Tipp-Ex, a European correction fluid (aka white-out) brings YouTube to life in a very interesting way by allowing the viewer to choose their own outcome.
The actor in the video also interacts with a banner on the brand channel page which is very cool.
It’s like choose your own adventure meets YouTube meets Subservient Chicken.
Mayorama, a new iphone app designed by Daniel Luxemburg, makes it easier than ever to maintain and multiple your Foursquare mayor-ships.
With the 99-cent Mayorama app, you can check on your current mayorships, find out how many more check-ins will earn you mayor at your favorite spots around town and, using the smartphone’s GPS, you can see all the Foursquare venues around you in a list and plotted on a map.
When viewing these nearby venues (dubbed “targets”), the application will also display how many check-ins are required in order to become mayor. This lets competitive users easily find new venues in need of a mayor.
(via ReadWriteWeb)
For those interested in capitalizing on the deal function of Foursquare, Mayorama gives you added ability to protect and increase your current deals. For those interested in location-based gaming, Mayorama opens up entirely new territories for conquering.
Get the app: Mayorama.
EpicWin is a new iPhone app that transforms mundane tasks into an immersive role playing game.
Interesting to see the badges model being used to motivate useful activities. The app is scheduled to be released on the 19th, but you can get the latest updates from the EpicWin twitter.
DefCon is the world’s largest hacker convention.
For this year’s convention, elite hacker gang, the Ninjas, have created an interactive role-playing game that is played through specially designed badges, distributed only to those invited to their private party.
One of the most exclusive venues for fraternizing at DefCon is the Ninja party. To attend the party attendees have to know one of the Ninjas and they have to give them a badge.
In years past, a Ninja would give a party attendee a sticker or a paper invite that would get them in to the party. Last year the Ninjas took the party invite to the next level when they created their own custom badge for their party attendees. This year, badge designers Amanda Wozniak and Brandon Creighton decided to take the badge to the next level, and then some. What started as a sketch on a napkin ended up as an amazing hacker gaming and development platform.
(Via Wired)
The badge combines an old school look and feel with cutting edge features, such as the ability to wirelessly communicate with other badges.
In order to fund these extravagant badges, Ninja got funding from Facebook and Lookout:
In order to test the game while the badges were being developed, the Ninjas used the iPhone app SDK:
And to top it all off, the badge comes with an instruction manual that almost exactly mirrors the original NES manual:
All of this makes my “Adventurer” badge on Foursquare seem pretty.. dated.
In an industry dominated by computer-generated imagery, interactive gaming company, Tuna, is swimming upstream with their latest effort, a stop motion animation game made entirely out of clay.
That’s right, every character and every set in the aptly titled, Cletus Clay, was first created by hand, then photographed, digitally enhanced and composited for the 3D space.
The game is not yet released, but from the demos it looks like Mario Brothers meets Wallace & Grommit. In other words – brilliant.
We’ve certainly come a long way from the CGI clay of Clay Fighter.
In an age of CGI everything, Cletus Clay is a reminder that you don’t have to abandon the old to embrace the new.
For more info, check out this interview with managing director, Alex Amsel, and claymation/stop-motion guru, Sarah Webb of the Cletus Clay dev team.
Smashing Magazine has put together a collection of their favorite, “bizarre” websites. (GSP-produced “And Then There was Salsa” is featured under “Bonus” at the bottom of the page).
(Pictured Above: Incredibox)
This a great showcase of what is possible with Flash and JavaScript when designers push themselves to the limits.
A comprehensive history of the pixel aesthetic, from primitive gaming graphics to modern art.
via laughing squid
Last month, w+k and Nike took London by storm with a real-time running game. Entitled Nike GRID, the event playfully extended of the brand’s massively successful Nike+ campaign:
Nike GRID uses the now almost defunct iconic London telephone box to track a runner’s progress at designated Nike branded locations. After registering online, players run between two phoneboxes and punch in their unique user id number at each, logging their run and earning them points online.
The more runs, the more points earned for that postcode. The person with the most points in each area claims the crown of that postcode, badges are also awarded for speed, stamina and insider knowledge of the streets.
(via Contagious Magazine)
The idea is concisely summed up in this video:
(Note: the w+k London Blog provides further background, including strategic thinking and details about GRID execution.)
Two interesting bits about the GRID:
1 – Gamer motivation. By integrating a time-sensitive gaming element, Nike drove user participation. Over 3,000 runs were logged in 24hrs.
2 – Technology as an enabler. Rather than running the campaign through a service like FourSquare, which remains inaccessible to many, the campaign utilized technology that any player could access. Technology enabled more participation instead of limiting it.
Evoke is an innovative approach to activism curated by the World Bank Institute.
The site combines digital storytelling with graphic novels and a gaming element to motivate users (youth in Africa in particular) to take innovative steps towards alleviating a variety of social problems.
Every Wednesday at midnight UTC, a new piece of the story is released. After reading the story, you may choose to accept a related mission. You then have a set time period to GO INTO THE REAL WORLD, take the necessary actions, document them, and submit them back to the game.
Here’s what this past week’s mission looked like:
Those who collect the most points by the end of the game (May 10) win consultation with innovative entrepreneurs, trips to Washington, and more.
Interesting to think about how branded games could be used to empower users to take socially conscious actions in their communities.
This excellent presentation from Dan Shust at SXSW highlights his predictions for where new areas of digital will grow and converge, including social connectivity, location-based services, gaming, digital publishing, and more. It’s a great overview for interactive areas of growth that began last year and will most likely continue throughout 2010.