Wonderland

Gun Monkeys

2013-05-09T08:05:43+01:00

Meanwhile, in game land... Size Five have announced their latest, Gun Monkeys. Good title!

"GUN_MONKEYS uses all the buzzwords. It’s a devastatingly-indie, Procedurally–Generated, Physics-based, Online Deathmatch platform game from multi award-winning developer Size Five Games."

Okay then!

Tiny, spooky dollhouse minis

2013-05-09T08:01:51+01:00

PARTICULARLY UNUSUAL on Etsy sells these weeny, beautiful and creepy dollhouse minis.

Gorgeous detail. I want a whole wall of tiny things in my normal-sized house.

The Othermill

2013-05-09T07:58:10+01:00

Sometimes I think the creation of this kind of thing and the funding of this kind of thing is going to be a / the defining motif of this half of the 21st Century.

This is what you can build with it:

Or, you know, your 10 year old kid can. Good luck with trying to understand what they'll be doing when they're 15 :D

Modded Makie: "Intergalactic jewel thief, magpie and generally naughty person, Higi M'Wah"

2013-04-17T10:51:56+01:00

Posting stuff that I'm involved in here, so Disclaimer etc and apols etc, but I couldn't pass this one up: Kaitan, a Makies owner, maker, modder and forum regular, posted his latest creation a few days ago, and she's pretty darn amazing. And the first Makie to have scales.

Apparently done using a Hobbycraft net washing bag, and a sponge, and ... maker magic ...

Neat, huh? Nice one, Kaitan!

Boss Key necklace

2013-04-17T09:01:08+01:00

I tweeted this when I woke up with it round my neck, having bought it at the All Other Parties Are Trite And Dull party at GDC, where fangamer had a stand. Best slightly-drunk purchase EVAR.

Sadly Fangamer are out of stock of this antiqued version at the mo, although there's a polished version available, and they say they're getting more in.

3D Printing: Frankensteining Friends

2013-03-21T08:21:16+00:00

Cory has to do a signing this Saturday for his and Charlie's new book, but Charlie sadly can't be present.

Cory's solution: sugru Charlie's Makerbot-scanned head onto a net-downloaded Warhammer Space Marine.

Result!

Gold & pewter Boba Fett action figure

2013-03-20T20:49:45+00:00

Who wouldn't want this shiny in their house somewhere?

Although he loses his cool somewhat in Action mode, but who's judging. He's Boba.

There is also, amongst many similar treasures, a large metal Warthog.

Beautiful Etsy Star Wars posters

2013-03-15T01:34:58+00:00

So many posters, so many lovely posters!

Kickstarter things!

2013-03-10T15:45:25+00:00

I've been very into Kickstarter recently. Backing projects is a joy.

I backed five things this past few weeks, some of which are closed now, but I thought I'd highlight them for the reasons I backed 'em. If you're thinking of doing a kickstarter, there might be some patterns in the execution here which might mean something: I know we're planning to in the future.

Alas Vegas

My pal James Wallis kickstarts his new RPG. I don't generally play paper/story-based RPGs, but James is an amazing game designer, a friend, and his starter amount was tiny (3K) and there were plenty of low-level opportunities to input. That makes me sound like a scrooge but it was noteworthy: it felt Easy To Back. But then - THEN - the magic of this one, oh boy. James is a writer, a brilliant one, and he demonstrated it in his updates. They were BRILLIANT. Funny, emotional, clever, quick. They happened *just right*. He really fanned the flames of his 'starter: and he Won It.

I'd use this as a template of How To Do It: don't ask for too much to start with (*more on this), have plenty of Twitter friends who will retweet your URL, be funny, be clever, have good backing options.

*Don't Ask For Too Much: the curse of Kickstarter.Kickstarter isn't brilliant at backing projects with "honest" budgets, projects where the owner really has laid out the full costs and hasn't started on any of the production yet. Kickstarter seems to prefer projects where 80% of the thinking, prototyping, and often costs are already sunk, and just the last 20% needs raising to see the thing to completion.

This is gut-data, not based on numbers: would you agree with it?

Death, Inc.

The somewhat saddening story of how Even Being Great isn't sometimes good enough. Death Inc pressed a lot of the right buttons for me: great artwork, a mention of Bullfrog-esque play. Nice guys, fully indie. A just-about-working prototype. Lovely video. Fun looking game. WHY was this not funded? I don't know. Some combination of too-high price, with not-enough-network-of-friends? Or maybe not enough funny updates? I can only guess, because I thought this was GREAT. Did you back it, if so what do you think?

3Doodler

Brilliance. A fully working prototype (plenty of sunk costs here! Would they have raised over $2m if they'd kickstarted this from blueprints? Unlikely, I think). Asking for not too much money. Massive novelty. An easy win, and still not closed at the time of writing.

Continue Magazine

Talent at work. Will they make it? Are there enough options to participate? I got a personal thankyou from the owner when I contributed: that was lovely & heartwarming (but obviously impossible if you start to have hundreds or thousands of backers). STILL PLEDGING AT TIME OF WRITING.

Good Night Lamp

A beautiful product, at production-ready stage, so this was a simple "pre-order" Kickstarter. They didn't make their ask: it was a comparatively high one: unlike 3Doodler (also a pre-order Kickstarter) who asked for 30K, GNL was set at 300K. Did this put people off?

Undeterred, they have opened an online shop, and are showing at events like Launch. This is great: not giving up is fantastic. We'll see GNL in the Conran Shop or equivalent soon because of that, I'd bet.

Hit Squad

A Twitter pal. Easy to back, asked nicely, is great with his network on Twitter (seems key). Will he make it?

I'm in Austin, TX

2013-03-08T14:22:15+00:00

For SXSW! All week.

If you're here, shout... I've brough a Jo Roach, some dolls, and an appetite for Salt Lick. We're also doing a few things: I'm on a panel today somewhere at 4:30pm (last min fillin), plus we're doing a talk at Hackney House on Sunday, I'm on a panel on Monday about the future of 3D printing, and we're pitching on Tuesday.

Come say hi if you're here!

Links for 2013-01-05 [del.icio.us]

2013-01-06T00:00:00-08:00

Inside the World of Webkinz – An Interview With Creative Director Karl Borst
[The following is an interview I shared with Children's Technology Review in their November 2012 issue. I've wanted to interview someone close to Webkinz/Ganz for a very long time. The first article I wrote about Webkinz was in August 2009. After yea?log=out
ThinkGeek :: Doctor Who TARDIS Play Tent
Bit bloody expensive, BBC, but I still would have wanted one as a kid...

Happy new year!

2013-01-05T12:50:33+00:00

Guess what, my new year's resolution is to blog more. Ho ho! That worked well last year, didn't it!

Running a rapid growth startup is hard. So, so hard. The hardest thing I've ever done, and I have to juggle it with a small child who has school needs, holiday needs, etc bla bla bla.

But I miss blogging, not least because (and I've always said this), it's my outboard brain. If you ever thought you might want to blog, here's my advice: don't do it for readers, do it just because you find the stuff you're blogging interesting. Or you want to get stuff out of your head. Reading back to what I was looking at in, say, 2005 is pretty cool (for me, anyway :-D). That's what it was for, ofc, web logging.

Course, the majority of what I post is a pic and a link so I should really be using Tumblr, but wtf. Wonderland is 10 years old this year. And with that, here's a brilliant Minecraft torch. Take it on camping or skiing trips for extra authenticity.

Happy new year, all, hope you had a great one! x

Links for 2012-12-29 [del.icio.us]

2012-12-30T00:00:00-08:00

Simple and addictive, 'Highgrounds' is 'Magic the Gathering' for the web generation | The Verge

Indie Xmas

2012-12-22T11:02:15+00:00

This is ++good: this year, why not download and play an indie game?

2012 has been "a banner year" for indie games, with more releases of quality titles than ever before - and it shows no sign of slowing. This is auteurship. That's a pretty pretentious word, but very important for the industry: auteurship means games have a "voice" now, unlike ever before. Step change.

There are enough games there to keep us quiet for the whole year, as it happens, so dig in!

(I had the pleasure of spectating a game of SpaceTeam in the bar at our xmas party the other night: raucously funny to watch, esp with vodka.)

(Via Alex Amsel a few days ago...)

Minecraft redstone light-up Ore

2012-11-26T17:48:54+00:00

Sitting in a meeting, waiting for Jo to read a doc, and this flies past my eye...

I know about a million kids who REALLY WANT THIS for xmas/hannukah (although they may not know it yet).

Thinkgeek, of course.

Links for 2012-11-16 [del.icio.us]

2012-11-17T00:00:00-08:00

Jennifer O'Connell: Hasbro knows all about selling to kids - and nothing much about talking to them

Links for 2012-11-07 [del.icio.us]

2012-11-08T00:00:00-08:00

Patterns | Linden Lab

Links for 2012-10-31 [del.icio.us]

2012-11-01T00:00:00-07:00

Minecraft & Pacman sweaters for Blythe dolls

2012-10-31T18:34:09+00:00

Lookit these for a bit of squee!

Made by Mamta Mertner, who also does our teeny knits over at MAKIES (yes, we saw her work and jumped at it :-D)

£14 each. <3

AARGHHH necklace

2012-10-30T09:48:47+00:00

A collaboration between the charity Hoxton Street Monster Supplies (a kids educational & reading charity, they do great events!) and Tatty Devine, our local laser-cutting jewellery geniuses, this beautiful AARGHHH necklace that I am now wearing with evil delight.

They sent me this, and I can't yet find any link on either site to where you could purchase similar; maybe it's just a promotional thing? But there's plenty of other amazing things at both sites: Tatty's original aarrghhhh necklace and a jar of Thickest Human Snot, for instance.

Update: available from both on 6 November!

Links for 2012-10-24 [del.icio.us]

2012-10-25T00:00:00-07:00

Travis Shrugged: The creepy, dangerous ideology behind Silicon Valley’s Cult of Disruption | PandoDaily
Laws don’t exist merely to frustrate the business ambitions of coastal hipsters: They also exist to protect the more vulnerable members of society. Back home in London (where such statistics are available), 11 women a month are attacked in unlicensed cabs, and unlicensed drivers are responsible for a horrifying 80 percent of all stranger rapes. If Uber doesn’t have to follow licensing laws, then neither does any Tom, Dick, or Harry who chooses to paint the word “TAXI” on the side of his car, and start offering rides via the Internet. A disruptive CEO will shrug (and there’s a foreshadowing word) and insist that it’s not his fault that such criminals exist. “Just because there are people who want to rape, murder, or rob you shouldn’t prevent me from making another million dollars,” he’ll argue.

Links for 2012-10-23 [del.icio.us]

2012-10-24T00:00:00-07:00