xBlog: The original visual thinking weblog » Games

The official Gamestorming video

Parker Lee — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:51:41 +0000

As you may remember, a few months ago Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers hit shelves. Today, I’m excited to share with you a new XPLANE video that offers a sneak peek into the inner-makings of the book and why it is so unique, and useful, in today’s business world. The three-minute video, created by our ever-brilliant creative team, can be seen on both Vimeo and YouTube:

For the most part, the video was created with markers, whiteboards, sticky notes, paper and other “low-tech” tools commonly used in Gamestorming.

Written by XPLANE founder and business design mastermind, Dave Gray, XPLANE consultant James Macanufo and Sunni Brown of Bright Spot Information Design, Gamestorming is a collection of 80 games to help teams break down barriers, communicate better, and generate new ideas, insights, and strategies.

Drawing largely from the visual thinking techniques that have made XPLANE famous over the years, Gamestorming is for anyone who wants to engage a group in collaborative, creative thinking. The book is for sale now on Barnes & Noble, O’Reilly Media and Amazon where it is ranked 4.8 out of 5 stars, is the number one book for etiquite in business life, and number two for running meetings and presentations and for business as related to computers and the Internet. For more information check out the Gamestorming blog at www.gogamestorm.com.

Enjoy!

PS: There’s a free Gamestorming webinar on January 26 — sign up now!

The eyeballing game

Bill Keaggy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:40:40 +0000

“Some people are bothered by pictures on the wall hanging slightly crooked. Others may not even be aware that something may be amiss. If you are somebody who is into woodworking or construction, its good to be one of the people who notice when things are crooked. But I suspect the ability to notice that things might be just a little off square, off centre, or not quite straight, varies greatly. I thought it would be fun for people to try to test their abilities to see if things are straight or crooked in a little game.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Bill Keaggy — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 12:56:28 +0000

Looking forward to seeing you in 2006 for our 6th year of bBlog biz linking.

Be safe.

The link goes to a Flash game called “Someone keeps stealing my letters,” just for fun.

I’ve been trying for a week or so to figure out what flickr is

Bill Keaggy — Mon, 27 Dec 2004 16:10:16 +0000

“I mean I know it’s a photo sharing site, but what makes it so damn interesting? Then, last night, I finally figured it out: flickr is a MMORPG.”

NYT Election Day crossword — November 5, 1996

Bill Keaggy — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 06:12:48 +0000

“On Tuesday, November 5, 1996, a standard 15 by 15 crossword puzzle constructed by Jeremiah Farrell appeared in The New York Times that the editor, Will Shortz, said was the most amazing puzzle he’d ever seen.” (Thanks Waxy.org!)

Porting McCloud to Games

Bill Keaggy — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 16:05:40 +0000

“One of the writers at Game Girl Advance is reading Understanding Comics, and wonders if it would be possible to create a game that explains gaming in the same way that Scott McCloud created a comic that explains comics.”

Adge’s Visual History Of Gaming

Bill Keaggy — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 05:20:14 +0000

“Just click on the arrow and it will take you to a page that explains the links, the lists show what I feel to be milestone games. These are games that either offered something completely new to a genre and enabled it to grow in a new direction or were just so good that they upped the profile of that genre. So if you are new to gaming or an old hand this should offer enlightenment or tears of nostalgia. It’s amazing to see such change in an entertainment medium in such a short space of time, just looking at the pictures above amazes me how far we have come in such a little space of time. I wonder if in 15 years we will be talking about the gap between Quake 2 and id’s latest total immersion game.”

the history of video games

Bill Keaggy — Tue, 22 Apr 2003 08:00:00 +0000

“…at MIT circa 1961 there’s a group of hard core computer nerds calling themselves the tech model railroad club: wayne witanen and j. martin graetz, along with 25 year-old steve russell, they develop the idea to pit two spaceships with limited fuel supplies against each other in a missle duel. the program becomes ‘spacewar !,’ the world’s first fully interactive videogame, with russell as main programmer (1962)…”

Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go

Bill Keaggy — Thu, 22 Aug 2002 08:00:00 +0000

A Conversation with Will Wright by Celia Pearce: “Well, actually, the way to put it is that I’m trying to build the maximum possibility space in your head, not on the computer. (Laughter.) Okay. Because the possibility space on the computer is just a huge pile of numbers, but as far as you’re concerned that pile of numbers is the same as another pile of numbers…”

The History of Video Games

Bill Keaggy — Thu, 31 Jan 2002 08:00:00 +0000

“In 1949, a young engineer named Ralph Baer was given an assignment to build a television set. He wasn’t supposed to build just any television set, but one that would be the absolute best of all televisions. This was not a problem for Baer, but he wanted to go beyond his original assignment and incorporate some kind of game into the set. He didn’t know exactly what kind of game he had in mind, but it didn’t really matter because his managers nixed the idea. It would take another 18 years for his idea to become a reality, and by that time there would be other people to share in the glory…”