GameCity 2011 took place in Nottingham between the 26th and 29th of September, and is a festival looking at many different aspects of computer gaming old and new. Whilst there were many activities that took place during the festival, I wanted to only comment about my personal experiences, both good and bad, of the events that I attended.

You can see all articles on Game City by clicking here

To mark the 25th Anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series of games the activities on the final day of Game City 2011  were  dedicated to the iconic Adventures of Link.

If there was ever any doubt about the impact that the series has made upon players over the years, then these were put to one side by the devotion and numbers of fans that turned up for the event. From way before the the doors opened to the public and for the majority of the day the queue for entry went from the front door right around the side and behind the festival base. A lot of fans dressed up for the occasion and came dressed as Link, and this wasn’t limited to children as many adults got into the spirit, and had obviously spent a lot of time getting their costumes together. This shouldn’t come as a surprise really as the Zelda games are 25 years old and will have been a big part of many peoples lives since they first started playing games.

Upon entering the festival HQ is was clear to see that the only focus of the day was going to be Zelda. When entering the venue every visitor was given a special Zelda themed ocarina and every Nintendo Zelda game ever produced was available (unlucky if you wanted to play the CDi ‘classic’ Link: The Faces of Evil) in one form or another around the edges of the room.

Zelda based activities took centre stage, for example, a sword fighting demo was given with visitors taking part in choreographed fight scenes, and there was a fancy dress competition for those wanting to take part, although it was the activity behind the main screen that generated the most interest. Several demonstration Wii’s had been set up running a sneak peak of the forthcoming Zelda game Skyward Sword.  The Gameplay looked intriguing, fun, adventurous and in the familiar style to it’s Wii predecessor, but to me it was noticeable how dated the Wii’s graphics had become, I know that the Zelda (and Wii games in general) are about the substance rather then the style but I couldn’t help but wonder what the Zelda game would have looked like on the PS3. That aside it was impressive how players were able to just pick up the wiimotes and play the game comfortably and, as shown in the video below, instantly start to enjoy the adventure, This must have been a real treat for Zelda fans.

The Legend of Zelda Take Over Day was extremly well organised and given the shear numbers of people trying to get into the event the organisers should be proud that it seemed to go very well.

Related Posts:

• GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: The Wild Rumpus
• GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: Retro Gaming at the HomeMade Cafe

You can see all articles on Game City by clicking here

Following on from our disappointing start at the Retro Gaming night we moved onto the Wild Rupus Event held upstairs at the Chameleon.

The first thing that we noticed was that the event was very well attended and that the small venue was packed, no cat swinging here!!!

Again we were a little disappointed by the lack of content as only 3 games were on show, these were 4 Fourths by Mikengreg Games Co, Jesus Vs Dinosaurs by Grapefrukt & Kloonigames & B.U.T.T.O.N by Copenhagen Game Collective.

4 Fourths was presented in a spectacular manner, projected onto a wall, which suited its bright, vivid vector style graphics and presented a very impressive spectacle.

Unfortunately nobody around us could work out how to play the game, and it wasn’t straight forward but I suspect that after  you get used to the control system, there may be a fun and challenging game hidden away in there.

Jesus Vs Dinosaurs was shown on a standard size screen  and was a cross between a beat ‘em up, and a physics game where objects had to be created to use on your opponent, the game had a Biblical Vs Science theme and used effective Terrance and Phillip style graphics. The game was proving to be very popular and getting near the table to play the game was difficult, truly a sign of a successful game.

For me, as an example of a true adult style party game, B.U.T.T.O.N. (standing for: Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now) takes some beating. The game is very simple, 4 controllers are placed on a table and simple instructions are displayed on screen. The instructions range from walk 5 paces backwards, to dance for 30 seconds to the last person to hold their fire button down for 15 seconds is out. Interaction with the game is kept to an absolute minimum but as the games title emplies this is not true with interaction with other players, as they can employ any means necessary to knock out their opponents. As the video I filmed below shows this simple game generates plenty of fun, just watch your Tv’s though as the screen used at the Rumpus nearly ended up on the floor several times.

The concept of The Wild Rumpus is good, it let visitors let their hair down with a beer or 2 and enjoy some different and unusual styles of games, but  the concept needs to be scaled up to a larger venue with more space and more games. From small acorns… and all that.

Related Posts:

• GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: The Legend of Zelda Take Over Day
• GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: Retro Gaming at the HomeMade Cafe

You can see all articles on Game City by clicking here

My first experience of Game City came from the Retro Gaming Event which was held at the HomeMade Cafe.

This event was one of the key reasons I decided to attend GameCity, as I’m a keen Retro Gamer and was keen to see some of the games and systems from my days as a heavy gamer. It’s fair to say that my expectations were set far too high and were not met.

Arriving at the HomeMade Cafe we discovered that this was a very nice but  small, narrow venue, and that it wasn’t going to host the Retro gaming hotbed that we were expecting. There was a £3 entry fee which felt a little excessive considering that there were only 4 consoles available to play with, and only 2 screens to play them on. On 1 table there was an N64 running the classic shooter Goldeneye, although as there was only 1 controller it wasn’t possible to play the much lauded multi-player mode. On the other table there was a SNES, Megadrive and Atari 2600 sharing a single screen. There were a group of gamers playing the SNES trying to get as far as possible, which is an honorable and worthwhile challenge fitting of the event, but it meant that half the available consoles weren’t available to play on.

Whilst not an ideal venue for a gaming night the HomeMade Cafe was fantastic, the food available was first rate, and anyone visiting Nottingham should definitely check it out.

Well fed but feeling slightly disappointed we moved onto the next event “The Wild Rumpus”

Related Posts:

• GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: The Legend of Zelda Take Over Day

How to change your Twitter Profile Picture:

1) Log into your Twitter Account at http://www.twitter.com and click on your account name in the top right hand corner of the screen to display the pull down account menu.

Click on Settings to load the Settings screen

2) After the Settings Screen Click on the Profile link to display your profile settings.

3) When your profile loads the top option is the Change Profile Picture facility.

Click on Browse and select the picture that you want to use from your computer, and click on OK.

4) Click on Save at the bottom of the screen and Twitter will upload  your image and set it as your Profile Picture.

Please be aware that you might not see the change in picture immediately as it can take a while for the changes to replicate.

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For a blogger placing a value on their readers is difficult but for the purposes of setting targets and goals it can be a very useful exercise. It might not be an exact science and will involve the use of averages but if you can assign an average value to each visitor to your site then you can work out how many views you need to reach your goal.

As an example I’m going to use 2 months worth of stats from my iPhone-experience.com website.

Across August and September iPhone-Experience.com received 9129 unique visitors and through Adsense ads generated 2065 pence (£20.65)

On average each visitor for that 2 month period was worth 0.23p. If I was to set a goal to generate a £60 adsense payment every month then I need to target £2.00 per day. To do this then on average I would need to attract 870 readers to the site everyday.

Now there’s a target.

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The ride had been folded away for transit and attached to the back of a lorry, unfortunately the exercise was more problematic then anticipated, due to the angle of bend and steepness of the only access point.

The only way to remove the ghost train was to reverse the lorry up a steep and bendy path, unfortunately as the picture below shows their wasn’t enough clearance on the back of the trailer to avoid it grounding and jamming against the road.

Without any other exit points along the Bridlington front the lorry was now stuck and a solution was urgently required, to provide extra clearance the staff placed planks underneath the rear of the lorry to provide additional height, and wet the path with hose pipes to reduce the friction on the surface. The following video shows the hose pipe in action.

The operation now involved tiny movements to get the trailer around the bend, at the front of the cabin there were only a few inches of clearance space from the sea wall, and with the end of the trailer scraping along the road, every movement was vital, and not without danger. In the following video the Lorry almost hits both a member of the Bayside staff and a wall.

The whole operation took about 4 hours from the start of the problems until the end, and all involved deserve a great deal of praise for resolving the situation as it could have been alot worse, but it wasn’t without damage, a wall on the ramp way was damaged during the process.

Bayside Leisure Park was recently in the news when their was a serious accident on it’s Jungle River Log Flume

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There may be an occasion where Facebook serves a specific purpose, eg where you need to target a specific demographic, but as a pure advertising platform Facebook looks to be expensive and not as effective as other ad platforms.

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• How Effective are Microsoft Adverts
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So with my account credited I thought I would try their service to see how well it worked for bringing traffic to a website devloped specifically for the test.

Using a campaign  of 4 hours as a testbed and with a maximum limit of £0.30 (although my average CPC ended up at £0.09) 34.5K advert impressions generated 111 clicks.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft Ads compare to other Ad sources, I might use some other free vouchers to see if a comparison of services is possible. I’ll report back on my findings here.

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Studies have shown that Dementia Sufferers want to stay physicaly fit, develop new skills, and Keep in contact with outside world, helping to maintain a sense of self and assist them to self manage their condition for as long as possible.
Current studies are focusing on the use of common everyday technology rather than specialised adhock equipment to help Dementia Sufferers.
Cost effective and readily available technology like Video Phones
Electronic Reminder Services, Social Networking sites,Webcams and mobile phones with GPS tracking systems can be used to make life a little easier for sufferers.
These kinds of off the shelf technology can used for :

• Prompting e.g. prompt to wash hands
• The Safe use of domestic equipment e.g. cooking prompting Following recipes
• Orientation through the house at night
• street navigation
• Reminiscence & Recall e.g. digital story telling
• Socialising
• Comfort eg robot pets and Digital scrapbooking/blogs

The abilities of the person suffering Dementia should be focused on for as long as possible, and this is facilitated by supporting and readily available technology.

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With this in mind Twitter could be compared to TV advertising in that it’s at it’s most effective when people actually see the advert at time of broadcast, if it’s missed then it’s message is lost.

So how then can Twitter be used to it’s most effective to share your links and drive traffic to your site? Following the TV advertising example I tried sending multiple tweets linking to my iPhone site across my Twitter networks.
My Twitter network is shared across 4 Twitter accounts each focused on a technical theme so tweets about the iPhone should be of interest to some of my followers.

Rather the retweeting the same link several times in 1 day, I decided to pick a number of popular articles and schedule a Tweet linking to each at regular intervals throughout the day. Each time the tweet was published it was sent out across all 4 accounts, this allowed frequent visibility of links to my site without boring my followers with repeated identical links.

As seen in the graph below Using this method really boosted the amount of traffic to my site, nearly doubling the amount of site views.

By going deeper into the hourly stats following this method the individual traffic spikes (the blue line) matching the scheduled tweets can clearly be seen.

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• Does how a Tweet is written effect the number of clicks
• How Tweeting Links can Improve Traffic
• How to See when your Twitter Followers are Online