Enhancing sense of life

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...

...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?

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.

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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

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

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!

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

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