Phil Bradley's weblog

International Games day @your library

The board games group of which I am a member held a nice little event at Billericay Library on Saturday, to coincide with the aforementioned Day. We were given the use of four tables, and we had Castle Panic, Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride and Tsuru set up for people to play. The event lasted from 10am - 2pm. It was well attended - as you can see, there were mainly children involved (since they don't come with either a manual or a rulebook I stayed well away from them), but some adults did turn up as well. It was a really nice event, and no-one seemed to mind the children having a slightly noisy time of it!

I spent a lot of time talking to the librarian, Graham. Absolutely fantastic librarian, and I really enjoyed our chat. He explained that he was very keen to see the library being used far more by the local community - we already have a pop-up cinema after hours which shows a variety of films for family audiences, as well as evening 15+ rated films for the adults. The library also runs a very successful yoga class after closing time as well. Graham was open to the idea of having a games morning for children on Saturdays as well. I absolutely loved his enthusiasm - I should say that even though it was his day off he came in with his daughter to play and take part. While he was there he was greeted by library users as though he was an old friend. Graham is really keen to see the library as a focal point in the community, and his work was a great example of “Bad Libraries build collections. Good libraries build services. Great libraries build Communities”

Great day, great initiative, all made possible by a welcoming, encouraging and enthusiastic librarian. :)

 

Hidden object games

I wasn't aware of this type of game until a friend of mine pointed it out to me. The idea is very simple - you have a picture, usually quite complex and busy and you have to find images within it that you can click on. They then disappear and you get more until you complete the puzzle. A bit like 'Where's Wally?' I think. There are hundreds of these things, and as a word of warning, they're very addictive and you can spend hours playing them. Some are more educational than others, but I can certainly see how they could be used in a classroom situation. I did manage to find one that was library based and I've included a screenshot below:

The idea behind this one is that you have to hunt down numbers; it's not the most fun, but as I say, it's a library related one from Games2dress. Maybe in a couple of years we could do an image of the whole of the UK and have a 'hunt the library' one?

Fallen London for librarians

I don't often blog about games, since they don't really interest me that much, but I noticed that a few of my librarian friends from Twitter were all tweeting about 'going to Fallen London' so I thought I might tag along to see what it was all about. It's a browser based game, so nothing to download, but unlike other similar games (such as Farmville) there's a limit on the amount of time that you can spend there, so it's not the usual time sink.

The concept is simple - London has been swallowed up, and you live in a different version, populated by Rubbery Men, Tomb Colonists, Neddy Men, Araby Fighting Weasles, urchins, strange old ladies and much more. There are also different locations to visit, with various challenges to complete in order to improve various personal categories such as Persuasive or Dangerous. There is a social element in that you can work with Twitter friends to complete tasks, but even if you don't have any friends who play you can still have a lot of fun (though you do need a Twitter account to play).

I really enjoy the game - not so much for the strategy, which to be fair is rather limited, but the atmosphere is excellent - it's a mixture of Steampunk, Victoriana, Horror and slightly strange humour. It clearly attracts librarians though - not only is my character currently residing in rooms above a bookshop, he is currently on a task to rescue banned books! Screenshot below: 

I don't know of any other games that are so attuned to the profession - but if you do, let me know. If you like playing games, I'd certainly suggest giving it a go, or if you like any of the genres I've mentioned, you might like this one. It's completely free to play and you may well find some of your Twitter librarian friends are skulking around somewhere!

Akinator - game with a difference

I don't often blog about games - in fact this is only the second time that I've done so, but this one is rather interesting. It's called Akinator, and describes itself as 'the web genius'. Simple in concept - you just think of a real or fictional character, answer the questions that it asks while it attempts to guess the person that you're thinking of.

All well and good. Except that it's very clever, to a freakish extent. I tried it with historical figures, cartoon characters, footballers, characters from films, you name it, I tried it. It failed a couple of times - on a footballer and a very minor American historical figure. Other than that - it was right every time, and often within 10-15 questions. It also looks very smug when it wins:

It tells you how often the character that you thought of has been played before, and if it gets it wrong it asks for information about the character, checks it against its database and then adds it.

This is a great resource for a fun evening, but I can easily see how this could be used in a school/educational environment with children researching a person in order to be able to answer the questions correctly. Also, if something like this can be used for entertainment purposes, (and so, so well!) just think how the technology could be put to use in other situations - deciding on a career and which university to attend, assisting in answering reference questions, working your way through a complex red tape driven government site!

It's a great tool, and certainly one worth trying out. Plus it's fun, but as several of us who were playing with it and reporting back last night via Twitter found - highly addictive as well.

BoardGameGeek: game search engine

BoardGameGeek | Gaming Unplugged Since 2000. Not a type of resource that I blog about very often (or never, in fact, but there always has to be a first time I suppose), but if you ever need information on board games, this is the site to visit. Nice search function, and an impressive amount of detail about each game. This includes year published, who by, artwork, # of players, playing time, suggested age range, description, images of boards and pieces, marketplace value and so on.