Social networks and apps are full of recommendations. I can fire up Local Scout on my phone and get suggestions about nearby places, fire up Facebook and see people I may know, fire up Netflix or Zune and see suggested movies based on what else I’ve watched, see suggested people to follow on Pinterest… The list goes on.
Of course, it’s computers and algorithms and, for the most part, they don’t really understand context.
For example, last year when my rabbit, Thumper, passed away, I signed up to Quora (a community Q&A site) and posted a question about how I should go about finding a companion for Walter.
This morning, Quora sent me a question they thought that I might want to answer…
God knows what they think I did to solve my situation…
And we’re almost ready to go.
On Thursday, we’re launching Zombies Ate My City on Windows Phone.
I feel excited and also anxious. I’ve been living and breathing this game for about six months now, and I’ve been knee deep in it for about four. The whole project is based around an idea I had and fleshed out around a table in Arivind’s old flat. In reality, it actually spawns from a project we worked on at university back with the technology was way behind our ideas.
It’s been a whole lot of fun getting this idea made (you can read development diaries here) and I’m really happy with the results and, actually, it’s been a lot of fun going out and playing our own game when I really should be sick of it by now.
Ari and I always tend to end up with these crazy project ideas. Timedancer, which is a transmedia app combining video, games, exploration and a sci-fi storyline, began with me asking Ari to come up with a story for a point and click adventure style game. What we ended up with is something that is completely unique on any mobile platform. Zombies started off with the idea of creating a location based game, adding a story to check-ins. What we’ve ended up with is a mix of location, video and action-gaming.
My only fear, ahead of release, is that maybe what we’ve done is too different. What if people don’t get it? But on a platform with 50,000 apps you have to do something to stand out. We could easily have churned out something a little more traditional (and I’m sure we will do some more traditional games in between these bigger projects) but if you want to get noticed, you need to be different and so we might as well take advantage of the skills we have, the people we know (the app features contributions from a bunch of talented friends and colleagues) and place our bets that people will be intrigued by the premise and enjoy something a little bit different.
We hope you enjoy it!
So, here goes. You can read all about Zombies Ate My City here.
So you can keep your belief in whatever
And I’ll wear my cynicism like a tattoo
And while poets try to engineer definitions of love
Oh you know that all I can think of is you
And I just can’t wait to see you on sunday
Far from the traffic and the smoke and the noise
But for this evening I will play back every message that you sent
So I can sleep to the sound of your voice
I absolutely love this video. I used to really like OK Go too a few years back and they totally dropped off my radar, but this music video has made me download the stuff I’ve missed.
Apparently, it took four months to set up 288 guitars, 55 pianos and 1,157 homemade instruments. It’s awesome. There’s a behind the scenes video to go with it here.
And when you’re needing your space
To do some navigating
I’ll be here patiently waiting
To see what you find
