Blast Theory - I Like Frank

An issue i'd like to highlight ... the first ever mixed reality 3G game. Using the streets of Adelaide, multi faced gameplay using
mobile phones bridged the gap between computers and reality.

Three months of careful planning by three members of Blast Theory, along with numerous local artists and scientists, culminated in a huge strategy hunt for a character named Frank. Online players received clues as photographs and moved through a virtual model of the city in search of numerous hidden clues.

Online players then had to recruit street participants via mobile internet to go and retrieve these clues that would eventually lead them to Frank, hidden in a leafy atrium surrounded by office blocks.

I find this game began with such a simple idea, and turned into a huge and wonderfully innovative game, one that could be enjoyed by thousands of people in competition with each other at the same time.

STUDIO TONNE - Paul Farrington Lecture

I see Paul Farrington as a symbol of somebody that has followed their interests an passions, whether they reap any rewards or not. His love of music and digital sound creation was visible from his early university work, with experimental sketchbooks exploring a computer's visual recording of each letter of the alphabet as it is spoken by him. This developed into some beautiful monochrome mark making.



Paul persevered with this idea ever since, and has carried it through to designs for Moby, Ford Motor Company, Penguin books and Sulphur. Mainly, Farrington produces fun and amusing sound based games for use on flash sites on the internet. I consider the Bip-Hop feature to be one of the finest. A present to the record label from Studio Tonne (Farrington's design company), the game is a fascinating construction of many coloured shapes which represent a individual sound. These shapes can be picked up, dragged, and placed upon four horizontal sliders. Playheads move along these sliders, and when they pass one of the coloured objects a variant of "bip" or "hop" is emitted.

Once the user has become accustomed to the controls, it is feasible that a decent sounding electronic score can be composed.

I was fascinated my Farrington's commitment to his interests and the scope of work he has ended up with. It is like a breath of air in a world of sometimes suffocating similar design. He has stuck to something he knows well, and probably better than anyone else.

http://www.pandemoniumrecords.com/bip-hop/news/machine.html