeing it in action on some of the best athletes in the world? The athlete-models performed wearing the new spring line in a sleek and highly modernized “health club” environment.
Photos: http://nymag.com/fashion/fashionshows/2009/spring/main/europe/womenrunway/adidas/
More information can be found in this article by The Canadian Press: http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jR22KXmQwL_daQUyV3Q9yjN5Zu6g
Sustainable Design, Going Green the Old Fashioned Way
Recently I have been in the mood to buy a bike, not anything fancy mind you, but a good plain old fashioned bicycle. However, knowing myself, I would use it for the first few days, and if the bike gets lucky maybe even a week before I forget about it or just consider it too much trouble. (Living on campus with a bicycle just doesn’t really make sense in the end.) Yet it is good to know, that if i do decide to give into my impulsive nature and buy a bike, it will have a good home. Not with me of course but with a bit of luck at this little place I discovered.
Amazing I thought to myself, what a great idea to turn something from junk to Design Motif. Although their website and their ordering information may be a little hard to use and somewhat inconvienent, for any lover of Modern Art and/or Bikes be it motorcycle or bicycle, these pieces are a must have. The look turns out to be so modern and edgy.
A really great aspect of this business is the fact that they recycle the materials instead of throwing them on the scrap heap. It is a great way to really rethink and reuse our everyday items. It definitely makes me wonder about other material goods I may throw away and what other uses I could just have for them.
So in conclusion, if you want to turn your bike into a rocking chair, check out Bikefurniture.com.
Sustainable Cardboard Toilet?
I am definitely not a tree hugger in any shape or manner. Perhaps my girlfriend is; which would explain her love for animals and plants above human life, but that’s the closest you’ll catch me to the eco-love business that’s been floating around. I should also say that I understand the sheer importance of sustainability and ethical design in today’s rapidly degrading world (I still won’t give up my Dodge Daytona Turbo for an electric car) which leads me to the actual point of this blog post: Sustainable Cardboard Toilets.
Now you must be thinking. Fred, what the hell are you going on about? Has all of your unnatural McDonald’s gone to your head? I assure you it has not. Fist and foremost, let me give you the rundown on how I came across this miraculous device. My girlfriend dropped me a link to this thing called TreeHugger. Now I was thinking: Has she finally gone over the eco-loving edge? But as it turned out. She hadn’t. TreeHugger was in fact an on point and intellectual blog about environmental stability and sustainability and how to make our lives more ‘Green’. Below is a short quip from TreeHugger about who they are and what they do:
TreeHugger is the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, we strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information. At TreeHugger we know that variety is the spice of life, so you can find all you need to go green in our up to the minute blog, weekly and daily newsletters, weekly video segments, weekly radio show and our user-generated blog, Hugg. We also extend our expertise to companies looking for a little green guidance. Past clients include Domino, Sundance Channel and House & Garden.
Well I have to say, with a pagerank of 8; it’s pretty obvious they’re setting the bar for Green Blogs and they’ve got something good going for themselves. Now what had my attention from the get-go was something affectionately named “The ShitBox” created by Richard Whatron. Below is a description by him of the box:
“lightweight portable cardboard toilet, made specifically for outdoor use. The concept is simple the box pops up from its convenient 14” flat pack to a rigid reusable box, you pop in a degradable poo bag, do you business, seal and dispose of (responsibly of course!), and off you go.”
The Water Cube: Bubble Wrap Can Be Sustainable
China, especially when looking at its major cities, isn’t exactly the model student when it comes to taking care of the environment (though China isn’t really entirely to blame). Recent construction for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games meant increased air pollution for the residents of Beijing especially, but when the dust settled, an interest in sustainability emerged in the form of the GreenPIX Wall, and, most popular, the new National Aquatics Center, also known as the Water Cube.
A recent National Geographic special on the new buildings for the Olympic Games brought attention to the Water Cube’s unique characteristics: from new building materials to energy efficiency. Since the recent rise in environmental awareness, it seems China’s goal was give this year’s Olympics a “green” boost, evident also in their opening ceremony’s global warming commentary.
In summary, the Water Cube’s outer structure is composed of a super strong plastic material called ETFE (or Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, which is a mouthful). Though it’s been used before, this is the first time so much ETFE has been used as one of the primary building materials (along with a maze of steel bars) for such a large building. Aside from the material allowing the “bubble wrap” aesthetic to be possible, a building of primarily ETFE has several plus sides: it is lightweight, flexible (helpful during earthquakes), can be easily repaired, super strong, puts out it’s own fires, and creates a greenhouse effect for the building, heating it naturally during the winter, minimizing energy costs.
Of course the other side of the heat-trapping capabilities is the overheating during the summer, which would obviously balance out the energy saved. As a solution, the ETFE on the Water Cube is covered in a pattern of opaque, reflective dots. The dots reflect sunlight, while still allowing a large amount of light into the building, thus easing the worry of too much heat during the summer months
Different weight dots control whether more or less heat enters through the plastic, and as each bubble was “manufactured”, and inflated separately, bubbles of different dot weight could be strategically placed in certain locations.
The building is also designed to collect and use rainwater. However, despite all these wonderful “green” qualities, one still can’t be certain whether or not the building fulfills all of it’s promises to the degree at which it is being advertised, much like any other green product or design. Supposing we give the Water Cube the benefit of the doubt, let’s hope that China and other nations continue to pursue these environmentally friendly ideas.
Images from:
http://en.beijing2008.cn/46/39/WaterCube.shtml
and
Zero Energy: The GreenPIX Wall
Quick Facts:
- The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art
- Features largest color LED display in the world.
- First photovoltaic system with glass curtain
- Greenpix behaves like an organic system, absorbing solar energy during the day and then generating light from the same power that evening
Completely aside the fact that there is no such thing as ‘zero energy’; the GreenPIX wall comes close enough to have earned its title. The wall is a sustainable design project close to where the Olympic games are being held tomorrow. Below is a short description as given by the design group about the wall:
“GreenPix is a groundbreaking project applying sustainable and digital media technology to the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympic Games. Featuring the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle
The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date. The building will open to the public on June 24, 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists from China, Europe and the US.”
Demand Responsible Action by Architects.
From: http://davidszondy.com
My father, an amazing designer though we never talk about the subject together, regularly subscribes to Metropolis magazine: a magazine dedicated to all forms of architecture design from interior design to environmental design. For the longest time I didn’t even bother to read the stacks upon stacks of magazines until one day I decided to give one to my girlfriend. When she finally returned it, there were pink sticky notes all over it for things she found of interest. This brought me to read through the magazine and I found myself going through Metropolis magazine after magazine. One in particular, caught my eye. I tend to shy away from architecture exhibitis, and any article on housing projects because architects tend to never take into the social demographics of the areas they plan for. I’m chiefly referring to urban planning and development; many a socially conscious architect will tell you that they are designed almost in the same way as prisons. All of the “new trends” in urban design are great, but considering the price tag that people would put on the home, you’re essentially kicking out the previous neighborhood and putting in a new one. The greatest example I found when walking home one day in NYC, I came across a series of banners that said “Get ready, the old neighborhood is gone and a new one is coming in. Buy your apartments today starting at 300k”. It’s easy to see why a sign like that would irk a few people. But this leads me onto the article I found in the Metropolis Magazine: “Wanted: People’s Architects: The American Institute of Architects challenges its members to improve the built environment for all. Is the profession prepared to respond?”
The intelligent, insightful, and on point author Susan S. Szenasy talks about this very subject, though in a considerably more eloquent manner than myself. “Consequently, the built environment requires a massive overhaul, and it could use an infusion of creative ideas. Housing—and all the supportive services that add richness to life, including schools, cultural institutions, parks, stores, and transit—calls for many imaginative proposals for the many different ways we want to live.” (http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=3451)
At this moment in time there exists little correspondence between architecture in relation to society and the environment and Susan calls upon Architects to rethink their design process and introduce new ideas into the design stream that would provide a better built environment for all of us. I truly again with Susan, and I hope that architects around the world do too.
