Wait for it to animate

Watch the image carefully. Is it twelve or is it thirteen people? Where does the extra man come from?

No, I didn’t get it either but found the answer here…

I’m determined to do a Triathlon this year but haven’t really managed to get it together. So I’ve settled for an elongated event format, with months between each event. Works for me but I’m not sure it’s strictly adhering to the rules.

So far I’ve done a 5k swim for the Marie Curie Swimathon and a 10k for the Cancer Research Run 10k so according to the rules, the nearest triathlon that fits is an Olympic Triathlon. Just got to do the 40k cycle now (ignoring the fact I commute 65k a week).

I managed to bimble around the Hatfield House course in 51 mins and 46 seconds. Now that’s probably not a very good time in the grand scale of things but I’m pretty pleased with it seeing as it’s my first attempt and… I didn’t train. Yep, not a step.

Still, all in a good cause as it was for Cancer Research. If you’re one of the 2 thousand people that turned out at Hatfield House or one of the Tesco crew who supported the event, well done! I’ll see you there next year… once the pain has eased a little.

Ever thought of how earthworms make babies? Me neither… but it’s pretty cool.

The worms wriggle alongside each other and stick together with a special goo. They swap sperm between their heads and store it for later (no, really). Later, they produce different goo from that band near their heads and the outer skin of the goo goes hard, forming a kind of egg sack / tube around the worm. As the worm backs out, the egg sack slides off towards the worm’s head. As the egg sack passes the worm’s “sexy parts” near its head, it squirts out some of the sperm it collected earlier and its own egg which stick to the egg sack.

The egg sack containing the egg and sperm eventually falls off the worm and seals itself, creating a tiny worm cocoon. Two to three months later, bosh, new worms! It takes them about a year to grow to full size. How cool is that!

It’s true I tell you, it’s on Wikipedia and here.

You wait ages then two come along at once! Yep, just 5 days after Corn Pops Challenge was launched, our new baby, ‘Zubo Zurfing‘ has gone live (or Zubo Surfing as Miniclip has it… doh!). It’s very cool to have our games occupying two of the three slots in the Miniclip main promo area!

The game itself is a great achievement. Original gameplay, exciting, high-quality and fun to play. Probably one of the best games we’ve made at Digital Outlook. Big thanks to EA and GoFish for giving us the chance to make it! The aim is to get the 5 Zubo characters across a sound wave. You do this by exploding ‘sound bombs’ above and below the sound wave to cause ripples that fling you in the air. Of course, there are baddies, keys and bonuses in there to keep you on your toes.

What would I improve? Simple, more levels! What a great compliment to a game. It’s a great game engine that can ramp up and allow for mini-puzzles and level designs to test your skill. I think 20 levels should do it.

Anyways, I suggest you play it… play it now… and visit the Zubo web site, it’s quite fun.

Earlier this week, during one of my rare excursions on public transport, I was waiting for a bus in Muswell Hill to take me to the tube station in Highgate. It suddenly dawned on me I needed the toilet so decided to walk to the tube via the lovely Highgate Wood cafe, which has a toilet.

As I was washing my hands, I noticed a camera flash coming from one of the cubicles. Naturally, I assumed some lowlife (or A-list celeb) was snapping away during some lewd act or other. I decided to investigate just in case and as I rounded the corner, the lights came. Turned out it was a dodgy fluorescent tube doing that ‘flashy-flash-flicker’ thing.

Mini-lesson: I must learn not to jump to conclusion in the future.

I went into a local school in North London this week to take a few lessons as part of the 2008 National Year of Reading. A letter was sent around asking for volunteers to come in and inspire the kids, especially the boys and make writing and reading more fun and aspirational. My daughter goes to the school so seemed like a nice thing to give something back. I’ve also been lucky enough to meet John Scieszka, an all-round good guy, author and passionate campaigner to get young boys to enjoy reading. His Guys Read campaign is an inspiration and is Trucktown books are part of the national curriculum in the US. We also did the Trucktown website, which was nice.

My direction was simply that I make games and fun stuff and have to write very simple, top-line descriptions to send to clients to explain what they are going to get. The descriptions are usually a few lines or a few paragraphs at most. The main message being that you don’t have to write a book for writing to be important. I taught two 45 minute lessons for ages 8 and 10 and all seemed to really enjoy it. Of course it helped that I worked with brands they’ve all heard of like Pirates of the Caribbean, High School Musical, Mr Men and Xbox.

There were some interesting take-aways…

1) Nearly every kid went nuts when you mentioned Miniclip. Interestingly, all of the 8-year-olds knew of Miniclip but maybe ‘only’ 80% of the 10-year-olds knew of it. Of course, they may have been a victim of the ‘cool gene’ and refused to go with the mass, but it was still a noticeable difference in recognition and enthusiasm.

2) One of the 10-year-old boys asked a very astute question. Namely, “If Miniclip is free, how do they make money?”… from a 10-year-old? Both myself and the teacher were impressed by that one.

3) Probably the second most popular question was “Can you adopt me?”. It’s great to take stock occasionally and realise you have a damn cool job and I enjoy it. I hope some of the enthusiasm has rubbed off and some of them remember that session when they are grown up. I know I have a few from my school days.

4) Lots of the kids wanted to know how the games were actually put together. More the animation than the coding. I’ll probably end up doing an animation session with them at some point soon.

5) I always had a bit of a mission to go into schools and make maths fun. I wasn’t much good at it when I was 13 but mainly because my practical brain had no use for sine, matrices or Pythagorus. It was great to see the enthusiam to learn and many of the questions were maths / coding based. Again, looks like another session soon.

6) There is no substitute for actually talking to kids if you work in an industry that services them. Even picking up the manerisms or the personalities in a class full of 10-year-olds can be invaluable.

7) I finally had a cup of tea in a proper staff room. Always wanted to do that.

Every game that makes it onto Miniclip is a momentous occasion for us and our latest is no exception. It’s called the Kelloggs Corn Pops Challenge and you have to complete the 4 mini-games to unlock your extra bonus. The style we were working off was pretty mad. Kind of a cross between the cheesy, early Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Yo Gabba Gabba. All credit to the good people at Kelloggs for letting us (Digital Outlook) put this one together. One of our other games is at 34 million plays and counting, so fingers crossed for this one!

It’s been a real labour of love. Each of the mini-games were based on a physics engine and it plays really well. The sounds really add to the experience and there are a few riffs in there from the ever resourceful Reason. Check out Jop’s blog for some more details but if I were you, I’d just play it.

One thing to note, an easter egg if you like, the mad looking guy at the end (the one with the wig) is actually the developer, Jop! I think Warhol underestimated the 15 minutes of fame thing…

Corn Pops Challenge Play these super-awesome challenges, unlock the golden cereal pieces and win!

Play this free game now!!