Ozma's Diary

MMSS-bloggen

2009-06-26T03:58:00.000-07:00

Av Bobbi

Karin och jag bloggar numera i MMSS-bloggen, en blogg på Moving Media Southern Sweden:s webbplats. MMSS är ett nytt nätverk som ska stötta branschen för ny och rörlig media i södra Sverige, en satsning som vi tycker är väldigt bra!

Nytt blogginlägg idag på MMSS-bloggen: Värdet av det pillbara

A trip and a tip

2008-12-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

The last Friday in November we lectured at the Gotland Interactive Park incubator in Visby. The talk was on entrepreneurship in the creative field. There were a lot of people attending and we got many interesting questions.

We had a really fine day in Visby with our hosts from GIP, Johan and Jonas from Pitchin, a company that does industrial design. Actually we had such a nice time we almost forgot to go home.

We're also stunned by the beautiful thank you-card we got:

Johan and Jonas from Pitchin w/ fire and kittens!

A tip for those who haven't yet discovered this:
TED, Inspired talks by the world's leading thinkers and doers

Crossover Nordic

2008-12-04T05:18:00.001-08:00

By Karin

In September this year I participated in a 5 day workshop called Crossover Nordic. It was an intense experience and its taken me some time to process it. The idea was to bring people together from the old media (TV, film, documentaries) and new media (web, mobile, games). We spent almost a whole week together at a remote place called Slussen on Orust, an island on the Swedish west coast. The focus of these five days was to come up with new ideas for cross media concepts.
The workshop was mentored by Heather Croall (Director of Doc/Fest), Paula Le Dieu (Executive Producer and Consultant Networked Media), Jason Daponte (Managing Editor, BBC Mobile Platforms), Neil Richards (Director, The Mustard Corporation) and Mark Atkin (Commissioning Editor, SBS Australia in London) and it was lead by Frank Boyd (Unexpected Media). Personally I was a little disappointed that Matt Adams from Blast Theory weren't there since he's also one of the Crossover mentors normally and I'm interested in the work he does. Any way there where some great people there and especially Paula was an absolute angel.

So what happend?

We were around 20 persons from Sweden, Denmark and Finland, with professional experience from working with either new or old media. It was a nice bunch of people I must say, and very hard working. The only problem was that we where too hard working. There was no time to even gasp for air as we where thrown into new assignments and brainstorms. Frank said he was surprised that none of us had a break down or a fight at day two, since that is what usually happens. But being Nordic must mean being very polite and even tempered because none of that happened (luckily!). You can read more about what happen during the workshop in Jasons blogg.

Here is my feedback on the whole thing:

I'm trying to use the six hat evaluation technique by Edward De Bono that we learnd during the lab.

Red: for emotional, instinctive response
Yellow: for what is good, what works well
Black: for the problems, the things that are wrong or could be improved
Green: for any suggestions about how things might be done differently
White: for any facts, information or data
The sixth hat is blue: it stands for process.

Red:
The workshop experience for me was fun but tough. I felt a bit bad afterwards actually. I've been thinking a lot about it, so it must have had an affect on me. I felt frustrated about being pushed in to things I didn't feel was good for me. I generally don't like being just in the head for such along time in a row, not being able to get exercise, relaxing, being outside. I felt this had an affect on my performance in a bad way, and made me somewhat lose my commitment in the ideas that came up. Fortunately there was a lot of nice people around so I still had a good time and some really good discussions.

Yellow:
I think it works well going away for a few days to do something like this. This brings less distractions and more focus on what we were doing.

Working together this closely with people in a group really speeds up the process of getting to know each other, which is a good thing. When I met everyone a week later it really felt like meeting old class mates.

Practicing pitching is very useful.

I really liked the exercise where we had a platform (Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia etc.) and a genre (horror, romace, etc) and we had to produce a story around it. This made us think in new ways (I just wish we had more time..).

Black:
I think its a problem that when you don't get enough rest and exercise your brain slows down. (And a lot of food and alcohol is not the solution!) With a slow brain you can't be very innovative. Another problem was the lack of understanding among the participants of different media (new and old), what's technologically possible and the benefits they bring concerning the users experience. This made it difficult to come up with ideas where cross media were used in innovative ways. In the beginning I remember some talk about using the storytelling ability of the people from old media but I think this got lost along the way. There was too much focus on using as many media as possible and not enough on why.

Lastly a problem I find is very important but it has more to do with what happens after the workshop. What to do with the ideas? Where can you find funding for cross media concepts? This is clearly an issue to bring up (maybe we did and I don't remember).

Green:
My suggestions is to start the workshop by letting the participants explore one medium at the time (especially the ones that are new to them) and to form an understanding of the value the different media can bring to a concept. Its great to show inspiring examples and to let the participants evaluate why these worked so well (and what didn't work).

Secondly, MORE FREE TIME! And maybe some organized outdoor activity. I strongly believe this is needed to process the ideas.

More inspiration in general would be nice. I like the idea of starting a brainstorming session with a piece of music, a poem, a story, a short movie. Anything that can make you think with the heart is very useful.

I would also suggest a discussion about funding and what's needed to go on working with an idea.

Mera argt om kvinnor

2008-11-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

Av Bobbi

Sweden Cleantech Incubators bjuder in till ett Runda Bords-samtal kring varför så få kvinnor är entreprenörer, styrelseledamöter och anställda inom hi-tech. Ett bra initiativ tycker vi.

Det första som händer när man går in på deras sajt är att det kommer en undersökning om ämnet. Fint, tänker jag och klickar mig vidare. Men när frågorna kommer baxnar jag.
Det här är första frågan och dess svarsalternativ:

Färre kvinnor är entreprenörer i teknikbranschen. Vad tror du det beror på?

Kvinnor är mindre riskbenägna
Kvinnor är inte lika uppfinningsrika
Kvinnor har inte tid att utveckla sina eventuella affärsidéer
Kvinnor vill inte avsätta den tid som krävs för att driva ett företag
Kvinnor har svårt att hitta stöd för sina affärsidéer
Kvinnor ser inte potentialen, vågar inte tro på sina affärsidéer
Samhällssituation, ovana och omedvetet förlegat tankesätt hindrar kvinnan från att se möjligheterna
Kvinnor söker sig till andra branscher

Det är inte sant, tänker jag. Inte ett enda svarsalternativ ger mig möjligheten att peka ut en annan orsak än att kvinnorna själva är anledningen till att de inte startar företag, sitter i styrelser, ledningsgrupper etc. Och jag kan inte ange ett eget svar.
Det alternativ som vid en första anblick kan tyckas handla om strukturella faktorer är formulerat så här:
Samhällssituation, ovana och omedvetet förlegat tankesätt hindrar kvinnan från att se möjligheterna
Hos vem ligger det omedvetet förlegade tankesättet? Finns det möjligtvis andra faktorer som påverkar? Jag tycker att detta är ett typexempel på hur man söker inre orsaker till strukturella fenomen.
Visst påverkar inre faktorer och dem måste vi arbeta med, men det här är komplexa frågor och det provocerar mig att inte få lov att ge ett komplext svar. I stället tvingas jag välja mellan enklaste möjliga alternativ som alla lägger hela förklaringen hos kvinnorna själva. Ja, det går att starta och driva företag som kvinna, och ja, vi måste förändra oss själva och vår syn på företagande men parallellt med detta måste många andra förändringar ske.
Tanken slår mig att det kanske är ett medvetet provocerande från frågeställarens sida, för att få veta undersökningsdeltagarnas attityder? Men det blir ändå missvisande, för jag som inte känner att något av påståendena stämmer – vad ska jag svara?
Som man frågar får man svar, brukar det ju heta, och här känns det som att fördomarna om gruppen får råda.

Det blir tydligt att någonting är konstigt om man byter ut innehållet i frågorna:

Färre män är delaktiga i hem och familj. Vad tror du det beror på?

Män är mindre empatiska
Män är inte lika kärleksfulla
Män har inte tid att bygga upp sina eventuella relationer
Män vill inte avsätta den tid som krävs för att hålla relationer levande
Män har svårt att hitta stöd för sin roll som pappa/make
Män ser inte potentialen, vågar inte tro på sina relationer
Samhällssituation, ovana och ett förlegat tankesätt hindrar mannen från att se möjligheterna
Män söker sig till andra områden i livet

eller kanske så här:

Fler män är delaktiga i kriminella gäng. Vad tror du det beror på?

Män är mer riskbenägna
Män är mer uppfinningsrika
Män tar ett mindre ansvar för hem och familj och har därför tid att utveckla sina eventuella kriminella talanger
osv...

Ja, jag vet att det är hårddraget. Men det visar också hur konstigt det blir om man bara sätter individuella faktorer som förklaring till samhälleliga fenomen.

Resten av frågorna berör inte i någon större utsträckning ens åsikter kring manligt/kvinnligt företagande, utan består av diverse frågor kring att starta företag, ta in riskkapital med mera.
Tyvärr missar vi runda bords-samtalet. Frågorna är jätteintressanta och diskussionen viktig – man får kanske förlåta lite klumpigheter… men det hade i alla fall varit intressant att se om resultatet från undersökningen togs upp under debatten, och på vilket sätt.

Den kvinnliga entreprenören

2008-11-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

av Bobbi

Igår fick jag ett mail med en inbjudan till ett event för kvinnliga entreprenörer. Det satsas stort på detta område just nu, vilket inte är fel, men när jag började läsa hajade jag till. Så här inleds mailet:

"Mod. Passion. Jonglör - Bli kvinnlig Entreprenör.
Vankar du runt i starta-eget tankar men inte vet om du kan, om du vill eller om du törs? Är det verkligen det du vill överhuvudtaget? Hur är det att driva företag? Är det krångligt? Eller har du precis startat och driver företaget med nyfikna ögon och lite vingliga ben?"

Och tilltalet får mig att se rött. Jag skulle vilja se någon, någonsin tilltala blivande manliga entreprenörer på det sättet... som vankande runt med nyfikna ögon och vingliga ben, frågande sig själva om detta är vad de vill över huvud taget...
Som jag tolkar det utgår man ifrån att kvinnor har en inbyggd osäkerhet, och att det är den som hindrar dem från att starta företag. Är det verkligen så? Är det säkerställt genom undersökningar, eller utgår man bara ifrån att kvinnor är mera osäkra i sitt företagande än män?

Längre fram i mailet kommer detta:

"Kom och hör vår historia som företagare eller företagerskor som en del vill kalla det. Inspireras. Vi har enskilda firmor och AB. Helt olika verksamheter. Helt olika livssituationer. Och ändå så mycket gemensamt i våra liv som kvinnliga egenföretagare. Ställ gärna frågor till oss. Gärna s k dumma frågor för de är smarta att ställa innan man gått vilse i företagsdjungeln."

Ja, för vi kvinnor kommer ju självklart att gå vilse i djungeln. Den är stor och läskig och svår för oss stackars våp (gäss?) (som visst ändå kan om vi bara får tillräckligt med inspiration, uppmuntran och klappar på huvudet...) ?!
Det är inte fel att lyfta fram att det finns osäkerhet inblandad när man ska starta/driva företag, men jag tycker att tilltalet är infantiliserande. Jag trodde vi hade kommit längre än så. Är det fortfarande på den nivån att vi ska sitta i ring, hålla varandra i händerna och ropa "kvinnor kan" (med våra röster som ju tyvärr inte är lika starka som männens)?
Är det inte en självklarhet att kvinnor kan?

Now - in progress

2008-10-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

By Bobbi

- Last week we delivered a minigame for kids to Universeum, a science museum in Gothenburg. The game is to be part of an exhibition about polar climate at the museum.
- Tomorrow we are attending the one day conference LB Interaction, held by Nordic Game. The conference centers around location based games.
- Also tomorrow, Tobias Abrahamsson starts his 7 week long internship at Ozma. Welcome Tobias! ^^
- Our activity based game Maskeradmästerskapet for children's parties has been released in Norway.
- We are working quite intensely with the two products we are developing together with Damanco, Jagajoule and WeProject. Today we've been able to watch screenshots that the graphic designer Lina Olivia from Sustainable Studio has put together, and they looked really really nice. Karin even had to do a little dance!

Oops, almost forgot. There aint no better way to end a day crammed with brainconsuming meetings than playing ROCK BAND!

Mood boards

2008-07-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

By Bobbi

We often make mood boards for our projects. The usual process is that one of us gathers 10 -20 pictures suitable to the project on an A3, which we print out and put on the walls of our office, as inspiration - turning the walls into some kind of patchwork.

But there is an even better way of making mood boards. We tried this one for the first time when we were starting up the company, as part of the branding – to use when creating a logo etc.
For this excercise each participant gathers 10-20 pictures (depending on the number of participants) - pictures they think express the brand in some way.
The pictures are spread out on a large table. Now the participants are supposed to remove pictures one at a time, taking turns doing it. Participants can’t say no to a picture being removed by another participant, no matter how much they like that picture.
This goes on until only about 10-15 pictures remain, and those will be the ones used in the final mood board.

Pictures from today’s session

We did this for a project this afternoon, and it was just as fun and rewarding this time. It’s definately worth the effort. Probably we should do it this way every time.

(There are other kinds of mood boards as well – for example this wall of fame next to my computer. I just have to look at it to get in a very good mood!)

What playgrounds are girls in need of?

2008-07-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

By Karin

First I start out with one of my favourite quotations:

"Boys can use games to escape into a fantasy world which allows them to prepare themselves for the requirements of adult masculinity, they can gird their digital loins with magical potencies and vanquish enemies with their limitless strength. They can also get killed, over and over again, along the way, until they have achieved the degree of mastery that makes them champions. Then they can reach in to the full storehouse of boy games and accept another challenge. […]
The cultural prescriptions for femininity are equally stringent - and they are also internally contradictory. Girls are expected to be both frail and enduring, helpless and competent, fun loving and sensitive, emotional and available, needy and nurturing, vain and moral. Girl needs games in which they can rehearse and express the ambiguities and contradictions of femininity. Navigating the shoals of femininity are the stuff girls think about.”

(Brunner, Bennet & Honey, 1997, s. 86-87)

This is something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time; why girls’ relationships to games seem so complex. Not only does this concern whether or girls like games or not, and if so which games they like, but it inevitably comes down to the phenomenon of play. Play is an important part of a child’s development. Through play the child manages the transition between the inner world of the psyche and the outer reality (Winnicott). Play thus becomes a very important tool for young boys and girls to use in order to deal with the expectation that are held on their future identity. It becomes even more so if you consider the theories of Judith Butler. She states that gender is something that is performed through an individual’s actions. So to become the “right” gender (and this is of course expected to go along with the body you are happen to be born with) you have to learn how to perform the “right” actions.

Skill comes with practise. If being a girl means I need skills in certain areas different from what I would need if I were a boy (seen from the society’s point of view), than the things (actions) I will have to practise will be different too. As said in the quotation femininity is a very ambiguous and contradictory thing. There are some safe grounds that all girls know about (for example dress in pink and you’ll be fine!) but there are a number of areas that are like minefields. It’s okay to do them but not too much or with too much enthusiasm. Take sports for an example. It is certainly considered good to be sporty as a girl (you shouldn’t be fat and lazy!), but if you would happen to get too muscular then it can be a problem. Whether or not these norms are something that we as grown ups agree upon or not doesn’t matter, it will for sure be something young girls are very concerned about. We can only hope to influence these girls into becoming free women who can put the rigidity of these norms behind them.

So how can we make empowering playgrounds for these girls entangled in the complexities of femininity? Are there places where they can explore their identity freely without feeling highjack by the society?

The first step is to make it possible for girls to play at all. Here is a blog entry from an angry mum who curses the way the fashion of girly clothes makes it impossible for her young daughter to play freely. There are so many things that are going on during those vulnerable years of childhood and adolescence, many small strings that all together weave a net of passivity laid upon women. It makes me furious to think about it… But I believe there are ways to sneak past these mechanisms of oppression.

There is more to play than first meets the eye. The transformative potential in play is sometimes underestimated. In play everything can be put up side down. The imagination is free to run wild and new discoveries can be made and explored. The sphere for personal actions expands (like a bubble you blow with your chewing gum!).

I recently read a study on what German girls like and dislike in videogames. It came down to three things; they disliked violence and over sexualized portrayals of women, and they liked a richness of social interaction in games. This is certainly nothing new or surprising. There are many pink games that exclude violence, have cute little characters and are all about relationships. Still it all seems so superficial to me. We need to dig deeper than that. Be more unexpected.

Lek och lekytor

2008-07-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

Av Bobbi

[This post is in swedish because of being a bit too complicated for me to translate at the moment!]

Förra inlägget handlade om ARG:ets möjlighet att skapa en värld skild från den verkliga, placerad i ett lager ”ovanpå” verkligheten, vilket kan möjliggöra en form av lek för vuxna. Jag vill fortsätta denna diskussion om lek, och möjligheten till lek, genom att ta upp ett annat fenomen som inte är spelrelaterat. Men först en definition av lek:

Vad är lek?
[Följande stycke är hämtat från mitt examensarbete i Interaktionsdesign, Lekfulla spel, 2005.]

”Lek är en frivillig handling eller sysselsättning, som förrättas inom vissa fastställda gränser i tid och rum i enlighet med frivilligt accepterade men obetingat bindande regler; den är sitt eget ändamål och åtföljes av en känsla av spänning och glädje och medvetandet av något som är ’annorlunda’ än det ’vanliga livet’.”

Detta är Johan Huizingas definition av lek från boken ”Den lekande människan” (Homo Ludens, 1945).
Jonas Linderoth menar i sin avhandling ”Datorspelandets mening” från 2004 att en inte helt ovanlig definition av lek är att leken är sitt eget mål, och den går ut på att leka. Leken är sin egen mening och dess innersta natur finns i dess intensitet, i möjligheten att entusiasmera och att den uppfattas som lustfylld (Huizinga, 1945). Man leker för att ha roligt, helt enkelt.
Brodin och Lindstand menar i rapporten ”Några reflektioner kring lek och leksaker” (2005) att det dock kan finnas en fara i att definiera leken som något man gör bara för att det är roligt, eftersom det då kan betraktas enbart som ett tidsfördriv. De vill att leken ska värderas upp i vuxnas ögon, att vi ska tillmäta leken dess rätta värde som det viktigaste ett barn kan ägna sig åt.

Än vuxna då?
Är inte lekandet viktigt för vuxna? Är det så som många tycks tro att vi någonstans runt inträdet i tonåren växer ifrån att leka? Det beror kanske på vilka aktiviteter vi klassar som lek.
Det finns flera exempel på aktiviteter som vuxna ägnar sig åt, som har lekinslag och som kan ses som gränsöverskridande – på det sättet som lek överskrider gränserna för ”det vanliga livet”. Ett exempel som jag berört som hastigast på min personliga blogg, är en form av skrivande (som möjligtvis har fler gränsöverskridande kvaliteter än litterära), nämligen slash fiction. Slash går ut på att ta två redan existerande karaktärer, fiktiva eller verkliga, oftast män, och para ihop dem i en kärleks- och/eller sexuell relation, som man sedan skriver om. Eftersom det är en något kontroversiell form av litteratur pågår detta ofta lite i skymundan på internetcommunities, befolkade av de invigda.

Vad består lekelementet i slash av?
De flestas mål med att skriva slash är nog inte att bli berömda, tjäna pengar eller ens få något utgivet på traditionellt sätt, utan det görs för att ha roligt. Det är en inre drivkraft som ligger till grund för att skapa slash, och den bottnar både i behovet av att leka med andra och i den egna sexualiteten.
I ett community vars medlemmar skapar RPS (real person slash – slash som handlar om verkliga personer) om exempelvis två fotbollspelare, skapas en värld befolkad av frivilligt deltagande personer, avskild från den verkliga världen i tid och rum, med sina egna regler, sitt eget ändamål, och definitivt åtföljd av en känsla av spänning och glädje för de deltagande :) – helt i enlighet med Huizingas definition av lek. Communityts medlemmar är t ex väl medvetna om att de här två fotbollspelarna antagligen (eller kanske) inte har ett homosexuellt förhållande i verkligheten, men i den uppsatta lekvärlden kan de ha det utan att det ifrågasätts.

Är det omoraliskt att leka på det här sättet?
Frivilligheten som gäller de lekande människorna i communityt, gäller inte för föremålen för deras intresse; objekten som figurerar i deras lek. Så, är det omoraliskt att använda andra, verkliga människor som leksaker, och framför allt, är det omoraliskt att dokumentera det i skriftlig form och publicera på nätet?
Det kan definitivt diskuteras, men samtidigt känns det som att dessa diskussioner ofta utgår från ett äldre synsätt på det skrivna ordet och på texter (som statiska publikationer) och på våra medier (som publikationsverktyg snarare än kommunikationsverktyg).
Människor behöver nämligen ytor att leka på, och där fyller internet en viktig funktion. Få kan väl tycka att det finns något omoraliskt i själva leken i sig (jo, så klart finns de som tycker så också) men däremot finns det troligtvis fler som anser det tvivelaktigt att publicera de texter som både möjliggör och är produkten av leken.
Kan man tänka sig att vi i stället skulle kunna avdramatisera inställningen till det publicerade, och acceptera att detta är en lek som människor håller på med? Lek skapar mening och expansion, och är därför viktigt både för barn, unga och vuxna. Men hur är det okej att leka?
I slashberättelserna lägger man oftast till en disclaimer som talar om att berättelsen är fiktiv. Men publiceringen sker också oftast i ett sammanhang, som är den lekvärld som skapats av de deltagande.
Så, kan man betrakta ett community som en lekplats, där det är okej att göra sådant som inte annars vore okej?

Läs mer om slash på Tanja Suhininas blogg.

Enhancing sense of life

2008-06-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

By Bobbi

Yesterday we were discussing Alternate Reality Games during lunch break. We always find that kind of game seems to appeal to a lot of people.
The case discussed was getting some information about a person you don't know, and your task would be to find and kill them (not for real; just by targeting them, and then performing some kind of action).
A person round the table said: "If you're in this game, and someone suddenly phones you at work, and then just hangs up... you know you are in trouble! I would probably just throw everything at hand and try to get out the back door!"

My thoughts wandered off to how some experiences make you think you're part of a movie (like this, for example) - and that those experiences trigger a stronger sense of life. As if the sensation of watching yourself from the outside in itself adds an extra dimension to life.

Sometimes that happens just by incidence, but obviously it's also possible to create events that trigger this feeling. Examples of that are flash mobs, zombie crawls etc.
The Alternate Reality Game is a more complex form, but in the end they're all about the same thing: Adding an extra layer on top of reality, a layer that brings the possibility of enhancing sense of life.
And I think that's one of the important tasks of games, to give us that possibility!

Bobbi enhancing sense of life at the Copenhagen Zombie Crawl

It's been far too long...

2008-06-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

...but here's the update, anyways! :)

We have a new part time employee - Anna, who started working with us last week. Anna will focus on sales and communication, and we wish her welcome to Ozma!

Ozma and Damanco has closed a partnership agreement regarding a project we are working on in joint effort. We are also teaming up with Sustainable Studio for branding and graphic identity.

In May we visited the Nordic Game conference and got blown away by sessions by designers from titles such as Guitar Hero, Ico and Silent Hill, as well as by the panel on social gaming led by Dallas Snell from NCSoft. I went from that session with a strange glow in my eyes, and an enlightened smile on my face, (even though Dallas hadn't even time to finish his session!).

Every time we attend this conference we get filled up with new ideas and energy - it's so rewarding to listen to all this gathered experience. That got us to think about how rare it is for us to meet with game designers from other companies, and we started dreaming about a swedish game design forum where we could meet up (yes, irl) with other designers and discuss design issues! How does that sound?

What's happening?

2008-03-07T02:25:00.000-08:00

We are

* Into a lot of strategic development
* Participating in the business plan contest Venture Cup with one of our concepts
* Still trying to plan a party we have been discussing throwing since about a year back
* Thinking of going to the conference web 2.0 Expo in Berlin this fall
* Looking for graphic artists who creates cute, japanese style graphics and lives in Sweden
* Looking forward to spring in Malmö! From our office we have the most beautiful view. Let's see some sun through that window, and please, let us soon get to eat our lunch on the terrace on the roof! Sweden is a bipolar country, really.

---

In anyone (haha) didn't solve the christmas card puzzle, here's the right answer:

- www. is what it looks like
- The red head girl is a character from the Moomin Trolls, in swedish called "Lilla My" = my
- The planets and stars equals space
- .com/ is indeed .com/
- The little fairylike girl is actually Ozma, a character from the Land of Oz
- And game is game

= www.myspace.com/ozmagame

So what were you supposed to do then?
Ahaa - actually visit that page! AND, not to miss, read the myspace blog.
In the blog there's a clue that leads you to this blog and the cryptic post (below this one) with a christmas story.
if you're not too oblivious you should notice that some words are highlightened, and read together they form a sentence:

"Go to homesite, choose present, write secret word in swedish: A small goat like animal with beard and horns made out of hay and wrapped in red ribbons"

A little more down-to-earth, that means: Go to our site www.ozma.se, choose the present in the menu on the left. There's a page with an input box. Type the right answer (in swedish) = Julbock

If you did it right you got to see a picture of us strapped in chains (not that visible, really), holding a bunch of Santas and looking really tired.
Ok, like this:

Beware of next years puzzle, it will be even harder! XD

Merry Ozmic Christmas

2007-12-19T01:16:00.000-08:00

A long time ago in a far away place where people would still go to church on the morning of Christmas day, there once lived an odd creature. She was grim to look at and her home was not more than a camp site on the edge of a deep forest. The people in the nearby villages would rather choose a detour than to come close to her dwelling grounds. The creature was completely unaware of how lonely she was. She would poke her nose, scratch her long beard and feel quite good about herself. But one fateful night she would come to hear about a thing called Christmas presents and this would change her life forever.
She could neither read nor write but this doesn’t mean she wasn’t smart in her own peculiar way. Secretly she would sneak close the houses in the village at night to smell the cooking and listen to the conversations going on inside. She didn’t understand every word, but slowly she was starting to figure out the world of humans.
One night in December she was eavesdropping as usual and heard and old woman telling a story about how she had received a strange Christmas present from a Swedish relative many years ago. Or she thought at first that the present came from her distant relative since it was so peculiar and she couldn’t think of anyone else who would give her such a thing. But now she wasn’t so sure. The creature outside in the darkness was listening intensively. She had never heard of such a thing called presents and was eager to find out what they were all about. The old woman was now trying to describe the object she had been given and the creature was memorizing every word she said. Later laying on her back on a big moss covered stone the creature would repeat every word to herself.
“A small goat like animal with beard and horns made out of hay and wrapped in red ribbons.”
What a lovely thing! the starry eyed creature thought to herself and suddenly for the first time in her life she felt a bit lonely.

To be continued next Christmas…

Catwalk 2007

2007-12-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

November 22

We were invited to attend Cut the Wire/Catwalk 2007, an event in Karlskrona, where we were participating in a contest for "best mobile service for the public sector". We were participating with the text message based game Lost in Malmö, that we developed for the city of Malmö.

Catwalk 2007

Karlskrona is a quite small town (33 000 inhabitants) and it's placed beautifully by the sea. When walking towards the small island where the first part of the event would take place, we could even feel the smell of tar in the air!

The day started with an open debate where a host interviewed people about their businesses and how they are using mobile services. Our project stood out a bit, since a lot of the others were about keeping track of transports, counting and labeling lampposts, and other useful but quite down to earth services. There weren’t many applications like Lost in Malmö.

Dinner was held at Marinmuséet, and after that 3 buses came to take us to a secret location. We actually never understood where we were, but it was in some kind of industrial building in the harbour.
Coming into the large hall, we were met by the sounds of a crooner who with a soft voice sang

some all time favourites. Behind him a slideshow was running, with pictures of Beatles, Elvis, Rolling Stones, ABBA and Queen... Our little gang was standing around, wondering what was gonna happen, and then we headed towards the bar. :)

The crooner got done and we thought it would be time to announce the winners. There were 3 different categories, and our 2 friends from Do-Fi were competing in another category.
But it wasn't time for that just yet, instead there came on another band - a cover band, with a singer dressed completely in white, who also wore sunglasses. They came on strong with "Summer of 69".

When the band had played for an hour it was finally time for the awards, and we were standing expectantly in front of the stage. But well... we didn't win. :D

Then it was time for some Guitar Hero (on stage), and when the guitar session ended, the cover band came on again. I found some people who looked like fun, and started talking to a guy in a cap. He said "all these crazy people are from the same company", referring to the dancing group around him. "Which company?" I asked. "I wont tell, but you can join in if you want", he said.

So, what could one do but dance like crazy?

Suddenly we realised it had become midnight and the first bus would go back to Karlskrona city. We rushed out to take it, and ended up with a whole bus for ourselves (6 persons) and a drunk man. Noone else wanted to leave that early. :)

We arrived at the city and it was deserted. The two other girls in our company had heard there would be a pub (with karaoke!) at their hotel, so we went there. "Is the pub still open?" we asked, while entering the completely empty reception. "Yes for about half an hour" the girl told us.

We went down some stairs and started hearing sounds. Suddenly a room opened up, it was crowded with people and had party written all over it. It was soo crazy! People were standing on chairs and tables, or dancing all over the place. It was like being transferred into some kind of strange movie scene. A DJ who acted more like a radio show host played songs, he also sang himself and led the karaoke.

And what karaoke! The people at the bar must have done this every weekend for ages, because the musical anthems and Grease duets they were performing were perfectly sung. A woman with blonde hair was singing togehter with a rock guy, then came on 2 girls, also singing something from Grease, and putting on a good show – People were even standing around singing the backing vocals.

The visitors were of all ages, from like 18 to 60, and of all different kinds – from rock kids with *a lot of* tattoos, and countryside people in checkered flannel shirts, to dancing women in high heels, short skirts and bleached hair. And everyone seemed to be friends.

We were just standing there in awe, and I kept repeating "welcome to Karlskrona!" with a strange smile on my face. Small cities, what can you say?

All in all, we agreed that it was a night out we would hardly forget… It even ended with an afterparty perfectly fitting the context, namely together with a bunch of sailors!

Games are out!

2007-12-06T06:32:00.000-08:00

Our children’s party games Maskeradmästerskapet (Fancy Dress party) and Tårtkampen (Sprinkles) are now available in Swedish shops. The games are activity based games for small children, and suitable for parties and family gatherings!

Lost in Malmö

2007-12-06T05:42:00.000-08:00

October 31 - November 2

The event Lost in Malmö and Spelfest took place between the 31st of October and the 2nd of November, in Kockum’s old industrial building by the dock in Västra Hamnen, Malmö.
The premises were wonderful: a large industrial hall, filled with old furniture and new games!

Preparation of Spelfest

Karin gets it done. :)
We had our own balcony where we mainly resided during the event.

Our gamers were young people from the city, who before getting out on the streets, got a strange letter from the mysterious mr. Filou…

…who actually kidnapped someone! The players had to find the missing person by following clues and visiting places in the city. And also taking photos of themselves while doing some crazy assignments!

Like for example producing som violent behaviour outside of the police station.

The poor victim was chained to a chair at the cinema theatre Spegeln…

…and was released by the team Knightriders! (After they found out where they’d put the key)

The happy winners

The prize ceremony

Thanks to everyone who took part in this! <3

Where were we in Essen?

2007-12-06T05:28:00.000-08:00

Firstly, we have some summing up to do, from the autumn (that is suprisingly enough already turning into winter)!

October 17-21

After months of hectical work with the project Lost in Malmö, something completely different materialised itself right before our eyes: The Spiel 2007 game fair in Essen!
We were going to share a small booth with Enigma, the danish distributor, and a game developing company from Malmö called Gigantoskop. The only problem was that we had a deadline for Lost in Malmö coming up, and it was basically breathing down our necks… We were knee-deep in work. Still we packed our bags with some games and prototypes and flew to Germany.
As last year, we stayed at our favourite apparthaus, and this time we got a really big 2-floor apartment. That was good, since as it turned out we had to stay there a lot of the time, working with Lost in Malmö!

At the first day of the fair we spent some time at our table showcasing one of our prototypes, and also and the children’s party games that are published by Egmont Kärnan this year: Maskeradmästerskapet and Tårtkampen.

Dan Glimne took some photos:

This is us..

…and, ehm, this is us too.
(Showcasing Maskeradmästerskapet/Fancy dress Party)

We also couldn’t miss out on delving into the night life of Essen (woohoo). We visited Turock, the metal club, and danced the night away to some strange german nu-metal - with our new 19-year old fan boys (!?). The next day they came to our table at the fair and tried our game The Witch Hunt, which is a game for kids (of all ages obviously!).

At Sunday we went home with not-so-many impressions of the fair as last year, but it was still fun!

Welcome!

2007-12-06T05:23:00.000-08:00

Come on, come on, come in, come in!
This is our new blog, where we will tell you stuff. You’re welcome to say something by commenting on our posts.
<3 /Ozma