gaming – crackunit.com

What Can We Learn From Mario Marathon?

3 guys, 1 Room. 7 Mario games. Mario Marathon.

These guys are working their way through every console Mario game and attempting to collect every star on every level. At this moment in time they’re 66 hours in and doing pretty well. They’ve raised over $22k so far. If you’ve never played any of the Mario games you’ll have no idea the enormity of the quest they’ve committed too.

Last night they had the 2nd most trending topic on Twitter, but that seems to have died down now unfortunately. But you can help to get it back up there by tweeting with the hashtag #mariomarathon – plus if you tweet with that hashtag you’ll be entered into a draw to win the contents of one of their “Mario Schwag ? Boxes”. Hooray.

The whole thing is being streamed live on ustream.tv. People who donate or tweet about it are getting shout-outs on the air. They’re mucking around. They’re having fun. A bit like Tim’s thing that I posted the other day. There’s something about this that just feels DIY and super-excellent.

Of course there’s examples of brands having done this kind of thing too. Diesel’s Heides campaign, and also the movieboy campaign for The Sun. But brands and agencies always seem to overcook it (just a bit), hell we’ve done it too. It’s only natural. We want it to look slick. To convey the values of the brand. To be laden with the clients’ lovely juicy messaging. We feel like we need to use ALL the social services. We overly worry about moderation and the list of mistakes goes on.

Mario Marathon is how the real world works. Stick it on a site. Use stuff that’s out there and away you go… FUN TIMES!

If you want to know how to put on a gaming marathon online, the Mario Marathon dudes have written a handy how-to. There’s loads of good advice in there. Seriously go check it out even if you’re not planning on running a gaming marathon this is chock full of online smarts…

My favourite piece is the table of costs.

$75 Video Capture Card
$50 Web Cam
$30 WebCamMax Software
$16 Cables, Adaptors, Splitters
$20 Universal Game Cable
$16 Desktop Microphones
$15 Web Domain Name

Gulp!

I donated some money last night and got a shout-out on the stream. It was nice. Have a look. Donate some cash.

Game Design and Life

Interesting piece in Wired that pushes two of my buttons:

Games and scoring in everyday life
Making email better and more strategic / thoughtful

There’s some similarities with this talk I did at Playful last year about scores.

I’m mega-pumped at the moment about injecting game rewards and strategy into everything. So I was excited when I spotted this piece about What GTA Can Teach Us About Connecting with Consumers yesterday. It’s almost 80 charts and it’s less about scoring and more about environment and interaction, but there’s some great stuff in there. I especially love the notion of ‘Embracing the Glitch’…

What GTA Can Teach Us About Connecting with Consumers

And Tim gets bonus points for mentioning Imogen Heap’s skill at opening up the process.

Thanks to PSFK for the link to the Wired article.

Email is like Tetris: you lose eventually

I stole this title from a thread over at IBM Developer Works. Unfortunately after such a great setup the thread itself is pretty unthrilling.

Email is a lot like Tetris. The thrill of inbox zero. The joy of knocking out 4 lines with a massive delete binge. The inability to leave it alone. The annoying but catchy music. Actually scrub that last one. Or perhaps that’s what email needs?

But is it true that we’ll all lose eventually? Most days it feels like it to me.

Or is there an email equivalent of Cossack dancers and a shuttle launch? If so, where is it, and how can I get there?

My Talk From Playful in October

Here’s the talk I did at Playful on 31.10.08. It’s basically about the changing nature of scores in games and how scores are starting to infect everything.

Iain Tait – High Scores Talk at Playful London 31.10.08 from Iain Tait on Vimeo.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get it up online, but I had to get the video off the guys, and then it turned out to have been shot from a strange angle where you’ve got no idea what’s going on. So I did a bit of jiggery-pokery and combined the video with the Keynote presentation and synched it up as best I could. And the audio is a bit muffled, but hopefully you can make out what’s going on…

Vintage Pole Position Advert – Playful Conference

I’m sure this has been featured a few places, but it is pretty awesome. I came across it whilst trawling around for various game-related things. Reason is…

I’m really looking forward to it. Not because I’m speaking, but because there’s a whole load of great speakers lined up. Plus I’m quite excited about the Electroplankton Orchestra playing together again…

Get tickets here, it’s only £25 and it looks well good.

Completely Insane Lo-Fi Flash Animation

From 2007 I think, but new to me. Incredibly strange lo-fi 8-bit style game animation – The Tale of the Übercat.

If it’s your kind of thing don’t miss Snail Jesus Rides Again.

Thanks to Martin for leaving a link to Albino Blacksheep in the comments.