Re-Research

Third time is the charm, once again embarking upon the research journey with the Masters in Design (Innovation) thanks to a generous arrangement to accommodate me. This time I cannot give up or fail as I’m undertaking this with friends. As the research excitement builds, this blog will double as a space for research findings and thoughts.

Running Booths

After regularly doing roadshows in malls, public spaces and also conventions, here are some thought processes which we go through depending on the space availability and other considerations.

1) Draw gimmick
It is usually good to have something that stands out. Something to attract the crowd to spend a few minutes at your booth. Could be in the form of a backdrop or buntings and posters (depending on the layout of your booth and whether it has standard walls.) Usually this follows your game or product’s theme. I’ve used cutout standees and boxes with printed sides before. In this regard, the cornier the better sometimes.

2) Moving images
A small TV or screen showcasing your product/service/game is useful as something for people to watch. Not everyone likes engaging and talking and would prefer observing before spending time to engage. Promotional videos or explainers videos are good for this. Keep in mind that events can be noisy therefore always consider providing close-captions as an alternative.

3) Promotionals
Brochures, pamphlets, namecards, anything to disseminate information and retain people or get them to come back for more information. Tactile stuff are always welcome. This will be what visitors use to later go through and convince themselves of your service. Cost is a consideration here so make sure your give-away doesn’t cost an arm and leg.

4) Giveaways
Free game codes, badges, nick-nacks, even something as simple as a dice that you can easily purchase in bulk and giveaway to people as they talk to you at the booth. This lets people feel like they got something of value from you and helps spread through word-of-mouth.

5) Security.
Lastly consider bringing along cable locks and storage devices as crowds can get large at such events. Controllers and smaller components (mobile devices) can get pilfered easily. Also always consider your equipment being jostled and knocked over.

Missing H.264

A stupid problem that has been plaguing me for the longest time was After Effect’s H.264 format. The vanilla installation of AECC would not allow you to render out using that format and since most videos are now designed for Youtube uploads, the H.264 compression is one of the best suited for it. I’ve tried loads.Usually the format comes with an installation of Quicktime but when that didn’t work, I finally found the solution in another Youtube video. I’m just putting this up here in the event that my memory fails me and I find myself in the same situation again.

The Next Level

Had the sudden inspiration to produce a shirt for a dynamic duo of game developers that have been supportive of what we’re trying to do. Wedding was a blast!

A Journey Begins

‘The commercialization of table-top games in Malaysia.’ will be my title for my postgraduate masters degree at University Pengajian Sultan Idris (UPSI) Tanjung Malim, which is an hours drive away from where I live.

In the research proposal;

This research is aimed at exploring the existing methods employed and how an approach might be formulated to locally produce and commercialize a table-top game with international value.

In non-academic terms, figure out how to manufacture and produce a board-game that sells. This might seem pretty simple but I’ve come to realize that its ridiculously difficult and I’d like to explore this while also documenting this for future wannabe board-game designers and developers. Why the analog pathways? I enjoy it.

This journal is to document the path I will be exploring, the findings of my research and also to remind myself of what I’ve done and how much further I’ve got to go. My previous attempt at a research paper fizzled with my previous company so this time I’ve got to do this right.

Looking at Oxeye

Here is a studio I stumbled across while reading Notch’s blog. Its another indie studio all the way on that side of the world. I love the way they work. Their art quality is excellent, their audio, gameplay is top notch. I’m really impressed by the way people can come together and just work on something. That’s something that is pretty hard to achieve here where everyone is constantly striving just to make ends meet on a daily basis. Making things for fun just seems incredibly hard and you get funny looks when you suggest such a thing. Its all about commercialization here which is quite against the whole spirit of creating games that you yourself would like to play.

I still believe it can be done, just with quite a lot more blood and sweat.

Oh and also, I forgot to add they’re located on top of a cafe! Aaah.. the dream.

Setting up

After months of mucking about, the website is finally up! Instead of trying to bend a website to fulfill my finicky needs, I’ve decided to just drop designing the thing from scratch and opt to use WordPress instead and build it up from there.

A content development company without a website is indeed a poor sight therefore here it is! The new Synergy Lab web presence where all news pertaining to the development of our projects would be carefully archived here for the benefit of future generations.

Stay tuned as I try to figure out how to make a living peddling games.