In the session I did at Edinburgh I talked a bit about how new distribution channels and financial models were changing the kinds of IP it might be interesting - and potentially profitable - for games to explore. I was thinking of things like On The Rain-Slicked Precipice Of Darkness and Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People, but I’ve just realised I overlooked the dream ticket. I’m not necessarily a big fan of games based on existing IP (we have an infinite blank sheet of intelligent paper! Can’t we use our own ideas?), but now I see how naive I was. 2009’s unmissable licence is going to be Rescue Ink.

There’s an About page here, and some adorable New York Times photos here, but the basic gist is: Hell’s Angels who rescue kittens.  Which, in a nutshell, is surely the perfect licence. You’ve got total cross-demographic appeal. Cute puppies! Badass tatts! Breaking up dog fights! Weaning kittens! Even politicians would have no option but to applaud it. You’ve got an amazingly well differentiated roster of characters with really clear gameplay implications: mechanic, high-rise construction worker, car specialist, ex-cop, ex-spec-ops, martial arts expert, fire-fighter, all with distinct images and brilliant nick-names. You’ve got a great mix of potential gameplay styles - from a GTA-style cruising to find emergent animal abuse, to squad-based strat stuff (do you send both George and Fat Ant on the same bust, or is that overkill? What if you need someone who can pick a lock? Or specialises in Rottweilers?), to Tamagotchi kitten-rearing stuff (one syringe of milk on the hour, every hour). Basically, I can’t see a platform, genre or market this wouldn’t flourish in. All we need to figure out now is who should get to make it. I’m thinking maybe the Yakuza team, since they’ve got a proven ability to handle the brutish, the cute and the silly.

In the meantime, while you wait for work to start on the 2009 all-format Christmas number one (’Special thanks - Margaret Robertson’), you can donate here or volunteer here.

Laziness coefficient: high.

If I were a better person, I’d have wonders to show you thanks to the hours I’ve spent doodling in my Top Three Best Current Physics Toy Things, but I’m not, so I don’t. Instead, here they are for you to play with, so you can see if you can empty your laptop battery quicker than it takes to get you to get fired for never doing any work again ever:

OE Cake: impossibly flexible physics creation tool. Watch the videos on the site and do some YouTube trawling to get some sense of just how powerful it is, and how many crazy machines and explosions and cakes you can make with it. The moment your brain finally dissolves into an adoring whimper is the moment you realise you can drop-and-drag images files in and turn them into lumps of burning rubbery fuel. Handy cheat-sheet in the notes here.

Powder Game: the latest version of Hell Of Sand,  which makes you wonder why the world bothers having anything in it that isn’t fireworks, bubbles, C4, gunpowder or superballs.

Fantastic Contraption: so fantastic, it seems to have fallen over for now, but presumably it’ll be back. My brain has filed it as a cross between Braid and Crayon Physics, which is highly misleading, but will make you curious enough to play it so I’m sticking with it.

Edinburgh ‘08 report:

Number of things I said that made the internet angry that I regret: 2

Number of things I said that made the internet angry that I don’t regret: 19

Number of things I said that would have made the internet really angry if it had been in the room at the time but it wasn’t so phew: 487,943

Number of people I promised I really would get a ‘Margaret Robertson is full of shit’ T-shirt made: 3

Gosh,  Edinburgh’s lovely. I really ought to know that by now, for all sorts of reasons, but it still takes me by surprise every time. But it was great to get a chance to load up on plain bread, and see a bunch of old friends, and catch up with all the Dare students as they all get one step closer to taking over the world.

The rather ramshackle slides for my rather ramshackle talk are here (sorry, 13 meg pdf or so, somehow). Fair disclosure: the notes represent what I had been planning to say if I’d had rather more sleep rather than what I actually managed to blurt out on the day, so apologies if they don’t mesh very well with what you heard. A lot of people have been asking me for the Patrick Redding talk, which you can get here, and really, if you’re only going to read one of them, read his and not mine, because his is properly brilliant.  Thanks again to EIF and Dare for inviting me up: good games, good people, good beer, bad weather. God, I miss Scotland.

Develop ‘08 report

Lost:  my voice, one earring, one suspected-knock-off, only-slightly-insanely-expensive, 60W MagSafe power adapter (now recovered), one phone USB cable, one bag of clothes (left in a taxi, returned 2 hours later by extraordinarily kind taxi driver)

Most coveted thing face-off: giant Space Invaders commemorative 100 yen coin vs Animal Crossing Happy Room Academy catalogue

Brighton restaurant recommendations:  breakfast - Bill’s for scrambled egg with pumpkin seeds on top and juice brilliance (thanks, T!);  lunch - Bankers for fish and chips (thanks, R!); dinner - Pintxo for delicious peppers and amazo-rasperry/coffee freddo things (thanks, me!).

Unforgettable moment face-off: swimming in the sea with Charles Cecil vs four-man The Final Countdown Band Bros.

New personal best: talking so much my tongue got blisters.

Best new skill learned: how to get an elephant into a fridge.

Cheers to everyone who lasted the distance to come to my talk - super quick’n'dirty slides-with-notes are here. Thanks to Owain for inviting me along, and to everyone who fed my brain-hamster with new ideas.