This year I attended Anime Evolution 2010 which was held August 13-15 at the University of British Columbia. There were about 6100 registered attendees.

Anime Evolution is Vancouver’s premier event celebrating Japanese animation, manga, gaming, and every kind of related fandom. Our featured activities include interactive panel discussions with industry guests, cultural demonstrations, 24-hour video rooms, cosplay contests, an AMV contest, a charity auction, evening dances, and creative workshops. We also offer LAN, tabletop, LARP, and console gaming rooms.

In this post, I share photos from the Games track of Anime Evolution, specifically casual games, console games, and the LAN Party.

Casual Games

Late Thursday night (Aug 12th)/early Friday morning, I visited the Casual Games room during a game of Risk. The Casual Games room was set up as a 24 hour chillout space with a variety of games available including The Settlers of Catan, Risk, Carcasonne, and Dune.

You have to play Risk overnight, there is no other way to do it
~Patrick, Casual Games Manager

Shawn, Patrick, and Derek play Risk

Console Games

According to Danny Barbier, the Console Gaming Manager, the console games room became a major draw at Anime Evolution. There were PS3, XBox 360, and Wii stations as well as dedicated locations for Rockband 2, DDR (Dance Dance Revolution), and arcade versions of Dancemania and Para Para. Over the 3 days of AE, several touramants occurred where participants engaged in Street Fighter IV, Halo 3:ODST, and Brawl. This year a Nintendo Virtual Boy (1995) was brought in for nostalgia.

Danny with a Nintendo Virtual Boy and the Teleroboxer game

Danny has managed the console games room for 2 (almost 3) years, with 5 years total involvement. He believed the visibility of console gaming within AE to be fairly light, and felt a push was necessary for it to become bigger.

There have been guys that have sat and played Brawl all weekend
~Danny Barbier, the Console Gaming Manager

Playing Brawl

Move your feet to DDR

Rock Band 2

LAN Party

Nathanial (GNAT) of Lanpartyeh.com has been involved in the LAN Party scene for 10 years. As he is into Starcraft, he decided to have a Starcraft II tournament that built on the success of the LAN Party last year. The available games were Starcraft II, Mindcraft, and Team Fortress 2 with four of the top 30 players (Stalife, Drewbie, Firezerg, Weapon X) in attendance.

Starcraft II tournament

Nintendo 64/Commodore 64 hybrid

I happened upon this scene. People playing Super Smash Bros. on an Nintendo 64 using a Commodore 64 screen hooked up to a generator. Radically Old School!

Super Smash Bros. on an N64

N64 meet C64

Captive audience, focused players

Post-AE Red Rover
After AE ended, as I headed home, I observed a game of Red Rover. It was a perfect ending to an amazing weekend, playing a childhood game among new friends.

Red Rover, Red Rover, send Johnny right over!

Complete set on flickr

Last night I discovered a link to an ARG called We lost our gold.

According to the website, there is $10 000 in gold hidden somewhere in NYC. Clues are provided by puppets via YouTube and need to be deciphered in order to locate the gold. If you find it, it’s yours.

I wish I lived in New York City so that I could participate. There is already discussion on an ARG forum.

Any plans to play?

On Friday March 7th, I presented a talk at Northern Voice, a social media and blogging conference entitled: Why I play Alternate Reality Games (and why you should too)!.

I was nervous as I hadn’t spoken in a public forum in a little while, but I was happy to talk about my experiences playing The Lost Ring in 2008 and Urgent Evoke in 2010. I enjoyed responding to the questions that were asked and it was cool to meet a fellow Evoke player – Rachel Smith (@ninmah) from NMC. She made this sketch using Autodesk SketchBook Pro.

Sketch by @ninmah

It was also super cool that the Bryan Alexander (@bryanalexander) did a shout out for my talk during his keynote. Unfortunately I was in a meeting with my supervisor Friday morning so I missed it.

I hope to be back next year talking about games. Here are my slides and thanks to everyone that attended.

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

EVOKE is an alternate reality game directed by Jane McGonigal, an alternate reality game master (see her World Changing interview here).

From her blog:

EVOKE is an online game designed to teach collaboration, creativity, knowledge networking, entrepreneurship, courage, resourcefulness, sustainability, and vision.

Our goal: to empower young people all over the world, and especially in Africa, to start tackling the world’s toughest problems: poverty, hunger, sustainable energy, water security, conflict, disaster relief, health care, education, human rights.

It launches on March 3rd and will end on May 12th. What are you waiting for? Sign up now.

“Traces of Hope” is being launched by the British Red Cross to coincide with its Civilians and Conflict month. The game features Joseph a sixteen-years-old caught up in the Ugandan civil war, separated from his family, hungry and alone in a camp overflowing with thousands forced to flee, Joseph is desperately seeking his mother. But he needs your help

Who’s Joseph from Alan Hackston on Vimeo.

I have found a number of sites with additional information about Traces of Hope

• Casual Gameplay by Jess

• Unfiction Alternate Reality Game “Traces of Hope” forum

Have fun!

Relevance: Alternate Reality Games with a cause are great as entertainment while also making you more aware of important issues around the world.

As I am a player of The Lost Ring alternate reality game, I was interested to hear Sebastian speak. Not only is McDonald’s the main sponsor, but it is their first foray into the genre of alternate reality games. The Lost Ring, which is linked to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, kicked off in March as 50 bloggers receiving packages with an Olympic-themed poster and a clue pointing them to a website with a unique trailer.

My mystery package


Alternate reality games are part of a genre (e.g. I love Bees ) that mix online and offline realities through clues and activities that focus on the abilities of players to solve puzzles through collaborative means. For example, players of The Lost Ring have collaborated with local participants through The Lost Ring forums to construct city training missions, which may be shared via YouTube, Flickr, and blogs in order to compare times and techniques. The activity of players and characters on different social media platforms can be monitored on an online map.

Characters use a variety of social media tools such as twitter, YouTube, and Flickr to broadcast information relevant for players of the game. The Lost Ring is developed by AKQA, a marketing agency based in San Francisco and Jane McGonigal.

Sebastian Siethoff – McDonald’s


His presentation began with a focus on youth – how they are using social networks and how they are developing an awareness of their global environment and tapping into the increased interest worldwide in the social media culture.

Sebastian Siethoff – McDonald’s


He then provided a background on The Lost Ring for the audience before discussing the unique, less-overt, branding approach McDonald’s is using in relation to the game in order to strengthen ties with the global youth culture.

Sebastian Siethoff – McDonald’s

My complete flickr set from Convergence 2008 is here.


Relevance:
Although advertising has been linked to video games [see the recent design week article] this type of marketing by McDonald’s tied to an alternate reality game is still novel (see Donna’s marketing blog for her analysis after a presentation by Neil Golden, CMO, McDonald’s USA about their sponsorship. Will this lead to other companies seeing value in similar ventures and what are the metrics upon which this relationship will be considered successful?

Sebastian Siethoff – McDonald’s

Last Saturday I was the Blackberry station captain for the Vancouver location of City Chase 2008. City Chase is similar to the Amazing Race as teams of two race around the city doing activities at different stations in order to acquire points. The first team to acquire the necessary points wins.

It is definitely something that I recommend participating in as it is fun and provides the opportunity to get out of your comfort-zone interacting with strangers in your city while testing your physical and mental limits. Vancouver was the first city on the Canadian tour. If you are American, you can participate in the US events. The World Championship will be in November where winning teams from Canada, USA, France, UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Australia, Hong-Kong and Singapore compete.

The Blackberry Station that I was the captain of involved teams having to use the video and photo function to do creative activities. Five of the seven need to be completed within 30 minutes without being assessed a time penalty.

The tasks to choose from were:

• photo of 2 non-participants kissing
• 15 sec video of team members acting as cats (including meowing)
• 15 sec video of 4 non-participants singing O Canada
• photo of tatoo below the waist
• 15 sec video of team member eating food simultaneously with stranger
• photo of stranger drinking a coke
• 15 sec video of a team member tickling barefoot of stranger

I enjoyed being a part of City Chase and I definitely look forward to involvement in the future.

[update] flickr photos are here.

Relevance: Get outside and play a game with others. It is fun and will teach you skills to better your life.

Next Saturday City Chase 2008 will be taking place in Vancouver. It is a fun adventure race in which teams of two run around to different stations in the city performing activities. The first team to complete the required number of stations in the fastest time is the winner.

The City Chase is a unique urban adventure that requires participants to exhibit teamwork, resourcefulness, determination and the ability to make decisions on the fly as they search for ChasePoints scattered in unknown locations throughout the city. ChasePoints are designed to test teams with a variety of physical, mental, and otherwise adventurous challenges.

To conquer this 4-6 hour urban event, 2-person teams will run, walk and use public transit to navigate their way throughout the city, while calling family and friends for help, accessing the Internet, and even employing assistance of total strangers. The first team to complete the required ChasePoints and cross the finish line WINS

It is a fun event and great opportunity to get to know your partner. People of all ages participate and alot focus on just enjoying themselves rather than winning. If you aren’t in Vancouver, check the schedule to see if it is coming to your city.

[update] Can’t forget about the Facebook event.

Relevance: Games are fun and teach us socialisation and collaborative skills that are relevant to everyday life.

Today the fine folks at Strutta here in Vancouver have launched into beta. I have been fortunate to participate in their launch parties leading up this date and attended their soft launch private event last month. This is a very exciting day for them. I have found the entire crew to be fun as well as hard-working. It will be cool to watch as Strutta develops over the year. I wish them success, so get over there and get your game on.

From grassroots scrappers to all star pros, Strutta brings players together from around the world in the spirit of true competition. Whether it’s beatboxing, shredding up the slopes, or giving the legends a run for their money with a smack on Guitar Hero III solo, there is a game for everyone on Strutta. Players upload their original performance videos to compete with their peers and prove they are the best in their game. Performances are judged by friends and other members of the international community on a daily basis. The players with the most wins in a year qualify for a chance to compete in the Final Games.

Alexa Booth, Guitar Hero

Keep up to date by following the Strutta Blog
More info about Strutta here

Relevance: Another cool social media team in Vancouver with an fun concept for gameplay through videos

On April 3rd, Jane McGonigal, an ”Alternate  Reality” Game designer, games researcher, and Future Forecaster, was interviewed for the TVO show called The Agenda with Steve Paikin.  TVO is a publicly-funded, educational media organization that is available to Ontario residents both on cable and the Internet. 

The episode entitled Have a Nice Day, consisted of two parts: an interview where Jane discusses why online gaming may be the future of work and a debate with other guests in which the topic is “The pursuit of happiness: Is the happiness movement making us miserable?”

Each part is available separately in video and podcast form on the episode page. During the interview she also discusses her recent Alternate Reality Games project entitled The Lost Ring.

The interviewer starts off quoting her SXSW keynotein which she stated that “Multiplayer games are the ultimate happiness engine”. The SXSW keynote as a podcast is available here and her slides are here.  In the interview she responds to this by explaining how games “optimise your brain, your body, your heart and your soul” and how “engagement is the key”

Definitely worth listening to learn about how games aren’t played by oneself in a room but rather that  games have always been about social and collaborative experiences with others in the real world.  The interview also discusses her last alternate reality game World Without Oil.

Relevance: Games are just about fun but can involve working together to solve real world causes.