Fluffy Logic Games Company

Today we had a talk from a company called Fluffy Logic based in Bristol. It was incredibly useful for me. There was lot of general talk about how people worked in the field which I already knew. However, I found the talk about future projects that they were doing and advice on how to get into the industry really useful.

The tips on getting into the industry are:
Play the companies games and understand how they work.
Don't rely on a degree to get into the job. There is too much competition.
Develop some original and popular Flash games to prove that you have talent.
Know about a lot of different games, even obscure free PC games.

He talked a lot about how to develop computer games. The essence is to have a simple core idea that is easy to explain but can be expanded upon.

To further my chances of getting a job in the industry, I need to do the following:
Keep up to date with the latest games.
Play the games of companies that I have interviews with.
Create some Flash games and open them up to the public using a medium like Newgrounds.com to gain popularity.
Research new and emerging interesting PC games.

Improving Website Traffic Seminar.

Today there was a short seminar on how to increase traffic to personal websites. It was very short but had some useful points to remember.

The main way to get a lot of traffic is to have a website with a clear purpose in the first place. Use the 'rule of three' (3 personal strengths, 3 methods of advertising, 3 mediums of advertising) to establish this.

It is also incredibly important to make sure that your website appears high in search rankings. To do this, its important to ensure that the keywords are accurate on the web page's META tags. It's best to find a niche market and use words that represent that for the META tags.

Finally, it helps to have other websites linking to your website. This is one of the criteria Google uses to determine rankings and it will help a lot if people are actually using those links to find your site.


Personally, I must make sure that I think through the purpose of my personal website clearly, find a niche to appeal to and make sure my website is promoted through other websites. I could do this by putting my URL wherever I can (facebook, myspace, forums, anything with a profile opportunity).

Lecture - Irma Boom

Today Irma Boom came to the University to give a talk on her work at a book maker. It was a very interesting lecture. I watched it from the flexi-lab on a video link because it was so popular. I didn't know anything about book making and barely anything about print so I didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect to see somebody so passionate about the subject.
She started with a list of words that she feels her books incorporate. It was kind of strange in that there didn't seem to be a word she didn't exclude from this list. At first I didn't quite understand but I slowly began to over the course of the lecture.

She showed a variety of books that showed off various techniques that she uses. They were very beautiful and inspiring. They were also very untraditional as she didn't believe in using grids and standards because she really wanted them to be original and beautiful in their own right. This is when I began to understand the words she used to describe how she felt about books, because she wasn't interested in 'stereotypical lovely-books' and her work indeed had features that are unexpected.

The way she took things that you would think would result in ugly, boring books such as car engine manuals and turned them into really interesting books using layout and colour was amazing. They definately enhanced the subject matter in an interesting way.

Irma Boom's lecture was unusual but exciting, just like her books. I found her work to be very inspiring.

Lecture - Paul Minnot (Aesthetic of conspiracy)

Today Paul gave a lecture about the work he was later going to present. The lecture was about the assassination of John F Kennedy and all of the conspiracy surrounding it. I did not know very much about John F Kennedy before this lecture.
Paul explained the circumstances and showed some imagery from around the time. It was obvious that Paul had a personal interest in the subject. He showed lots of different evidence through different medium such a photograph, video and writings. It became apparent that the work he was going to present was going to use all of this information somehow. I was interested in seeing what he was going to do with the information, how he was going to present it, from what perspective he was going to present it and what message it was going to have.
When the work was finally revealed, I was a little disappointed. Paul had taken the imagery, lots of it and plastered it across some walls showing connections in a muddled way. This was based around some video in the center of the room. Paul had used all the confusing information...to show that the subject is confusing. I felt that it didn't have much of a message and considering there was a whole lecture preceding it, there wasn't very much to it.
In all, it was interesting to see somebody try to make an installation based on A LOT of information but I prefer to feel that I have taken something on board from an artwork...and in this way the work was unsuccessful.

Lecture - Paul Minnot (Small Town)

Today we had a lecture for Provoke Change.
It was rather indirect to the project but it did emphasise the point that the change we do could be something about our own town which is interesting. We also watched some interesting videos.