“Oh… um. I’ll get back to you!” *rubs hands together and imagines the possibilities*
Last year, Nickelodeon Addicting Games commissioned us to devise and develop an original game for their re-brand. This is how our initial ideas for the game turned from the above into…
… and then tried to make sure story never got in the way of game-play. I’m going to start talking about themes and character arcs in a bit. Before there’s any eye-rolling, I fully understand and endorse that writing in games is just a layer of polish. For all my fondness for interactive narratives, emergent storytelling etc etc, Edward and the Strange Invasion was always intended to be a fun experience of exploring from A to B to C and either dodging or combatting the occasional beastie en route.
Still, we had this fantastic opportunity to create an original story-world and it’s not like there aren’t already one or two games on the internet about generally moving around and fighting weird creatures. So how could we personalise this apocalypse?
In many ways, I think the majority of stories are ‘coming-of-age’ tales whether they mean to be or not: Protagonist wants something, faces challenges and obstacles and either changes or resists change in order to achieve or fail their goal. In this case, once the concept of Edward had been sketched out, I had the vague notion of a boy with his head in the clouds of science fiction, waiting for some alien intervention to come and make his life better only to realise that he’d actually have to do it himself.
For one thing, this idea gave the game a more optimistic starting point – rather than the disappearance of everyone on Earth being a distressing inciting incident, it presents a degree of escapist wish-fulfilment for Edward (who, after all, only accidentally survived the apocalypse because he was hiding in an emergency bunker by choice so that he could read old science fiction paperbacks)
But, of course, poor Edward doesn’t have the town to himself for long. Not only are there a number of beasties gallumphing round town, but Edward is repeatedly instructed by the mysterious Doctor Zee and Agent X on missions of great importance. The idea that you first encounter these characters as potential imaginary friends or delusional symptoms (ie – that they are figments of Edward’s idealistic view of science fiction) quickly gives way to a bickering pair of characters who ultimately have bungled up their own intergalactic mission so are dumping it on Edward – now he has to get around town performing chores without the other town’s inhabitants getting in his way/eating him. Poor Edward!
This is where the idea of Victorian science fiction author E.T. Lunchcraft first appeared – ultimately a figure who had unintentionally taken the reality of the interstellar back-story and spun in it into fun escapist tales. Adding books as collectibles around town not only gave us the opportunity to come up with some daft puns and references to our favourite classic science fiction stories, but the idea of going ‘off-mission’ in order to find an escapist book seemed thematically apt.
(also – I don’t think I ever told anyone this, but as well as being an obvious pun on H.P. Lovecraft, E.T the Extra-Terrestrial and…er… mid-day meals, to my mind E.T. Lunchcraft’s first name was also Edward, just to give them an extra connection)
Ultimately, a lot of the above was just all just sub-text that can all sound a bit poncey to talk about (not to mention largely irrelevant in game-play terms) but this game was commissioned as having a narrative with a definite end point and I wanted to make that ending feel as satisfying as possible. Once we’d gotten the arena of the game and put all our ideas for events, set-pieces, puzzles and battles into a structured list, the script began to take shape, but building up to… what?
*SPOILERS*
Edward battles a big boss. That’s definitely the end of the game-play. So what could an ending cut-scene add? How could it offer any sense of catharsis after a climactic final fight? This is why I think the petty conflict between Doctor Zee and Agent X along with Edward’s disappointment at their manipulation was so important. We always knew a number of players would skip through the dialogue to get to the good stuff, so to a degree there’s an element of Edward getting annoyed at his mentors in the dialogue too and generally being moderately miffed with the ‘reality’ of this sci-fi scenario.
Naturally, we tried to make sure that the dialogue didn’t actually interfere. As with any script, many lines were cut and we had to ensure that Zee and X were also useful in making sure the player always knew what they were meant to be doing. But there are about a dozen lines in the script that I would have fought to keep in had anyone asked me to change them. But no one ever did which hopefully meant that, on some level, we all knew those lines were key.
Our design team excelled themselves both in terms of quality and quantity of art assets and animations for this game and our developers worked around the clock to create vivid script engines, lighting effects and the action (flamethrowers!) that are the main draw and (in no uncertain terms) the main point of playing this game. There’s a good chance I overthought about all of this. But this is why I am pleased with how the final cut scene works with the game and hopefully doesn’t just feel tagged on by paying off the battles and story beats scattered throughout.
By the time you get there, we’ve already revealed everything were going to. There’s no extra twist. Just maybe the feeling that Edward has completed their mission. Not his. But… now he gets to shake off being told what to do and maybe triumphantly enjoy his own adventures on other worlds. After all, most games tell you what to do all the time – set you challenges then try and make it even more difficult for you. So if players took the time to complete our game, I hoped we could invigorate them with that same sense of triumph and freedom as Edward achieves, having undertaken a journey.
I’ve now been at Team Cooper for a little over six months so wanted to take a moment to look back at my degree, a BSc Games Software Development from Sheffield Hallam University and how it prepared me for the exciting world of digital amusements.
Here at Team Cooper my job role covers a variety of activities across Flash, web technology and the games spectrum. So, while not an exact parallel to what I covered at university, I was reasonably prepared for what I was getting into when I stepped through the door.
Even though ActionScript 3 hadn’t been my main programming language while studying, that didn’t mean that I couldn’t apply the logical approaches to programming, development and investigating new technology that I had picked up over the past three years while dusting off the part of my brain that loved Flash. There are generic programming techniques and approaches that I picked up during my studies which were invaluable in getting to grips with any any technologies that were new to me. Technical know-how aside, the tutors also did a good job of drumming the importance of working as a member of a team and setting up assignments to emphasise cross-discipline team development, but it still took some quick adjusting to get on the same page as my co-workers. This is something I think any new starter will experience as there are a lot of aspects to working in a professional team that you can only learn while being a part of one. At Hallam, I was also provided opportunities to listen to talks set up by the university from veterans of the industry, providing useful insight and information on their experiences (and it was at one of these talks that I first encountered Team Cooper).
I think that if I was to go back and do it all again, knowing what I know now, there are a variety of things I could have done differently. As with all students, I could say I would have spent less time ‘socialising’ and more time working. I could have spent extra time working on, researching and including more unique ideas outside of what I was taught in my portfolio of work – I’d managed a fair few pieces but much of it still consisted of generic student assignments.
I know I was very lucky to be able to go straight from university into my ideal job. It has been strange going straight from full time education into full time employment, but it’s also a very exciting time to be working here at Team Cooper.
Hi, I have been fortunate enough to join Team Cooper as Digital Project Manager. This is now my second week and I am enjoying working with such a creative and brilliant team of people. I have over 20 years experience in delivering a range of solutions, supporting and mentoring teams. I am passionate about what I do and what makes working at Team Cooper so great is that I love games and love playing them…um, testing them.
I started my career in South Africa as an HR & Payroll Software Consultant where I implemented systems for over 50 clients. I then moved to the UK and worked as a Software Consultant implementing Enterprise Management Solutions. I was far too techie and used to spend many hours in cold server rooms. However this is where I found my talent and was called ‘the warm and fuzzy one’ as I could comfortably go into situations where clients were not happy and would help resolve end user issues.
The natural progression was to move into Digital Project Management which I did in 2000. I am a veteran having surfed through the various ups and downs of the different internet booms and crashes. I am hoping that I can use my various practical skills along with a mix of my mischievous character and of course my psychic powers to enrich the team as everything they do is awesome!
When we’re not making games and other digital amusements… you can often find us playing games and other digital amusements. I asked the team to tell me their games of their year and write a line or two about why. But we went with a slightly broader set of rules to the usual lists:
1. It can be any platform at all (console, browser, phone, board game etc)
2. It can be anything loosely termed a game or digital amusement (including ARGs, viral things or any fun applications)
3. It doesn’t have to have been released in 2012 (just as long as you played it this year)
These were just some of our favourite things…
Tim
I think the most memorable one is Kingdom Rush. I love the art, the audio and of course the game play. It’s certainly the one game I’ve played in the past year that I think “I really wish we made that!”. I’ve probably played more Rachet & Clank (Crack in Time is my favourite) and LEGO [Insert Franchise Here] games than anything else though as these are what I play at home with the kids.
That’s not one line is it?
Emma
Triple Town. They broke me, it’s the first (and still only) game I have made ‘in-game’ purchases in.
I loves it.
Russell
Kill Doctor Lucky. I’m a big fan of Cluedo and this game turns the concept on it’s head. You play as a would be murderer attempting to bump off old Doctor Lucky as he wanders around his stereotypical mansion. Sounds easy, but the twist is that you must commit the murder out of sight of any other player, and they can gang up to try and stop you. The mechanic to stop you is a deck of ‘failure’ cards, each card describing a new and comical failure, turning the game into a Ladykillers-style parody of bungled murder. This is a really fun game to play in a group as tactics change with the numbers of people involved.
Adam (whose surname is ‘Clay’ by the way)
Clay Jam … and not just because it involves my name!! The main reason I like this game is the quirky sense of humour and the innovative graphic style (I’ve not seen anything else similar) But it’s also quite addictive. Basically, you are a ball of clay. You have to roll down a hill and make yourself gradually bigger by hitting clay monsters and absorbing more clay. Then the bigger you are the larger objects you can absorb.
Kyle
Torn between the great writing of The Walking Dead and tight mechanics of Hotline Miami. Every decision you make in The Walking Dead feels like it actually matters to your story whereas, even though Hotline Miami is surreal and strange, the gameplay provides a sense of logic even if it feels like you’re playing in a weird fever dream.
Simon
Jetpack Joyride. I was seriously addicted last month and would play it every time I had a spare minute. Probably because it was so easy to pick up and play without having to be immersed in a story but it still had progression and targets to achieve.
[NOTE - Simon also managed to get his fiancée addicted too]
Kieran
Dishonored – it’s a stealthy Steampunk assassins game with magic and a storyline affected by your actions.
What else could you want?
John
Although I only ended up watching one episode of BBC’s Hunted, I got really immersed in their viral site for Byzantium Security and their online tests to join ‘the 1% that matters’. With timely marketing to chime with the Occupy Movement’s anniversary and devised by cognitive psychologists and members of the Magic Circle, the tests/mind games utilised webcams, psychological profiling, your Facebook feed and frighteningly accurate results that engaged you far more than with your usual Byzantine corporation! You can’t play the tests any more but you can read about the campaign here.
A fair spread! If you want to know any more about the people above making the choices, we’ve also just updated our Meet the Team page. But we’d also like to know your games or digital amusements of the year too (same rules as above).
In the meantime, here’s wishing you all a playful 2013 from all of us at Team Cooper!
What’s in a name? Loads, it turns out. Flicking through the review list of a (nameless) games magazine recently, it struck me how generic the majority of game names can seem – especially without any accompanying graphics or even a recognisable brand font.
Once you’ve actually played a game, it’s hard to keep the style, tone and even characters from your mind the second your eyes read a game name. Even to the point where, personally, simple words like ‘Portal’ now entirely belong to the world of Aperture Science and GLaDOS or when a Halo has far more to do with the Masterchief than with angels and saints.
So what makes a good title?
As with a lot of wordy things, simplicity plays a big part. The working title for the mega successful Plants Vs. Zombies franchise was ‘Lawn of the Dead‘. In some ways, it’s a better title but, on the other hand, it also doesn’t describe the game play as well and also seems potentially more niche (and after Shaun of the Dead, it perhaps risked being Yawn of the Dead for that sort of pun. Hmmn… would Yawn of the Dead make a good game?)
As well as game play, I think the most powerful thing titles convey is tone. As much as I analyse titles like Silent Hill to be anagrams of ‘Instil Hell’, mostly it works as a title because it just *sounds* creepy. It seems like it’s really easy to over think names which is how we seem to end up with a great deal of very committee-conceived sounding [Insert Franchise Name]: Operation Shadow Revenge Evolution on our shelves. (The colon seems to be a tell-tale sign)
I started writing this post before we started developing a game of our own which we’re now mulling several titles for. I know it’s out there, but we’re just waiting for that final moment of inspiration and clarity that will tie everything together and seems so obvious now you think of it.
Mind you, I think lots of great games have terrible titles (again, no names!) And, vice versa, a good title doesn’t necessarily mean a good game. (Check out this great list of games that seem to satisfy neither category).
So, genuine question. What’s your favourite game name? And does it belong to your favourite game?
Hot off the digital press, direct to a computer screen somewhere near you are the final two games of HOOPLA!
Yes, you t0o can now live out your dreams of spinning TV stars round on plates until they vomit a lot with Plate Sick Spin! Don’t forget the genius that is Grabby Grab too, complete with the most vicious, demanding pram I’ve ever encountered.
It’s been an intense time for us all here and I’d like to give you a brief insider look at how we went about creating this carnival of chaos:
As Emma mentioned in our last post we got the fantastic chance to actually go down to the shoot for the series along with Aidan, our producer at the BBC. This is pretty rare for us, normally the shoots are all done and dusted by the time it comes to the online content, so we made the most of it. We got to soak up the atmosphere of the fairground down in Devon, seeing Dick and Dom in action. This proved invaluable to us, allowing us to capture the mood and find the right tone to bring to our games – as well as taking loads of reference photos in the format we prefer. What this meant in reality was very nicely asking all the cast if they wouldn’t posing for us and pulling a variety of silly expressions.
Our trip to Devon also meant we came away with three very definite new characters – The Pooh Brothers. What had been described in our pitch documents as vague ‘extra’ characters gained new life as the very odd fairground owners Johnny, Mike and their cousin Enoch. That was great for me as it meant more vomiting characters for Plate Sick Spin.
Then it was back to Sheffield to start production and create four games which harness the Hoopla! Our designers have done a great job recreating the slimy atmosphere of the show. It even involved Adam paying a visit to Sheffield’s own National Fairground Archive for research. Our development team meanwhile soldiered on as we each created demos of the four games, reviewing and tweaking as we went.
Then it was all hands on pump to get the first two games, including prize stall and leaderboards, ready for our first release. Now I’m very pleased to mention that now you can view Hoopla in the way we’ve always thought of it, all four games ready for frantic and slightly queasy fun!
It’s been a great time, one that’s seen us travel to such far flung locations as Devon to capture the dastardly duo and bring them to your computer screens.
What are you waiting for? Go and have a play, you can even play against your mates!
We are really very pleased, ecstatic in fact, to announce that we snagged a commission from Auntie. The Beeb. THE BBC! And not just any old bit of the BBC either, no, one of our favourite bits… CBBC! The day we found out there was much dancing and some drinking (of pints (of tea)). The project is for Dick and Dom’s newest incarnation on the channel, HOOPLA! A dark and murky carnival of weird games and mildly terrifying clowns. What’s not to love?
The Hoopla game is a series of mini games in which you get to torment Dick and Dom. You can either play to collect tokens which you can swap for astoundingly ‘good’ prizes or play against your mates in a shared keyboard mode. The games are a little bit odd and a little bit vile, but that’s just how we like it. In the first two of the games available to play you get to either shoot at Dick and Dom via a ‘Bogie Blaster’ or fire ping pong balls at them and the pesky Clown Kids to protect your prizes.
I have, however, started to develop a slight aversion to clowns.
We have been quietly amused for months with the physics of snot. One of the games in the second batch (due out in the next few weeks) now has us focusing on the physical properties of vomit. All in a day’s work, we keep saying (whilst not quite being able to look each other in the eye). It has been a lot of fun though and getting to spend the weekend in Devon at Dingles Fairground Heritage Centre where the show was recorded and call that ‘work’ is currently a career highlight for me.
There will be more games going live soon so keep checking back here and on the CBBC site – although I’m sure you’ll hear me shouting from the roof tops once we’re all done!
Hello. I’m Kieran, the latest addition at Team Cooper. And it’s my turn to write an introductory blog post.
Recently I finished a game software development course at Sheffield Hallam University, where I covered many areas from AS3 to mobile games, and beyond. When I saw that Team Cooper was advertising for a developer I jumped at the opportunity. Several weeks and an interview later, here I am.
My first week here has been fantastic, being dropped in at the deep end and bringing myself up to speed with what and how Team Cooper does things has been both challenging and satisfying. The whole Team has been very welcoming and helpful, and I can’t wait to crack on and prove myself a useful and capable member of Team Cooper.
Though if they convince me to try the slide again, all 6 foot 5 of me may get stuck, and I’m not sure how useful I shall be from inside there.
Team Cooper is a Sheffield based digital agency. We build games, Facebook apps, and other digital amusements for the web, mobile and beyond. We have a number of projects approaching which require an additional digital designer / illustrator to join our team, initially on a short contract basis, but with the possibility of becoming a full time position in future.
The first project is for a very well known client and we require an experienced digital designer to work alongside our in-house illustrator to deliver artwork for a game project aimed at a young audience (6-12).
We are particularly interested in candidates with experience creating graphical user interfaces and 2D environments in either vector or pixel-art styles.
Be self motivated, with a positive and pro-active attitude towards their work
A portfolio demonstrating your best digital project / personal work to date
Have good written and verbal communication skills
Must be willing to work with our team in our Sheffield office
Desirable:
Specific experience creating digital UI for games aimed at a young audience
Animation skills (Flash)
Knowledge of video for web
To apply, please email your CV and link to your portfolio to.
PLEASE NOTE: This position has now been filled. However, we are always keen to hear from designers and illustrators in regard to potential freelance and staff roles arising in the future so please feel free to say hello at the above address!
As part of the recent Sheffield Doc/Fest, Russ and I headed to see a screening of James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot’s successfully kickstarter-funded Indie Game: The Movie which follows the creators of Braid, Super Meat Boy and Fez before and after the release of their creations. (EDIT: Turns out Tim and Kyle have seen it as well).
While the final film received a little flak here and there for not really delving deeply into the world of indie games, it’s clear from the outset that this documentary is far more focussed on the indie developers who devoted/demented themselves to bring their dream games to virtual life. Where the film succeeds absolutely is as an entertaining and engaging love letter to the commitment, passion and sheer obsession that, as players, we can sometimes forget that it takes to get these games made whenever we turn on our computers or consoles and demand instant entertainment.
Where the film perhaps falls short is in its slightly rose-tinted portrayal of its hard-working heroes. While audiences will easily be on Phil Fish’s side as he faces an expletive-laden message board of gamers lamenting Fez’s delayed release, when Fish is confronted by a series of setbacks mostly resulting from an ex-business partner, it’s difficult to know quite what you think because we are never given the full back-story to the antagonism. (It’s understandable that full details are never divulged, but it leaves an uncomfortable edge in what has otherwise built up as an optimistic underdog story).
In contrast to the pressurised build-up to Fez‘s first PAX demo, Jonathan Blow’s account of his own Braid comes as a dose of thoughtful hindsight. As well as looking back at the game’s surprisingly ‘yeah, someone should really do a game like that’ origins, it’s fascinating to see Blow’s response to how the game is perceived as well as received to the point where he appreciates the high review scores but thinks people are enjoying his game ‘wrong’. It’s in moments like these that the film shows off its stars as more than just game-makers, all of the participants are striving to express something and connect with other people through their games.
The film’s heart is perhaps best emphasised through Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, co-creators of Super Meat Boy. Where Refenes is clearly passionate and dedicated to their game as something he desperately wants to play himself, it’s probably McMillen who garners the greatest affection from the audience. As we are shown the monsters and madness of his childhood sketchbooks, it’s easy to see that any compromise at all on what he dreams of creating won’t be worth all the hard work and struggle. I’ve read a few comments that say this film legitimises games as an artistic form but – as someone who never thought games needed legitimising – all that’s clear is that there’s no other medium that could possibly communicate better what McMillen wants to say.
Above all else, Indie Game: The Movie is an absorbing cautionary tale that entertainingly shows how much you have to shut yourself away and sacrifice in order to share your ideas with the gaming world. While the film (perhaps wisely) doesn’t delve too deeply into the darker side of the protagonists’ self-doubt or isolation, what it firmly puts across is the infectious enthusiasm of the indie devs, the clarity of their vision and their sheer bloody-mindedness.
My verdict: 4 out of 5.
Russ’s verdict: 3.5 out of 5.
Kyle’s verdict: 3.74 out of 5. (Tch, typical Kyle )
Tim’s verdict: 3.5 out of 5.
So, all in all, we give it a score of 3.685 out of 5. Definitely worth a watch!
Hot on the heels of our online version of Blockbusters for Challenge TV comes a few more classic gaming experiences given the Team Cooper treatment in Challenge TV’s new Retro Arcade. Some games never go out of style and that’s why Challenge asked us to create browser versions of the ever-popular Snake and the immortal Pong.
Whether batting the ball past your opponent or steering your serpent in search of food, you know the rules of these timeless games. So if you’ve a few minutes to spare, why not head over to the Retro Arcade and re-experience some gaming favourites? Share your scores and challenge friends to beat yours – plus vote for the next game added to this playable hall of fame.
Last week I had to go to Paris. I HAD TO! It was for work. Yeah, I can hardly believe it either.
We recently built a game for the local charity Safe@Last who do amazing work with and for young people in South Yorkshire around issues relating to homelessness. I went to speak at Games For Change Europe as part of Futr En Seine. It was a day for game designers, makers, teachers and developers in Europe working in the field of games for social change to come together and share their projects and experiences – all brought together by Jean-Michel Blottière who has been working to unite the community for a few years.
The game we’ve made for Safe@Last isn’t quite live yet but it is the first project that we’ve produced that aims to have a social impact. For more information about the game we made, you can find my slides here. Games with a social impact are something that we’re interested in and I jumped at the chance to go and talk about it in Paris (it being in Paris did help the decision a little) because I wanted to try and learn more about the market and how other developers have approached similar projects. We’ve since been able to do another game in this field for Terrence Higgins Trust and the benefits of doing this kind of works are amazing. Not only did we get to learn about positive work these charities are doing but also try to help them achieve their goals is immensely satisfying.
The day was amazing, it was jam-packed with people in and around Europe working on games for social change or that are intended to have a social impact. I can’t cover it all but the highlights for me were…
Stéphane Buthaud of HumanoGames spoke about their efforts to build an alternative Facebook game. It’s very much in the Farmville mode but the in-game currency ‘Happy Cash’ can be spent on in game items, as micro-loans to your friends to help them get started in the game or you can opt to convert them from virtual currency in to actual micro-loans for real people via Kiva. The intention of the game is to teach people about and promote micro-loans but also through sponsorship hopes to make and actual difference to people lives. The game presents you with real people from the Kiva site who need small loans to help them restock or expand their small business but banking or traditional finance routes are not available to them. I’ve since realised that this game is not on its own. There are other similar Facebook games such as WeTopia but it’s certainly the great implementation of the concept – converting the hours spent working at long term management games on Facebook in to genuine social change.
Prof. Dr. Michael Wagner spoke about his experience of designing games for the classroom. It was really interesting to see how he had tackled the much-discussed on the day issue of Learning versus Fun. A lot of the speakers recognised that there needs to be a balance struck between teaching and what is fun. As Michael said, game design is an iterative process and this doesn’t always lend itself well to formal learning but can be very useful for procedural learning. He demonstrated Ludwig, a physics game that aims to introduce students to the way physicists think, that he was involved in the development of. Notably Ludwig was specifically developed with high immersion and slick graphics in attempt to make it feel like game rather than a learning tool.
Andrew Nash presented his Facebook game that aims to educate the public about town planning. Based on the concept that empowering the people who know a transport system the best (ie – the people who use it everyday) to understand the constraints put on town planners, together they can create greener city streets by making better public transport systems. I love the idea of this project. Andrew said they were looking for some support in developing the project further and I hope that he finds it.
As well as coming together to share our work, the purpose of this get together was so that Jean-Michel could find out from us if we felt there was a need for a separate entity to the main Games for Change organisation based in the US. They’ve just held their annual conference there in New York (if you haven’t seen it I recommend watching the key note speech by Jane McGonigal it’s a very enlightening and quite a personal insight in to how games like this can help people). From listening to the other speakers, I think that there is certainly enough interest and I think there are needs mostly for economic reasons – personally I would love to have been able to go to New York this week but it’s expensive in both time and money. The live stream this year has been really good but it’s still not the same as being there to focus on the event and talk with like-minded people, I think a local organisation might help more with support and forming a network. Regardless of what happens I am definitely looking forward for the chance to meet up with this community again, I feel very honoured to have been invited to be part of it.
Look at them go! To help promote the launch of the new Bobble Bots toy line from Mind Candy’s Moshi Monsters, the team tucked into making a game that took full advantage of all the wobbly bobbling fun the toys had to offer.
It’s your first day as Monstro City’s newest traffic controller. It’s a busy day out there and the Moshlings are all of a bustle – but they never look where they’re going! By moving barriers and planning their routes for them, it’s up to you to direct them safely to their destination.
Whether steering Rocky to the Gross-ery Store or Suki Yaki to the Ice Scream parlour, the more levels you get through, the more Moshlings appear and need to be steered. So put your multi-tasking to the test…but make sure you don’t send your Bobble Bot bustling to the wrong place!
To celebrate the launch of the All New Blockbusters series hosted by Simon Mayo on Challenge TV, the team were only too happy to take on the challenge of developing an on-line version, whistling the theme tune all the way.
Just like the show, the game pits you against another team to answer questions and build a chain of hexagons from one side of the board to the other in order to get to the Gold Run. As well as playing computerised opponents, the team are particularly proud of the multi-player mode that lets you play with or against other real-life players across the internet.
Play the game as a guest, or continue to build and beat your own scores by creating a profile or logging in with Facebook. There’s also a fun avatar builder so you can really put yourself in the game (or go for something a little different with that haircut/chin you’ve always wanted).
In its first few weeks of release, Blockbusters is already the most popular game on Challenge’s site. Have you got what it takes to get to the Gold Run?
After a final uni year full of fun and frustrating projects, I’m back at Team Cooper and hopefully here to stay this time. For those that don’t recall, I was Team Cooper’s first placement student back in 2010 and during my year and a half here, I helped with many projects including Cricket Skills, Tron, YellowBrick Race Tracker and Unclean Canteen. Although those projects were fun and interesting, I think the most challenging and hilarious game I worked on was Pupstars, a game for Brass and CBBC involving two puppet dogs and various musical instruments. Hacker and Dodge never fail to make me laugh and I still try and catch them on TV in a morning.
It looks as though I was missed during my year out because as soon as the last piece of coursework was handed in at uni I’ve landed back at the office in full time employment. It feels good to be back with the team again in the middle of all of the creative happenings and, instead of slaving away every hour of the day to get coursework finished, now it’s mainly office hours so I get to sneak in a few free evenings and weekends when we’re not too busy.
The last year has been a good one. I’ve been given the opportunity to enhance my skills in developing 3D games which is the direction Flash may be heading in the near future. Being back at uni gave me a chance to program a PS3 game - not many students can say they’ve done that before! My final year project involved using a Kinect to control a Flash game.
All of the interaction was achieved through writing a custom AIR extension to translate Kinect data between C++ and Flash, which was then visualised using Stage3D. There’s nothing like using cutting edge technology (most of the libraries used were still in Beta) as not a lot of references were available so any problems had to be dealt with without much help. I used a lot of my time getting the rigged model to react correctly to the players actions as the Microsoft Kinect SDK only provides joint positions which are no good for animation. It was a very large maths-induced headache concerning various calculated angles and known limitations but I think I managed to get a good balance in the end. I’m quite proud of how well it works now and I may even use it in any future projects if any cool ideas come along.
I think the experience gained over the final year at university will definitely come in handy, both at work and also in my own personal projects. I’ve been talking to Tim and Emma about how Team Cooper are looking to expand in the near future and it all sounds exciting. The last year was useful but now I’m looking forward to more challenging and gripping projects here at Team Cooper.
As part of The Terrence Higgins Trust‘s latest campaign in association with the Department of Health and CHAPS, we devised a Facebook game of bouncing beds and scoring to promote the message of visiting sexual health clinics more regularly.
In Man Up! you are challenged to use beds to bounce upwards for as long as you can, gaining more points the higher you go – but your score is only safely yours when you’ve bounced your way to one of the clinics throughout the game and banked your progress. There are added distractions along the way such as bugs trying to knock you down, plus a number of handsome fellahs who it’s up to you if you interact with!
Man Up! was a hugely enjoyable project to develop, pushing us to balance the campaign’s aims with fun, addictive game play that would encourage players to challenge friends, share their scores and help spread the message. So why not choose a player, hop onto one of those beds and see how far you can go?
Judging by the amount of the Post-Its on the wall, the team have a fine splodge of projects on the go right now (Don’t bother checking, I think you’ll find ‘splodge’ is the approved collective noun for projects). The only trouble is, it would be terribly indecent of me to go into any detail of what we’re working on before we’re finished. So, in time-honoured tradition, I thought I’d drop a few hints about what’s soon to be heading to a browser near you!
This is me, holding/about to run off with the stand for the line of toys we recently developed a game to help promote…
This is our Emma, trying to find sound effects that don’t sound *too* much like sex noise…
And this is our Russ who is trying to remember the theme tune of a quiz show he’s developing a game for (but keeps getting it confused with the theme from Quantum Leap)
There’s a splendid no-prize for anyone who guesses all three projects correctly!
SHARK: “Hope nobody blows me up before I can reveal I’m an undercover agent for the coastguard!”
Even as a fan of LOST, saying ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey‘ always sounds like a cop-out when it comes to defending endings. But, on the other hand, when I finish an enjoyable session of trampolining, I don’t then look around expectantly for a shocking twist or tear-jerking epilogue to the experience. In the recent wake of upset Mass Effect 3 fans raising money to raise awareness of how ‘bad’ the ending to the trilogy is (no spoilers please!), it can be difficult to gauge what audiences expect, want and actually need from an ending to find it rewarding.
With our own Nurse Quest: Love Hurts (in which you play as hapless Geoff Jefferson trying to contrive the perfect injury to impress the Nurse of your dreams) we received a few comments on the [adult swim] site that a couple of players felt let down by the ending. Without wanting to spoil how Geoff’s quest resolves itself, it’s fair to say that Geoff’s creators (our Tim and Russ) subscribe more to the British sitcom of your Basil Fawlty-esque hero sowing the seeds of their own downfall rather than when the Adam Sandler-style schlub who messes everything up but somehow ‘wins’ back his disproportionately better-than-him better half (probably Salma Hayek) in the final act.
Granted my own bias might be obvious in that last sentence but, in delivering a punchline, the secret is always going to be in a.) The Set-Up – so how do we ensure that the player is complicit in seeding Geoff’s downfall rather than genuinely trying to impress that Nurse? b.) The Timing – If we’re building towards a funny finish, how can we keep the player on track so you don’t get bored before the punchline but also not see it coming?
Whenever a script doctor is called into ‘fix the end’ on a film, they’ll usually say the problem with the end is the beginning and the middle. When crafting a story for any medium, you should never have to ‘come up with’ an ending, it should be the organic result of what has gone before – even in a story with multiple possible endings. Anyone can all tell when an ending feels tacked on. And, as a majority of games finish with cut-scenes once the game-play is over, maybe that’s the problem – that we’re getting too much information after the fact.
Looking at films like Jaws, Alien or Die Hard, it’s a matter of mere seconds between the final action of shark-detonation/airlock-blasting/Alan Rickman-shoving before the credits start to roll. The action is over = The film is over. So why is game storytelling any more complex? Perhaps because the end actions of a game aren’t currently satisfying enough so creators feel a need to throw some mud at the wall aftwards. Defeating a final big boss will only ever be satisfying on a game-play level unless you instigate its narrative significance earlier on. All it takes for us to know that Jaws is finished is that final shot of the sea rolling onto a beach looking all lovely and inviting instead of full of potential peril. It’s the same with Portal, you spend an entire game (spoiler!) trying to escape Aperture Science laboratories and being told one thing about a cake, then the closing shot (in the game’s only cut-scene) is of a lovely sunny outside world before you then see the truth about the aforementioned confectionery item.
Below is one of my favourite TED talks from 2007 by LOST‘s co-creator JJ Abrams (I warned you I was a fan). The whole talk is worth listening to, but in particular his section from ten minutes in discusses what films like Jaws and Die Hard are really about. In games (and, frankly, a lot of films) all the big beats like shark attacks and terrorist shootings are there – just not the little beats that make you care.
While the debate about whether stories belong in games at all rages on, I think there is an element to which audiences and game producers expect endings to magically either put everything into perspective or throw out some final shocking revelation that will subvert everything we know. But it’s very rare that one plot point can do this in isolation. The best endings – even the ones with big twists – are the ones that will have always felt inevitable.
So, if most games are about levelling up in some shape or form, how can we ensure our game stories escalate so that the final battle/cut-scene satisfies in the way that the blurb on the back of box made us buy it for? In the same way that movie car chases and fight scenes don’t work in isolation to character and theme, neither should game-play ever be separate from story. No one went to see Aliens because of the maternal subtext – and yet they are exactly why the final uber-showdown between Ripley in her power-loader (protecting surrogate-daughter Newt) and the Alien Queen (avenging her recently flame-throwered offspring) is so damn cool. And once the battle’s done, so is the story.
So now that Bioware have announced that they’re going to release a new ending for the much maligned Mass Effect 3, it’ll be interesting to see if directly giving people what they want/think they want will actually please anyone either.
You think you’re clever… but what does Ann Widdecombe think?
To accompany Cleverdicks, Sky Atlantic’s special blend of intelligence and irreverence (please note all the big words I’m using, Ann!), the Team was tasked with making Ann interactive so audiences can try and be Cleverdicks in their own home.
Following the format of Cleverdicks‘ quick-fire against the clock quizzing, each question serves up multiple answers to choose from. Get it right first time and you’ll be crowned a ‘Cleverdick’ by Ann herself in one of many videos integrated into the gameplay.
So, calling all so-called Cleverdicks. Ann Widdecombe wants YOU!
Plans are afoot here at Team Cooper HQ and we are looking for contract and permanent staff to resource some potential future opportunities. While we don’t have a definite requirement yet, I wanted to issue a pre-emptive call out to anyone out there who may be interested in working with us to introduce yourselves (We are NOT looking to meet new recruitment agencies).
We would like to meet the following peeps:
Senior graphic designers with tons of experience delivering interactive projects for well known brands, preferably from an agency background.
Project Managers/Producers with proven experience in delivering digital projects on time and on budget.
Pixel artists with proven experience illustrating and animating pixel art graphics for games.
Senior developers with a can-do attitude to new projects and experience with some of the following: PHP, MySQL/MSSQL, .NET, Flash, HTML5, ActionScript, JavaScript, C++, C#, Java, OpenGL, DirectX.
Students looking for placement or post-graduate roles.
Don’t be shy, if you’re a contractor looking for a potential future client, or a full timer considering a change of scenery, come and say hello and tell us a little about yourself.
We just want to know who you are at this stage, portfolios and CVs would also be nice, but not essential if you just want to introduce yourself (discretion is assured for full timers).
Celebrated chef Boris Stroganov used to cook for Tsars and Cosmonauts in his native Eastern Pavlovia but his career’s gone off the boil. Nowadays he’s happy as long as the rats don’t outnumber the customers (too often). But in every restaurant, someone still has to do the dirty work. This is where you come in!
It’s your first day working at Stroganov’s, a low-rent eatery with high aspirations. How many vital kitchen duties can you complete in each of your sixty-second shifts? Use boosts to maximise your score, challenge your friends to do better and work your way up from Bus Boy to Lord Kitchen-er, all in the name of good, unclean fun!
Unclean Canteen is an ongoing project with new mini-games and content to be added at regular intervals. The team have learned dirty bucket-loads about the ever-changing world of Facebook games through creating this game and, in between devising new gross and engrossing kitchen duties for you, we’re already cooking up our next slice of playable pie for your consumption!
This was the third year for Matt Locke’s The Story mini-conference, held in London’s Humanist Conway Hall on 17th February, but the first time for me, who’d only found out about last year’s event way too late. ‘To thine own self be true’ is the Shakespearean quote written above the stage and it perfectly matched my opinion of the event (if you shift the meaning a bit). The day was packed with nuggets of thought provoking quality, but I’d like to focus on one particular talk that resonated with me.
It relates to our recent work at Team Cooper towers as we can glean some kind of learning from others’ experience and it justifies my ticket and a day’s beano off to London.
This interesting and relevant talk was delivered by Liz Henry and was called ‘Fake Lesbians All the Way Down’ didn’t sound the most immediately relevant, but very interesting anyway as Henry dove off into the murky world of fake internet lesbians. This traced the story of the ‘Gay Girl in Damascus’, a blogger who had apparently been taken by Syrian authorities, due to homosexuality being a crime there. Henry took up the cause of the girl, Amina Arraf, as the story was picked up by the major news agencies. Doubts soon surfaced as Henry looked more deeply into the blog posts and Amina’s previous online activity. The full tale of the investigation is too complex to properly cover here but it is a fascinating tale. It emerges that not only was Amina Arraf a fictional character created by a 40 year old man, but that many of the people who were in contact with her and promoted her were also fake lesbians, such as the one who ran a prominent web site, all apparently unaware of each other’s real identities. This all made me feel sorry for Amina’s apparently real girlfriend, who had only ever communicated with her online due to convenient blackouts and the like preventing phone conversation.
Thus far it all seems a fairly harmless, if quirky, piece of role-play. Until you look at the effects that it has. Henry displayed a book call ‘How to Suppress Women’s Writing’ by Joanna Russ, whose topic is self evident and can be extended to all kinds of minority representation. The man behind Amina, Tom MacMaster, claimed he was helping to give a voice to others in need – his argument ran that in impersonating a persecuted woman in another country he was able to provide a voice for those who could not speak out. Yet in creating a fake voice he was helping to undermine and drown-out any real voices, he provided detractors with a whole slew of arguments that could be used to ignore and discredit any similar but truthful blog by casting doubt upon its authenticity.
The scale at which the fake story was transmitted around the media and then consumed by the public amplifies the damage. This happened due to the presentation of the fictional but ‘based on true events’ tale in which real life, which is messy, convoluted and often incoherent is simplified, streamlined and made to fit a dramatic arc or, in this case, suppositions woven into a story. This distorts reality, yet is more palatable for mass consumption despite the events it portrays no longer being true. In turn this version is easier to broadcast and becomes preferable to any other messy and ambiguous yet true tale, so becomes the perceived truth, leaving the real truth in the dark. What would have been the tale if Amina had been a real person yet has also spent her time exposing others to the authorities to look after herself? No longer a clear cut case, but full of the ambiguities that make life real.
The issue struck a chord with me with the work we’ve recently been doing with Safe@Last and the The Railway Children to create a game which tells the story of a young person navigating through life’s choices and temptations. This raises questions of accurate representations of real life in a dramatic fashion for people who actually live in that world. We certainly struggled to create a believable, if stylized world and the issue of fitting reality into a limited game frame is always an issue. The project is due to be released soon; I’d really like some feedback on how you think we did. It’s such a great opportunity to do work that can do good and it’s important to make sure it has the right effect.
It’s important because the effect of the Amina mis-representation was a silence on the internet, not on the issue of the fake blogger, but from anyone who might be in a similar (but real life) situation to Amina. The fake story made people distrust any true story, and any potential real-life bloggers didn’t want to publish anything because they couldn’t trust their online friends. Silence – denying any chance of a voice for the voiceless.
ME: Right. So maybe the player-character is striving because of their troubled relationship with their father–
M’ COLLEAGUES: John, it’s Pong. Let it go.
ME: Ugh. *throws quill down in disgust. flounces off stage left*
Hopefully the above scene isn’t too accurate but, having spent most of my working life in film, TV drama and theatre, it’s not surprising that story is my usual starting point – for describing anything really. That and the fact I’m human. For better or worse, stories are how we describe things to each other and we all have an innate understanding of beginnings, middles and ends. Everything else is just a matter of taste (and, occasionally, snobbery.)
This recent Gamasutra interview with David Jaffe on the Language of Interactivity is one of many recent articles forming a bit of a backlash against narrative in games. Jaffe highlights Sid Meier’s brilliant “a game as a series of interesting choices” quote to highlight what a game really is. I totally 100% agree. It’s just that it also perfectly defines narratives as well. No matter what obstacles or set-pieces are thrown into a protagonist’s path by bad guys/fates/studio execs, it’s the main character’s choices that create, shape and define a story. So what’s the difference?
For the record, I’m not really a fan of cut-scenes. Even when they’re done well, all they really are is a pause in gameplay. I don’t think a cut-scene of showing protagonist Chell looking all confused in the opening of Portal could ever beat our own disorientation of just being dropped straight into the beginning of Valve’s puzzle masterpiece. Similarly, (SPOILER) the lack of definitive ending for Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption meant I was able to conclude the game’s story however I wanted. (For anyone interested, after all my vengeful murdering, I then went and completed all of the challenges that would unlock the Marshall’s outfit and, in my head, became a proper lawman in an effort to achieve the ambiguous ‘redemption’ of the title). Two powerful bits of storytelling, made all the more immersive by not spoon-feeding.
But, in thinking of games with stories, we instantly think of triple-A games that we play over a number of days as if reading a novel. So what about the ‘magazine article’ equivalents that we play every day in smaller chunks? In my opinion, Cut The Rope succeeds over Angry Birds as the latter needs a little movie to explain their war against the pigs. In Cut the Rope, we just need to get the cookie to the Om Nom because…well, who isn’t always hungry for cookies? Games like Diamond Dash on Facebook are exceptionally crafted examples of no story at all, just good game play. Or the upcoming IGF-nominated Gunpoint which conjures an awesome storyworld defined by its visual/audio aesthetic and how you stealthily interact through the (potentially infinite) levels.
With Portal, the story is ‘we want to escape’. With Cut The Rope, it’s simply ‘feed the hungry thing’. So when we say that games have too much story, I wonder if what is really meant is that games have too much BACKstory (or possibly if we just mean ‘too much talking’ – says he, waffling on). And that can be the trouble with some bigger games, the need to show you everything, to tell you and explain everything. As with movies, just because your graphics can genuinely create anything, doesn’t mean we need to see it. Similarly, unless I can play it, let me imagine it. The first thing anyone learns about narrative is that less is mostly more. Stories are not about complexity – the best ones rely on clarity.
And one thing that also seems clear is that in importing cinematic qualities to games, we also seem to have inherited a fair amount of cinematic snobbery. For years the nadir of storytelling in games seems to be in ‘creating a game that can make you cry’, when we’ve already made games that make us laugh or scared. At this time of year, the nature of the beast means that cinemas are filled with stories up for BAFTAs and Oscars. This in turn creates a predictable backlash against the Oscar-‘worthy’ films by proponents of more popcorn-driven movies which feels like an echo for the argument against narrative in games.
Isn’t there room for both?
I think so. Last week in games, indie-darling Dear Esther sold 16,000 in its first few hours of sale while the demo of Mass Effect 3 also shoved pre-sales through the roof. And there’s a good chance there were a few people out there who coughed up for both. I know what I like in games and movies so there are certain genres of both I’ll never grow tired of. But knowing I already like one sort of thing so much just makes me want to investigate what else a medium can do! My favourite game story personally is Silent Hill 2, but it’s not to say it doesn’t clunk in places. And that’s pretty much my point. No one has got narrative in games perfect. But then neither has anyone written the absolutely ‘perfect’ book, film or TV show that pleases absolutely everyone yet either.
So it’s frustrating to see David Jaffe saying things like “…if my only goal is to make people feel emotions and that’s what I really want — I want to make them feel sadness, or I want to make them think about man’s place in the universe. Think about that. If you’re really a f***ing artist. If you’re really a f***ing artist, and you’ve got something to say, then you f***ing pick the right medium to say it in.”
If the argument is that you shouldn’t try to do something because nobody else has done it yet, then maybe we should all just give up now. I like Bioshock, Fahrenheit, LA Noire, Heavy Rain and Alan Wake. None of them have got storytelling exactly ‘right’ yet but I love how they’ve all moved the idea in different directions but, ultimately, moved game narratives forwards. Storytelling techniques had to be re-invented when film and television each first emerged. Now it’s the same thing in making stories interactive and immersive. It’s easy to see how a game like Heavy Rain can be latched on to by journalists as an immediately dramatic and drastic turning point in games – but we all know that change is and will be a gradual process.
So when articles fervently tell me what games are, what games should be and where story can shove itself in relation to games, my response is that games, like any medium, should be something that evolves to match constantly evolving consumer tastes and opinions. Anything else is just stating opinion as fact or a sweeping generalisation. And you know what they say about people who make sweeping generalisations. They’re ALL idiots
As you may have read, m’colleague Matt recently created a small game as an experiment in developing for HTML5. This was during a training day in which the Team Cooper development team all had a chance to spend some time experimenting and see what they could come up with. Matt has already discussed many of the finer details of working with the technology, but here are my thoughts…
The first challenge was deciding what kind of game to develop. We’re generally quite busy at Team Cooper HQ, so it seemed wise to focus on a fairly simple game design, and what could be simpler than Pong?
The game I have created is called p0ng and is a spiritual successor to the original Pong. It keeps the format of two paddles locked in an eternal struggle to bounce a ball backwards and forwards, but those of you familiar with Pong will notice some subtle (and not so subtle) differences.
Unlike Matt, I mainly used images to show graphics in my game, with the only dynamically drawn content being the score display. Using images in HTML5 was initially an interesting challenge as everything must be loaded in at runtime as opposed to Flash, where images can be compiled directly into the game’s SWF file. Other than that, the actual process of writing JavaScript code wasn’t too dissimilar to working with ActionScript 3 (this is no great surprise, considering both languages are forms of ECMAScript). This meant I could dive right into coding the game’s logic, although I had to do without many of the convenient libraries I often have at my disposal when working with Flash.
Usually when creating a Flash application I will write code using Powerflasher’s FDT, a powerful tool with many specific functions designed to make the process of writing ActionScript easier. I know Adobe Dreamweaver isn’t very popular with web developers these days, but I decided to give it a shot anyway to see what it could offer an aspiring HTML5 game developer. Dreamweaver did offer some useful error detection similar to what FDT offers, but lacks some of the most handy functions that we use in FDT every day.
To be fair to Dreamweaver, much of this is actually down to how JavaScript works compared to ActionScript 3, with the former being weakly typed and the latter being strictly typed. The advantage of a strictly typed language is that your coding tool can always tell what types of variables you’re working with and provide you with a whole host of information and shortcuts that make focusing on writing code much easier. With JavaScript, there is nothing like this which makes the code much more ambiguous with regards to its exact functionality. This makes it much more difficult for software to try and guess exactly what it is that you’re trying to accomplish with your code.
That said, p0ng didn’t take a great deal of time to produce and was a very good introduction to the world of HTML5 development. Obviously there are plenty of other things I’d like to put into the game if I had the time, but I don’t think any game developer worth his salt will ever claim any of his games are ever truly ‘finished’
I’m sure you’re itching to have a go at the game, though, so here you go (Make sure you click the game to enable keyboard interactions):
A map? Telling you where you can find hidden gold? And it really has nothing to do with pirates? But tharr be the truth in this interactive map for the World Gold Council. By selecting any of this animated map’s moving cars, helicopters, people or places, you can discover how gold is a vital component of transport, medicine and industry in the modern day. There’s truly treasure everywhere.
While the main version of this interactive map was built in Flash, a JavaScript version of the map was also developed for mobile platforms, enabling it to be viewed on iPhones, iPads and other smartphones that arent Flash enabled to ensure that your more mobile treasure-hunters can still go for gold.
A couple of Fridays ago, Team Cooper had a training day. We huddled into a meeting room and sat in front of the big projector screen. It felt a lot like being back at school. Tim was going to be teaching us about HTML5 and JavaScript and I for one was very excited to see what it was all about.
There’s been a lot in the media recently about HTML5′s uprising and its challenge for the throne of web-based gaming, so Team Cooper decided it was time to have a good look into it to determine if it was a viable option for the heavily interactive games and apps that we make.
As a consumer, the concept of HTML5 games is brilliant. Browsers are rushing to support all the new features, and new techniques and demos are being developed all the time. With no extra plug-ins or add-ons needed, it’s perfect for casual gaming on the fly. They’ll even (for the most part) work on mobiles!
As stated in Tim’s blog post back in November, Flash had been the go-to tool for creating rich interactive experiences for some time. HTML5 has been looking like it may change that, and from all the coverage it’s been getting, it’s clear to see that many people in the web community consider it a strong contender. As such, after our session in the meeting room, we went our separate ways to start playing about with what was on offer and to try and make something before the end of the day. Obviously with only a few hours left in the day we weren’t expecting miracles, but we all managed to get things moving around on our screens. Since then, I’ve been working on-and-off on my game, Shpace (You can play the game at the bottom of this post).
Shpace is a very simple shoot ‘em up, developed in a few days using solely the drawing functions provided by the HTML5 canvas element. As it was a test project for learning a new technology, there are certain things that could definitely be improved, so I will now provide a short run down of what I did and what I could do, given more time:
Controls
In its simplest terms, the game is just a set of functions that draw shapes at a specific position. The game checks for any of these shapes that might be colliding and carries out the required action depending on what they are. The player must navigate around the screen, avoiding the enemies and their bullets whilst shooting them for points. The controls I chose to use are the arrow keys and the ‘Z’ key to shoot. These seemed like a pretty universal method for controlling such a game, but a problem did arise in the form of having to cancel out any operations that might otherwise be performed by the arrow keys. Normally they scroll the page, but in this game, we really don’t want the scroll bar to jump up and down while trying to fend off a horde of angry red triangles. As the canvas element doesn’t have any way of knowing if it’s in focus, I had to use a click listener to check for focus myself.
Structuring the content
Laying out the page to work with the game was simple using CSS. There is an overall container to hold the game’s contents and within that there’s a separate container for the menu. JavaScript then takes care of what to show and what to hide at any given time. Finally, there is the canvas element which is what gets manipulated by the JavaScript to display everything. Learning and using JavaScript hasn’t been very difficult. It’s very similar to ActionScript as they both come from the same roots. The only issue I did have with using JavaScript was that, unless I wanted to have a huge list of script tags referencing all the different JavaScript files for each object in the game, it all had to be in one file. At first I found this very messy and quite annoying for scrolling up and down between areas that I was working on, but I soon got used to it and the web developer tools in Eclipse helped. In fact, it reminded me a lot of when I made a game in Python with PyGame – it forces you to lay out your file properly and comment vigilantly.
Future work
If I decided to work on Shpace in the future (which is quite possible) it would be good to add in a few more things. The game is quite bland at the moment, there are only two types of enemies and a distinct lack of any sort of ‘boss battle’. Creating some more varieties of enemy and giving them different behaviours would help to combat this, and wouldn’t take too much time. Adding in bosses may take a little longer, but really they’d just be a special type of enemy. There is also no sound as I haven’t really has time to experiment with the sound API. Another interesting addition, and one that again wouldn’t take very much time (I don’t think) would be high scores. I would also be intrigued to look into the possibility of WebSockets and a multiplayer co-operative mode. This is something that would definitely take some time however.
Mobile
Whilst developing the game I spent a bit of time messing about with getting it working on my phone and/or my iPod. I found a very good article and example on touch controls in JavaScript whilst searching for knowledge on the subject. After looking at that I managed to get touch controls working for the game on my iPod, albeit in a very unrefined manner. It worked okay, although as it was just a fleeting test, there were problems with scrolling and zooming not cancelling whilst trying to shoot the bad guys. This is something I’d love to look into more and get working in a friendly and accurate fashion so that the game could be played in a browser on a phone or iOS device. There are even tools like PhoneGap that enable you to package up HTML5 games and apps for deployment on the iOS app store and Android Marketplace, much like you can with Flash using Adobe AIR.
From my adventures in Shpace, I realised a few things. For a game like Shpace, HTML5 is definitely a strong and viable option. It’s simple, it’s easy to play and it doesn’t need a huge amount of code to make. As such, having the code laid out in one file isn’t a problem, and with the speed JavaScript executes at it runs pretty smoothly. That said, for a bigger game and a game with complex class hierarchies, I don’t think it’s the way to go yet. Something like Nurse Quest would just be a nightmare to get to grips with. I believe the battle between HTML5 and Flash will rage on for some time yet – Flash Player 11 has some great performance boosts and the introduction of Stage3D brings even more to the table. Whilst WebGL (Although not actually part of HTML5) can be used with it to create some stunning games and visual effects. I’m not sure there will ever be a clear winner between the two, but at the moment it really is just down to the project, your audience and what you want to do with it.
You can play the game below (Click the game to begin playing):
This week I experienced a web conference with a difference. Not only were all the speakers women, but, women were in the majority in the audience too. In addition to this 2 of the 3 days were spent at my desk in Team Cooper Towers here in sunny Sheffield.
I’ve never experienced a Webinar before but I’m really impressed with the technology, there were only a few hitches that were effortlessly and quickly dealt with utilising freely available simple technologies like sharing a Google presentation. It enabled me to listen in to the sessions while still at work and, as Keri Lambden suggested, I could have been sat in my dressing gown if I liked – sadly the windows at TC towers are large and I’m not sure the innocent people of Sheffield (let alone my poor colleagues) are quite ready for that horror.
I really enjoyed Rebekah Lock’s talk about unblocking her creativity by setting herself a 365 challenge , to create a heart in whatever style or media everyday for a year. The great thing about her session was she set us the challenge to come up with our own heart, I gave myself a 20 minute time limit and came up with this. Which reminded me that at Flash On The Beach I’d promised myself to do more doing and making for myself, I’m now considering setting myself a daily creative challenge, but, I’ll get back to you about that.
I found Annette Priest’s session on mobile user experience invaluable. Taking recent apps made by Starbucks as an example of good and bad usability design. I found it interesting that the one they made for “fun” she considered to be an empty experience. I think this is a problem, finding a place for fun interactions that are not a whole game but have value as an added bonus for your audience. It’s not really wise to make something flippant intended as a few minutes of interaction as a downloadable app. The user has expectations linked in to downloading an app. It’s why frippery and fun is best handled in browser, and I would say this, by Flash.
The final panel discussion featured four highly accomplished, experienced and inspirational women who had to tackle some really big questions about being women working in technology. Well respected UI design expert Sarah Parmenter spoke about teaching herself how to code. Entrepreneurial power house Sarah McVittie spoke about her deep love for data. Julie Howell discussed her years in the industry and how she and her peers invented social networking by creating large forums where groups with similar interest and needs would discuss their issues. Jess Ratcliffe, founder of the awesome site GaBOOM, talked about having an idea at 15 and setting up a business at 19.
I think the main thing that I got from the conference was that, despite being a minority, women are a thriving vital part of the web community. We really enjoy the work and we bring a specific point of view to the market. We feel a little sad that there aren’t more of us but an event like Emerge gave us an opportunity to be more than the 12% in the room, even if it did mean there was a queue for the loos.
Any home-owner will tell you how stressful wrangling property legalities can sometimes be. That’s why ace communications agency Third City tasked us to devise a game for their conveyance expert clients In-Deed, to help their customers blow off steam and make the property process more enjoyable. Together, we came up with the perfect solution: Putting estate agents in a cannon.
Violence aside, ‘Angry Buyers‘ is a tactical, targeting game where the angle from which you launch the differently girthed estate agents from your cannon can affect the damage you do – and therefore will increase your score when flung correctly.
Working closely with Third City and In-Deed to refine the ideal blend of brand, design and gameplay, Angry Buyers is an equally addictive and destructive experience aimed squarely at all audiences, not just those in need of a spot of therapeutic demolition.
Is it better to dislike a game than to just ‘nothing‘ it? Assuming its competently designed, a disliked game at least implies that it had a goal or aim that just might not have been your cup of tea. Worse, in my opinion, are the games who consider their potential audiences to be ‘absolutely everyone’ who are so concerned about being inclusive, all they do is generate five star ambivalence.
Admittedly, this conversation started because I got LA Noire for Christmas. Ensuing conversations revealed that Team Captain Tim had not really enjoyed scrutinising every inch of LA for clues, far preferring to battle the bad guys face to face – whereas I loved the more procedural, deliberately-paced investigation parts of the game only to instantly be obliterated whenever facing an actual gangster with a gun. (Every. Single. Time) As well as realising that we had strong potential for a mismatched buddy-cop movie, it was obvious that perhaps we were playing the game with different wants. A diverse, detailed and dramatic game – was its only mistake in thinking that it could please everyone? Or was our mistake in thinking all of LA was meant for us?
Whatever methodology you use, it seems undeniable that different games appeal to different sorts of gamers. The Bartle Test breaks us down into Achievers, Explorers, Killers and Socialisers (mostly in terms of World of Warcraft-style game play but can be expanded to general gaming) while Jon Radoff has charted the different things that motivate players across most games.
Is it ‘easier’ (or less risky at any rate) to target specific niche audiences with casual games? Maybe. But I also suspect a clear or ‘simpler’ idea also be used to appeal to all our different gamer motivations.
While anticipating the launch of our own Nurse Quest game on the [adult swim] site last December, one by one, we were all drawn into the strange world of Robot Unicorn Attack featured on the same site. A very simple game in some respects but maybe deceptively so as it seems to lend itself to all the quadrants of Radoff’s game motivation ideas.
It’s Immersive, hypnotically drawing you in with its colours and *that* soundtrack. While not so much a game of Co-operation it is certainly a social experience; a talking point – something you want to tell people about (good thing) but then ultimately can’t fully explain so you tell people to just play it themselves (even better thing).
As an endless runner it’s also a game of Achievement and Competition, attacking all of the stars is a goal and simply keeping going as long as possible can be competitive in terms of personal bests and addictiveness – as is the notion of giving you three lives, allowing you to compare scores with yourself for each go and perhaps drawing you in for more plays than you would on the average flash game.
To an extent, it’s just a game with some (clever) gimmicks…but one that has racked up two sequels, 686,000 likes on Facebook and over 41 million plays to date. We can be loyal to game genres, game brands and our own gaming habits, but how far should developers strive to create games that please everyone? Is it better to have separate puzzle and racing games than one game which has levels of each? Or is the ‘variety pack’ approach just what we have come to accept from modern games – mostly enjoyable, but always one flavour left at the end that someone isn’t that keen on.
Christmas has come early for the team as our tribute to point and click style adventure games (and silly humour) comes alive and goes live through our collaboration with [adult swim]. After all our cryptic hinting and code names like “Project: Geoff”, it feels great to finally be able to talk about ‘Nurse Quest: Love Hurts‘.
As a new recruit, the game was 99.9% finished by the time I joined the company in October so I was given the arduous task of ‘here, play this’ and playing at my desk, slightly paranoid at the knowledge that how many times I laughed out loud was being monitored. Knowing the others were heavily inspired by LucasArts’ Escape From Monkey Island games, I had to confess (to my shame) I’d never played any of the series, but I have extremely fond memories of Day of The Tentacle (also by LucasArts) and several Discworld adventure games. So my chuckles were both natural and plentiful as my old love of adventure games came flooding back – not just how to play them, but also the endless potential for comedy the gameplay style creates.
Before I joined the team, I’d attended a talk by our lead developer Russell about agency in games using ‘Nurse Quest’ as one of his examples. I’d greatly appreciated the comparison to sitcom in terms of story design: how each level was like an episode with the hero in pursuit of the same goal but sewing the seeds of their own downfall en route. And, as with most comedies, it’s ‘downfall’ that leads to the humour (…especially if baggy trousers are worn without a belt) and where an ambulance speeding you to a hospital becomes a recurring comedy catchphrase.
But this is all getting a bit philosophical. The point is, Nurse Quest: Love Hurts is now live on the [adult swim] site. I know the team are really proud of this game. and I can see why. So join Geoff in trying to achieve that impressive injury that will win the Nurse of his dreams.
Joining the ranks of [adult swim]‘s array of online flash games, Team Cooper’s sister-company Robot/Lizard proudly presents ‘Nurse Quest: Love Hurts‘ – a darkly comic ‘point and click’-style adventure game of misguided affection and humiliating injuries.
‘Nurse Quest‘ puts you in the scuffed shoes of hapless hero Geoff Jefferson who falls for the aloof Nurse Julia after a daft accident sends him to the emergency room. Geoff decides the only way to impress Julia is by staging injuries that will make him seem brave and manly. It’s up to you to help Geoff hurt himself in the most impressive way possible.
With its twisted sense of humour, the game challenges players to find the right way to use potentially dangerous items, navigate dialogue trees to convince strangers to aid you in your quest and play fun mini-games as Geoff explores nearby locales in search of that perfect injury. Harkening back to the likes of LucasArts ‘Escape From Monkey Island’ games, the Team had a real blast devising and designing multiple ways to simultaneously entertain you and abuse our hero. If you get stuck, there’s always Geoff’s walkthrough guide.
It might be the season to be jolly – but poor ol’ Santa is still going full pelt in ‘Roof-Top Rush’, our seasonal running game for Ebuyer.com. Picking up some last-minute bargains at the Ebuyer warehouse, Santa finds his impatient reindeer have left without him. As Santa, you must pursue the reindeer, using the space bar to jump from roof to roof and navigating any weather vanes, chimneys or easily-startled cats that might slow you down.
To give our game a fun competitive edge, we’ve also included a leaderboard to store your best score and Ebuyer are offering entry to a prize-draw for any players running Santa past 1000m. ‘Roof-Top Rush‘ is a fun, accessible and addictive challenge designed to bring a little extra joy to your online Christmas shopping experience (Plus it answers that age-old question ‘Does Santa ever do a cool little combat-roll when he’s jumping across roof-tops?’).
You know you want a game. You’ve even rung Team Cooper and said “I’d really like a game please”. But maybe you’re not sure what sort of game would be best for you? You know you need to think about who’ll be playing your game – but a useful starting point can also be thinking about who your player might be playing against… ie – The Baddie! (as kindly demonstrated below by Pete/Pete’s evil Mirror Dimension counterpart)
In my few weeks with Team Cooper, I’ve been looking closely at (i.e. playing) the Team’s back-catalogue and thought it would be interesting to define them via the different sorts of nemesis that help draw the audience in to the game. Maybe seeing games from an opponent point of view might get you thinking “Does my game need a bad guy?”, and if so, what kind?
1. THEY’RE JUST LIKE YOU
Two completely different games but with one thing in common, whether armed with fencing épée or light cycle - the ‘bad guy’ can do everything you can. No more. No less (Even if it might seem like your opponent has been sneakily practising whenever you’ve logged of). As well as letting you try and beat their score, The Beazley Winter Rally also lets you compete against ‘ghost’ versions of players who’ve already raced. And to think they say you can’t outrun the past!
2. INCREASING ODDS.
They lure you in with nice easy early levels… But then, before you know it, your entire screen is filled with outer space invaders or queues of fussy customers all wanting a piece of you. Yes, it puts the player under increasing pressure – but maybe that’s where your player will thrive.
3. TIME WAITS FOR NO PLAYER
Sure, Wolverine would take on the whole world if he could – but Cyclops and the other X-Men only have 30 seconds in these games so it’s about doing what you can. Even if a player does well in their allotted time, there’s always that niggling thought that maybe you could have done better. Taking on time can be a great way to show improvement after multiple plays.
4. GRAVITY (and other laws of physics)
There’s probably a fighting game where you can duff up Isaac Newton and other famous physicists. But until then, you can challenge their most famous discoveries through sports games and challenges that really test your ability and let you prove your skills against things like cross-winds and targeting. Plus there’s always gravity itself. Nothing brings a game to an end like falling off a rooftop!
If you’re thinking about what kind of game you might like, this can be a really fun part of the process. As well as giving your player a goal and reason to succeed and win… you get to be the person who decides what’s stopping them from getting it!
Go on. Be mean. It makes for a better game too! Bwahahahaha!!!
Team Cooper built a re-usable quiz engine for Sky which has engaged brainiacs across the web with quizzes on films, sports and TV entertainment shows alike. With each new quiz, the engine has added more fun and functionality, evolving each time to suit new question formats like picture rounds, slide shows and room for fun trivia pages about the quiz’s subject.
So far the engine has riddled your brains with tailor-made quiz pages for…
If you score highly, naturally you’ll want to shout it to the world. That’s why the Team ensured your score can be permanently saved on leaderboards as well as shown off to your friends via a built-in Facebook connection. Whatever your favourite subject, the engine lets you test if you’re a true quiz machine!
Last week I had the opportunity to visit Media City UK, the new Salford home for six of the ten BBC products.
The offices at Media City are shinier than a really shiny thing. Nearly every static vertical surface is covered in whiteboard material, there are bare concrete pillars and grey felt-covered chairs with brightly coloured furry buttons and zips. I was really struggling not to touch everything. Oddly, the lifts have the floor selection buttons on the outside of the lift, I assume possibly serving as a constant daily reminder to staff that user journeys and choice are very neatly intertwined.
The day started off with a rapid and tantalising tour of the R&D department. We were whisked through listening rooms, labs, user testing suits and shown a flashed ankle of what the R&D team is up to. Frankly, I want to go back and spend a whole day (maybe 2) badgering the staff about what they’re doing and why and how and … I digress. The highlight for me was discovering the Universal Remote Control API which has been developed to solve problems of accessibility but potentially has a wider scope, giving viewers the opportunity to control and interact with their TV screens from their phone or tablet, and the possibility for programme makers to add an extra character to your living room.
The rest of the day revolved around the BBC’s vision for our four screens – TV, Computer, Tablet and Mobile.
Based on the fact 97% of homes have a TV and there are 1.3 mobile phone contracts per person in the UK, the assumption is that quite a lot of us are at least two screen people. Our consumption of media is not limited to those two screens though so adding in desktops, laptops and tablets means that the BBC’s digital output will now cover four screens.
My favourite presentation of the day was from Holly Goodier, Head of Audiences, who presented results of her teams extensive research. They’ve been listening to how we say we interact with our screens, but also looking at how we actually interact with those screens given the data trails we all leave behind us. Basically it comes down to context and interaction level. We love our phones; they are our limbs and our hearts. We see Tablets as frivolous entertainment and in many cases they’re now being used as personal TV’s. Most people associate their desktops and laptops as a work space. TV is divided between different generations, older people see it as the hearth of the home, younger people see them as background noise.
She explained that about three or four years ago they were wondering when screens would become ubiquitous – At what point would there be a screen everywhere? In a very short time that has become a reality. Holly also hinted towards a concept that has been buzzing around my brain after reading this blog post. She asked, “When will the glass disappear?”. Sadly she didn’t take a punt at answering the question.
So the BBC have set their stall out. They’re going to be creating digital content across all four screens for all ten brands. Even if that means some forms of interactive media are going to look ten years behind others. At the time I raised this point in an ill thought out tweet. Actually, after talking it over with some of the BBC staff and considering the issue of “IsHTML5ready?”, I think it’s a very brave move that’s been forced by events they have no control over. Considering the lack of knowledge and experience in these new areas but recognising a shift in the way we use our screens, they are starting and supporting a move over to looking differently at the ways in which we can produce digital content.
Top GPS tracking folk Yellowbrick asked Team Cooper to help visualise the yacht races they provide GPS tracking units to. The result not only allowed race entrants to view their own progress but also provided the public a chance to spectate and cheer on the whole event from the comfort of their own computers (without any of that getting wet malarkey).
The team really enjoyed this project and are dead proud of the result of all their hard work. The fact that the tool had over 2.6 million views in its first season, seeing the tracker rental stock nearly double in this time are just an awesome added bonus.
So far, we’ve watched the race viewer track 98 yacht races and over 200 treks and expeditions all across the globe, Yellowbrick’s tracker fleet transmitting 1.3 million position reports between them.
Even if a contest is halfway round the world, it’s clear audiences are enjoying keeping an eye on their favourite entrant. Each of our visitors stays on the viewer page for an average of 7 minutes and 20 seconds each time they pop by so frankly, whether you’re in the race or watching from home, everyone’s a winner!
After the successful creation of the Winter Rally and Broker Dash games as festive e-cards from insurance underwriters Beazley to all their clients, Team Cooper were asked to make a game to celebrate Beazley’s five year sponsorship of the British Fencing team as we count down to the 2012 Olympics.
You have been challenged to a bout by Beazley British Fencing. Accept and you’ll be advancing, retreating, raising and lowering your weapon and timing those all-important lunges each with a simple move of your mouse. Be the first to five hits and you win the round… but your competitor will be replaced by a more skilled adversary to keep you on your toes. As with our previous games for Beazley, The Épée Challenge is a competitive and engaging experience, clashing you against digital opponents and with leader boards letting you draw swords with your friends’ high scores.
As digital communications agency Brass triumphantly take CBBC’s fame-hungry puppy puppets Hacker & Dodge to an online audience, the Team were delighted to assist on ‘Pup Stars’, an original online bout of musical mayhem created by Brass for CBBC.
Providing technical Flash development and server integration with the CBBC games grid and BBC iD, the Team were able to implement the game play and design conceived by Brass that allows the player to feel they’re part of Hacker and Dodge’s band, deciding which of an oddball array of instruments the two dogs use (ranging from harps strung with strings of sausages to the unrivalled armpit trumpet) through 6 different levels of musical styles and trying to find secret instrument combos which unlock hilarious new videos.
Featuring new music and video produced by Brass, Pup Stars was a sheer mischievous pleasure for the team to work on. Team Cooper would also like to add their heartiest and hairiest congratulations to Brass for their recent BAFTA nomination for Pup Stars in the category of Best Children’s Interactive.
It’s 21 minutes into my first day as Office Assistant at Team Cooper. That I’m blogging on a working computer (and actually sitting on a chair while doing so) instantly puts this ahead of a few other offices I’ve worked in – but these aren’t the only reasons I’m already extremely excited to be here.
As much as I’m trying to earnestly and intently focus on my monitor (and appear as diligent as possible on my first day, new shoes and everything), I can’t help but eavesdrop on the Team as they update each other on the status of a myriad of different projects. And they all sound infinitely intriguing.
39 minutes in. I’m back from a quick tour of the building so now I can actually find my way to the office, let alone direct others here. In the more abstract sense, I’ve found my way here from a TV background, moving from production office co-ordination into drama development and also working on my own freelance writing. In particular, I’ve become increasingly fascinated by games of all shapes and sizes and the different ways they find and engage their audience.
This is why I jumped at the opportunity for a role that allowed me to combine my previous work experience with something brand new. So, as much as I hope I’ll be useful to Team Cooper, I’m also here to keep my eyes, ears and brain peeled to learn everything I can.
59 minutes in. I’m off for my induction session shortly. Everyone is being fantastically welcoming for which I’m extremely grateful and I’ve already stuck a post-it note to my monitor to remind me of something for later. For now, I’ve been given the keys to office. I mean that in the literal sense but, now (checks watch) one whole hour in to my first day, I eagerly anticipate what hour 2, day 2, week 2 and beyond are going to unlock.
Team Cooper is a growing Sheffield based digital studio currently producing our own browser based games and supplying multimedia development services to a wide variety of businesses and media companies. We love creating fun, online interactive experiences like games, micro-sites and social media applications and we are looking for an enthusiastic office assistant to help us manage our ever increasing workload.
This will be a varied role which is likely to expand with the company. The ideal candidate will have a few years experience and will be looking for a new challenge. You will have excellent written skills and will be as comfortable adding content to a blog or Twitter feed as you are putting together spreadsheets and filing invoices. You will enjoy playing games, have a friendly telephone manner and possess a positive attitude to your working life.
Must haves:
Excellent written and verbal skills
Fantastic grammar and punctuation skills
Amazing organisational skills
A love of casual, mobile and/or social games
A good understanding of all things digital / web related
A pro-active self-starter mentality
Experienced with word processing / spreadsheets / databases / email tools
Desirables (But not essential):
Creative writing skills
Familiarity with working in a creative, project-based work environment
A well thought out plan for surviving Zombie Apocalypse
Your main duties will be (Amongst other things):
Assisting management with admin tasks
Dealing with initial phone and email requests
Taking minutes at meetings
Keeping project progress boards / spreadsheets up to date
Games testing
Simple book keeping
Helping to maintain the company social media channels (Website, Blog, Twitter, etc)
Assisting with marketing activities
Filing / Administrative work
Maintaining office supplies
Generally keeping the office running smoothly
Salary guide is around £12k to £17k (dependent on experience).
We offer flexible working hours, a friendly team to work with and a nice modern working environment (We are based in the Electric Works building, part of the Sheffield digital campus).
To apply, please email your CV and cover letter stating salary expectations to Tim at .
Hi, I’m Matt, and I’m the new student on placement here. Like all the newbies, I’ve been asked to write a blog post. I guess it’s some sort of initiation ritual. I hope I don’t have to drink goat’s blood or anything…
Joking (I hope) aside, I’m very happy to be here. When the opportunity came up on my university website, I hadn’t heard of Team Cooper at all. Not knowing what to expect, I went on a recon mission to find out more about them. I visited the website and was pleasantly surprised at how friendly and cheerful the company appeared to be. After reading all about the Team, I knew that if I were able to get a placement with them, it would not only be somewhere I would learn a lot, but it would be somewhere that I’d be very happy to go to work to every day.
The view from my window never fails to amuse me.
I didn’t know how I was going to cope with getting up at 7:30 every morning, but after being here for two weeks now, I can safely say that I actually enjoy waking up and coming in to work. These first couple of weeks have been spent getting up to speed on AS3 and trying to get myself into the same style of coding as the other Team Cooper developers. Having only a little experience in object oriented ActionScript made me think I would be playing catch up for quite a while, but I’m getting to grips with it pretty quickly.
Everyone here at Team Cooper is really nice, and they’ve made me feel very welcome, which is something I am very grateful for. Hopefully they won’t find out that the only reason I’m working here is for the slide…
We were very excited when our clients Beazley asked us to create a game for them to help with their support of British Fencing. We really enjoy working on projects for Beazley as their core audience is usually very competitive. You may have noticed but we love a bit of competition!
By shear coincidence, Russell is a keen fencer and was happy to bring his kit in to the office for us to get to grips with the rules and flow of the game. ‘Researching’ this game was one of the most fun things we’ve done this year, if only because it was an excuse to wave swords around in the office. I think maybe sometimes I go on a little too much about how much I love my job, but seriously… look:
Kyle did a great job on the development of this game. The creation of artificial intelligence for the computer opponent seems a little like witchcraft to me but he assures me it’s not (no frogs were sacrificed in the making of the game).
The game was launched a couple of weeks ago and it’s been really well received. We were very pleased when we realised that some of the British fencing team were playing – quite competitively!
Last night I spoke at a Culture Club showcase at the brilliant Site Gallery, hosted by The North marketing agency and supported by Sheffield City Council. The theme was impact, they wanted to show how Sheffield’s creative community is having an impact around the world.
I’m really aware of all the creative digital work being done in Sheffield but there’s lots of other kinds of brilliant work being done here that I had no idea about. Highlights of last night for me were The Hantu Collective, specifically their Project Bright and Fauna Graphic who does some of the most stunning murals featuring birds.
I have to say I was nervous as this is a first for me but I really enjoyed it. Me and Tim are so passionate about what we’re doing that sometimes it feels like it’s all we talk about. I worry that maybe we talk too much about it. Last night made me realise that while maybe that is true in some circles there are still extremely large groups of people that don’t really know about or understand what it is we’re doing.
Thanks so much to Ben, Mavis, Jonny, Stella, Amy and the Site Gallery staff for aiding and abetting my evangelising of Team Cooper’s work!
For those that are interested this is my presentation.
We were asked by Sky to help them produce a game to celebrate the movie release of Disney’s “Tron: Legacy”. This made us at Team Cooper quite excited, not least because we’re all massive retro gaming nerds.
The sequel to the classic 1982 film needed a top quality game to go with it and nothing says quality Tron like light-cycles. Being sly foxes, we crafted a series ever infuriating mazes to dart around as you attempt to out-manoeuvre up to three other computer players with increasingly tricky AI.
Just like the Cricket Skills game, the game also featured dual high score leader boards so that players could compare their scores to their Facebook friends as well as everyone else.
The only way to win is to survive (and avoiding the walls and other players will probably help!)
It was a glorious Ashes for the England Team in the 2010/11 series and Sky were keen to give it top coverage. As part of their online presence they came to Team Cooper for a way to turn the gentlemen’s game into a short, action filled online experience. We thought back to playing Ian Botham’s Cricket on the Amiga before deciding to strip cricket down to its three main elements – bowling, batting and fielding. And so was born Sky Sports Cricket Skills.
The overall aim of the game is to score as many points as you can in each mini-game to set the best all-round score. The top eleven players would then make it onto the hallowed Sky Sports Ashes team.
Each mini-game was specifically designed to be as quick and as simple as possible to encourage players to replay it again, and again to beat their previous score. Dual high score leader boards were also featured so that players could compare their score to their Facebook friends as well as everyone else.
Following on from the success of the Winter Rally game, Beazley asked Team Cooper to build them another game to send out to clients with their 2010 Christmas e-card.
Once again, it needed to be speedy, competitive and addictive whilst adhering to their brand guidelines.
Our solution was to blend Christmas, Beazley and a tried and tested game mechanic to create the Beazley Broker Dash. Using only the spacebar, the aim of the game is to help the broker jump over obstacles and vault across the rooftops for as long (and as far) as you can.
In the first two months since it was sent out, the Broker Dash proved to be twice as popular as last year’s game with some players having hundreds of go’s to try and beat their high score. So far, nearly 120 million metres of rooftops have been dashed over.
Greetings from the “new boy” at Team Cooper. I’ve nearly finished my first month as a full-timer and as part of my initiation ceremony they’ve asked me to write a blog post!
Well, what can I say?… I certainly feel very privileged to be the first full-time illustrator/designer in the Team Cooper empire. Everyone has made me feel very much at home in my new workplace. They have even gone against their computer principles and set me up with a shiny new 27″ imac, for which I will be forever grateful… (I think they’re all allergic to Apples here!). I had worked with Team Cooper in the past on a freelance basis so I knew it was a great place to work, and when I found out that they were looking for a full time illustrator I was keen to get involved.
For the last six years I’ve been self employed, illustrating for a variety of different clients in print publishing and digital media. 2010 was a particularly a busy year which included a commission to write and illustrate my own children’s activity book. The experience of working for myself has been a really positive one and I’ve worked on some fun projects for some good clients, but after five years of working alone I decided that I was ready for a change.
So here I am writing my first blog; looking to the future and really excited by the opportunities and challenges of the new job. I’ve always been interested in web based media and animation and I’m really looking forward to honing my Flash skills with the rest of the team. We’re already working on a great fantasy adventure game project and there are plenty more in the pipeline.
All in all, I’m looking forward to a very interesting (and eventful) 2011!
Adam
P.S – I wonder how long it will be before the novelty of the slide wears off?!… not for a while yet I’m sure.
It’s been quite a long time coming, but we’ve finally got round to updating our website. In fact, I think the last time we put any new content up there was at least 18 months ago. Shame on us.
Part of the reason for not adding anything new to the old site was that it was all hard coded PHP. And with me not having much spare time to maintain it, it was awkward for anyone else wanting to add things. To hopefully prevent this problem in future, the new site has been built around WordPress (like our old blog was) so that anyone in the team can add or amend future content. Hoorah!
While we were doing this, we thought it made sense to combine the website and blog into one site to make everything sit together better. For this reason the old ‘blog.teamcooper.co.uk’ site will cease to exist soon, having been moved over to it’s own section of the website at http://teamcooper.co.uk/blog/.
Visually, it’s not a million miles away from the old site. It still has a similar theme but is just a bit shinier. It’s been carefully crafted together for us by our resident WordPress expert, Gavin. If you need some WordPress wizardry yourself, you should go and speak to him.
Content wise, we decided it needed to be rewritten to reflect how we’ve evolved as a business over the past year and is more relevent to the types clients we’ve had. Some pages are pretty much the same, some have been thrown away, and some are all new amazing experiences in textual content! There’s also a page with pictures of us all, so if you didn’t know what we looked like before, you can now. Awesome!
Finally you can of course see some new examples of the (Non NDA) work we’ve been doing over the past year or two. My particular favourites (aside from our own Beastie Burgers of course) are Beazley Winter Rally, Beehive Bedlam and TriathElite.
Sheffield digital agency Quba loved what Team Cooper did on the Speedo Sculpture project, so they asked us to work with them on a new project for Speedo; this time to promote their TriathElite range of suits. They wanted some 3D elements similar to an existing microsite they’d developed, which we achieved using PaperVision3D. They also wanted Google analytics, deep linking, and XML-driven content, as featured in the Speedo Sculpture site we worked on. Talk about demanding.
Okay, so you’re Raoul, a dog boy who wants to be the best burger chef in Monsterville. Fair enough. But if you really want that success Raoul, then this is where you start paying – in sheer hell. You’ll have to visit various locations to serve your burgers, and naturally all your customers are monsters. No really Raoul, they’re monsters.
Beastie Burgers is the first full game we worked on under our Robot / Lizard guise. We released it in Halloween 2009 and it’s had over 5 million plays since then. We’ve even built a Facebook version, with micro payment options to help you speed your way to success.
Team Cooper were contacted by Sky to build an online version of their popular interactive TV game, Beehive Bedlam. We were especially keen to get involved in this project as we’d all played Beehive Bedlam at school / university (years before we got proper jobs).
Sky supplied artwork from the TV version, so it looked as close to the original as possible. Then, the Team made sure it was XMLdriven, so levels could be changed at a later date, as well as having a high-score leader board and the ability to connect to Facebook. Sky were very pleased with the end result, and we’ve been asked to work on several further projects since then.
Damn fool, did you scratch my van? Team Cooper were asked to code up a couple of mini-games featuring 80s A-Team legend, Mr T. The games are featured in the arcade section of a website promoted by a recent advertising campaign for Snickers. Get some nuts and play, fool!
The first game is a version of the classic Breakout, only the blocks have been replaced with chocolate bars. The second lets you bowl T-style, with manly wrecking balls and old tyres instead of bowling balls. We always enjoy working with Addicted, so we jumped at the chance and were quite proud of the end results. We pity the fool who says different, you hear?
Every year, specialist insurance underwriters Beazley send out a Christmas
e-card to their clients with a web game. With the majority of their clients being male city trader types, they wanted something that was very competitive and addictive, with a leader board and a prize for the best player.
Smell that testosterone.
Team Cooper suggested some ideas within Beazley’s budget, and they settled on this racing game with a twist. Each player has to race round the track to try and set the best time, but they can also race against ‘ghost’ versions of times that other players have set. The ghost element made the game great fun and very competitive and the game was extremely popular with Beazley’s clients. The top players even managed to blitz our developers’ top scores. Dammit. See if you can beat them.
This is something we’ve worked on to help promote our Beastie Burgers game. It lets you build your own monsters, similar to the ones found in the game, then add them to your Facebook photo albums for your friends to see. Shameless self-promotion using social media. And why not?
Why not have a short biscuit break, and make a monster yourself?
Once upon a time (well, it was the end of 2009 actually), in a land not too far away, Watford Palace Theatre contacted Team Cooper to produce a game for promoting their Christmas production of Cinderella. After a short consultation, the client tried on a few ideas, glass slipper style, and picked the one that fitted. The Team were overjoyed, and that night, they set to work coordinating the artwork, audio and of course the coding. Oh yes they did. They also liaised with the client’s current website provider, waving their wands to make sure everything ran smoothly on their servers and the viral ‘send to friend’ functionality was all working correctly.
Watford were very pleased with the end result, and so were Team Cooper. Don’t you love a happy ending?
Can you fire beams from your eyes? Can you read minds? No? Tsk, call yourself a mutant? Look, it’s very important to know whether or not you’re a mutant with superhuman powers – especially for kids who watch the ‘Wolverine and The X-Men’ cartoon on the NickToons TV channel. Luckily for you, Team Cooper worked with Addicted2TV to provide the Flash development (using AS3, Eclipse and FDT) for 4 games, as part of a website to promote the TV series. So off you pop – testyourmutantpowers.
They say Rome wasn’t built in a day. That was before our time,
but we can tell you that our ‘Asteroids’-esque Tri-shooter game
was*. In an ‘aren’t we big, bad-ass game developers’ kind of
way, we set out to build it in 24 hours. Just for fun.
Come and have a go.
*Technically, it took longer than a day if you count the extra
features like music, sound effects and a high score system that
we added after the day. But it was worth the not-particularly long
wait.
Green Spaghetti approached Team Cooper with an idea they thought up while working with local school children, and they asked us to develop it. This is an older piece of work, but it’s a great example of game development and everyone seems to love it.
Team Cooper just like it because it’s fun, and for us, that’s a lot of what Flash development is all about. Come on, it’s a game with hippos and monkeys in it. What more do you want? Take a look.
We were contacted by Sheffield digital agency Quba to work with them on a microsite project. The site promotes Speedo Sculpture, a new swimsuit range that’s more tailored to body size than standard suits. Quba managed the project and provided design and creative direction, Team Cooper supplied the Flash coding. Speedo supplied the state-of-the-art swimwear.
I know you want to see the site, but first, you have to read this technical bit, because it’s really impressive. You see, the site had to be modular, needed to be tracked by Google, and had to easily convert to other languages at a later date. Team Cooper built the site to be entirely XML-driven, so everything from the order of the menu items to the wording in the product descriptions could be changed using a basic text editor. We also added deep linking and Google analytics, so not only could Speedo track which pages were being viewed, but they could easily direct people to a specific page within the site. Clever eh?
Smart Assess develop e-learning tools. They look to Team Cooper for specialist development help with their RealSmart product, a suite of learning tools for mind mapping, blogging and website building. The tools are quite complex from a developer’s point of view, and include the option of collaborative working for multiple users.
Roth Creative asked Team Cooper to help them build a Flash website, complete with admin system, for The Globe Theatre’s Swan Restaurant. Roth had the entire creative content ready, but they needed a Flash developer to help them bring it to life. “The show must go on”, said The Team, all enthusiastic and keen, if a little bit dramatic.
We built the main elements, and incorporated an admin system so staff could add news and event listings. We also built a very cool photo management system, with content stored on a MySQL database on the server. It lets event photographers upload pictures directly to the website, and The Swan’s clients can log in to see them. Nice. And as the site features deep linking, URLs for specific Flash pages can be given out. It’s XML-driven too, so Roth can easily edit content without our help.
For this project Team Cooper were working with Addicted2TV and Ralph again, and it was such a scary project that it was nice to have company. We were asked to create the ‘Treat’ section of this Trick or Treat microsite, used to promote the release of the Halloween 2 movie. It lets you upload an image of yourself, add some pictures of Michael Myers to it and send a copy to your friends to terrify them. HE’S BEHIND YOU!!!
To promote the UK DVD release of the film ‘The Strangers’, Addicted2TV asked Team Cooper to carry out the development on a dedicated site. In turn, they were working for a London agency called Ralph, who were working for their client, Universal. We’re telling you that because we think it shows that Team Cooper can play nice with lots of people.
Anyway, the site let you upload an image of yourself or a friend, adjust its size and rotation, put a bloody terrifying mask on it (resembling a character from the film), and put yourself into a scene from the film. As if that wasn’t enough, the image could then be saved and emailed on. There was an FLV player on there too, letting visitors see trailers and exclusive footage from the film.
See? Get yourself a good Flash developer like Team Cooper, and this is the kind of cool stuff you could be doing.
We went for another look around Electric Works today. I finally got to go on the Helter Skelter and can confirm that it is awesome.
Em recorded the historic event on her phone (excuse the grainyness) which you can watch below. Listen out for my girly laugh as I get to the bottom, followed by chuckles from Emma and Deborah laughing at me.
“Could you help us develop the Williams F1 Team’s new Flash based website?” they asked. Well you’re not going to say ‘no’ to that are you? This was another multi-agency project, where the client (Williams F1) hired an agency who then sought out a professional Flash developer (that’s Team Cooper, but you probably worked that out).
We’d show you a link, but it’s a bit old now, (it’s from the 2007 season), so it’s not online anymore. But we’re so proud of working on it, we had to mention it, (shuffles shoes, ashamedly).
It’s been 7 months now since I decided to take the leap and increase the company’s operations. I thought I’d post a little on what we’ve achieved so far and where we’re hoping to go.
I’ve certainly been keeping busy. I find most of my waking day is spent thinking about the business, talking with current & potential clients or solving some problem we are working on. It has well and truly become my obsession and I have really been enjoying it so far.
The first major step was getting our office sorted. Well, I suppose it wasn’t really that major a step, but it did give a lot of weight to the feeling that things were actually progressing. Actually one of the highlights for me so far was when the “Team Cooper Ltd” sign for the door finally turned up. It doesn’t look like much, but it meant a lot.
The second major step was employing Kyle. It has been great having an extra person to help out and delegate work to as it has meant that 3 important things have been happening. Firstly I have had time to spend on promoting the company and researching the ideas I have had. Secondly, when the need has arisen I have been able to take on a bit more work. Thirdly, we have been able to start development on our first production.
I don’t want to say too much about it just yet because there is still quite a way to go. All I will say is that it has been a monstrous effort so far and I can’t wait for it to go live.
Things should be all change again over the next couple of months. Some projects will be drawing to a close and some new ones (to be confirmed) will be running alongside and/or taking their place. I think that the these coming months should be the most exciting so far as there are a number of directions we could go right now depending on what the client decides. At least 2 of the options would require getting an additional person on board so if you happen to be a Flash Developer reading this and think you might be interested in joining us, please get in touch (The email address can be found in the contact section of the Team Cooper homepage).
In terms of future activities, we have a couple more small productions planned (which I hope to start development on as soon as the current one is launched) and one larger production which may not happen for a while, but will ultimately play a key part in demonstrating what we are capable of.
Finally, we should hopefully launch our new website soon. It won’t be anything too ground breaking just yet, but hopefully it will at least look cool.
How exciting? As of Thursday I will be joining Tim and helping him/us build and develop Team Cooper.
I’ve been working as a web designer, flash developer, team manager in the digital world for over 8 years. The chance to work with Tim, for the clients we want to and on our own terms was too much to resist.
Also, I saw this… and even though it’s not that relevant, it reminded me of our branding, and it made we wonder - how much time do some people have???
Team Cooper developed the Xoolometer for our client Xoolon, to enter sporting scores into an online sports community. With two modes – mental and physical – the Xoolometer can record ratings, distances and times, all read and written dynamically from Xoolon’s MySQL database.
Xoolon didn’t want to use standard HTML forms. Being an elearning tool, they wanted to make it more fun and colourful. And as that’s what Flash does best, and we’re Flash developers, we were happy to oblige. So here’s Xoolometer.
Bukpak were a social marketing company, and they asked Team Cooper to develop a Facebook application another developer built for them. Unfortunately that developer left them in the lurch with a buggy application (boooo!). But ever eager to please, we took over (yay!).
Bukpak needed a Facebook application to let users paste pictures of their friends into popular movies, and then view the results. Once we got our heads around Facebook’s systems, we started the app from scratch, mainly developing it in Flash, with a little JavaScript and FBML – the Facebook language. We built the back end using PHP and MySQL. The end result is fun, and the client was pleased.
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Plans are afoot here at Team Cooper HQ and we are looking for contract and permanent staff to resource some potential future opportunities. While we don’t have a definite requirement yet, I wanted to issue a pre-emptive call out to anyone out there who may be interested in working with us to introduce yourselves (We are NOT looking to meet new recruitment agencies).
Last week I had the opportunity to visit Media City UK, the new Salford home for six of the ten BBC products.
The rest of the day revolved around the BBC’s vision for our four screens – TV, Computer, Tablet and Mobile.
Team Cooper is a growing Sheffield based digital studio currently producing our own browser based games and supplying multimedia development services to a wide variety of businesses and media companies. We love creating fun, online interactive experiences like games, micro-sites and social media applications and we are looking for an enthusiastic office assistant to help us manage our ever increasing workload.
It’s been quite a long time coming, but we’ve finally got round to 
