IE08

I'll be presenting at the Australian Conference on Interactive Entertainment 08 (IE08) this year.

The conference is being held in Brisbane from December 3rd to 5th and has the theme of "Resonating Experiences".

I'll be talking about the changing face of video games and how the relationships between the player, the game and other players is evolving.

I'll also show off some stuff that I've been cooking up!

BankQuest

This is kinda cool - Tomy has a new toy that's a cross between a piggy bank and a tamagotchi-like RPG.


Basically every time you save money it is turned into RPG gold that you can use to play the game. It's a pretty geeky way to get kids (and grownups) to save. You can find out more here on the Japanese site:
http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/bankquest/

It definitely beats the old "Skeleton in a Coffin" piggy bank that I had as a kid.

www.passfieldgames.com

Lost Winds

I downloaded Lost Winds - a Wii ware original by Frontier.

It's a charming side scrolling adventure that uses the Wii-mote as a sort of virtual fan - you wave the Wii-mote and it blows wind on the screen.

It's a cool mechanic that allows you to create up drafts for your game character to navigate the world.

The graphics and sound are beautiful and the game play is compelling. The only complaints I have is that its sometimes a bit vague about what you do next and the waving mechanic to create wind can be tiring on the arm!

But for the price (1000 Wii Points) it's a great little game - and I'm looking forward to seeing what other devs do in this space.

www.passfieldgames.com

Leonardo as Nolan

I thought this was cool - Leonardo DiCaprio is slated to star in 'Atari', a bio-pic about Nolan Bushnell. Hollywood Reporter has more here.

It will be interesting how they portray his life - I hope they capture the magic of the 70's and how huge Atari was back then.

www.passfieldgames.com