Week commencing 27 August:

There’s a renewed energy in the Studio this week as everyone’s started returning from their summer breaks. We’ve been out on the streets of Bristol play testing for the wonderful Igfest and have loads of exciting developments and news from our brilliant community of residents:  

On Tuesday the Studio team headed down to the milkbar (Igfest HQ) to take part in an early games test for Cargo, one of the headline games at this year’s festival. Developed by Slingshot and the Mixed Reality Lab, Cargo is a thrilling collaboration that pushes the boundaries of street gaming. Cargo pitches you against a system controlled by artificial intelligence that will either help or hinder your progress across the city. You receive instructions, offers and threats through your phone as you try to escape the city, pick up the cargo and make it to the boat. It was awesome fun to test, so don’t miss out on this incredible game buy a ticket here.

Rosie from Splash and Ripple has been busy developing another of the fantastic Igfest headline games; Incitement. Incitement is a game of stealth, survival and surveillance where players are pitched against each other and The Authority to secure victory for their cell. They’ve just released a brilliant new trailer here, so make sure you check it out and buy your tickets from this link.   

This week has seen the launch of the official See No Evil iphone app created using Calvium’s AppFurnance. This unique interactive experience gives you access to exclusive artist interviews whilst viewing the graffiti on location. It also features music from up and coming Bristol artists, so it’s the perfect soundtrack to you street art experience. Download the app here and take a walk down Nelson Street soon.

It’s been a great week for Red Wasp as they’ve just released a new very exciting in app purchase for ‘Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land.’ The extra levels allow players to reverse roles for the first time and fight to destroy humanity. To play the new levels, you need a copy of the original game, select ‘Extra Levels’ and then purchase ‘Kaul’s Diary.’ Tomas has blogged in more detail about the new levels here and said, “While it is fun fighting zombies, we figured it would also be fun controlling zombies“ We definitely agree!  

Red Wasp have more exciting news as Call of Cthulhu is now on Steam’s Greenlight. Greenlight is a new platform that allows gamers to help pick the next games that will appear on Steam. To celebrate its inclusion in the Greenlight launch, Red Wasp have created a new ‘Director’s Cut’ trailer for the game full of Mythos mayhem - you can it watch here.

Red Wasp have also been busy preparing for the brilliant games jam that will be taking place in the Studio. On the 5 and 6 October, budding games developers and designers from across the UK are invited to take part in a 24 hour Games Jam in the Studio or The Science Museum. Find out more and register your interest for the event here as places are filling up very quickly!

It’s been as busy as ever over at the nu desine desks, as they’re still deep in production mode. This week they’ve launched a new page on their website to showcase their AlphaSphere players, you can check it out here. Koven one of their specially chosen beta testers has also just realised a new video on youtube of him performing his latest track on the ‘sphere, which you can watch here.

Now that Mail, Maps and Motion is over Joanie from AntiVJ is preparing to jet set around the world again, and we’re a tiny bit (loads!) jealous of all the amazing places he’s heading. First off he’ll be joining Emptyset on tour to provide visuals in Rome, Warsaw and Seattle. Then he’ll be touring with his project Eyjafallajokull to Mantes in France before heading onto Brussels. We’ll be sad to lose him from the Studio for a few months, but you can follow updates on his twitter page here.   

Finally don’t forget our Lunchtime Talk programme has kicked off again after the summer break. On Friday 14th, don’t forget to join us for a talk and (if it’s working) project demo by artist Tine Bech, all about Playful Experiences for Curious Visitors. See you there!