February Half term ran from Saturday 15th to the 23rd at the V&A. This year, they decided to theme the half term events around my residency and games.
One of the activities was a live, interactive performance, which was inspired by my game development. In the performance, a parent and their two children had been sucked into the Strawberry Thief fabric at the V&A and turned into thrushes. The children in the audience had to help the parent break the curse by collecting strawberries and following an on screen map. I think the performance was a huge success, as it incorporated lots of little game elements (collecting, timed quests, following maps, decision-making etc ) into a show that the children engaged with and enjoyed. The meetings for this show were early in my residency, so there are elements of my idea to look at the animals in the British Galleries. For example, I looked at vases with lizard designs on them, and this was turned into a game in the performance.
One of the activities was a live, interactive performance, which was inspired by my game development. In the performance, a parent and their two children had been sucked into the Strawberry Thief fabric at the V&A and turned into thrushes. The children in the audience had to help the parent break the curse by collecting strawberries and following an on screen map. I think the performance was a huge success, as it incorporated lots of little game elements (collecting, timed quests, following maps, decision-making etc ) into a show that the children engaged with and enjoyed. The meetings for this show were early in my residency, so there are elements of my idea to look at the animals in the British Galleries. For example, I looked at vases with lizard designs on them, and this was turned into a game in the performance.
During this week, I also decided to put on extra open studios so that the public could chat to me and see the Strawberry Thief game I'm working on. The numbers for these sessions were more than any I've had before and so I'm happy that many people got to see my developments.
My prototype Strawberry Thief game is currently like an arcade game, where there is no way to win and you just have to get a high score. Rather than putting in a virtual scoreboard for the event, we thought it would be a good idea to have a paper one like we had before at the museum of childhood.
All of the game playing took place in the corridor outside of my studio, where I also had a NES set up and a few gameboys (to draw attention to my studio). I then had my studio set up to talk to people about my development process. Many parents ask me how their children can start making games now, so I often show then programs like Scratch, Game Maker and Game Salad.
My prototype Strawberry Thief game is currently like an arcade game, where there is no way to win and you just have to get a high score. Rather than putting in a virtual scoreboard for the event, we thought it would be a good idea to have a paper one like we had before at the museum of childhood.
All of the game playing took place in the corridor outside of my studio, where I also had a NES set up and a few gameboys (to draw attention to my studio). I then had my studio set up to talk to people about my development process. Many parents ask me how their children can start making games now, so I often show then programs like Scratch, Game Maker and Game Salad.
I also got some badges and stickers made for the event that children could take away for free, displaying my logo and game background.
Other activities included making your own tops trumps style card game based on objects in the gallery. There was also digital game making workshops, building game environments and workshops by The Conductive Craft Company.
Other activities included making your own tops trumps style card game based on objects in the gallery. There was also digital game making workshops, building game environments and workshops by The Conductive Craft Company.
