Nectarine Juice

Sometimes, it's best to let the picture speak for itself.

Ladies and germs, presenting James, our heroic producer/wordsmith/animator/font of creativity. (He's known to some of you as "the new Frank").

Didn't that huge painting in the background at WebDU add a touch of dramatic effect? Nice.

A bit of a random moment at WebDU: it appears that Tim Buntel's daughter Emma named her crayfish after me. I'm still undecided whether a crustacean named Minty is a compliment or an insult, but the most obvious effect was arriving at the WebDU bbq to a welcoming committee of various people holding their hands in the air and making pincer-claw movements while chanting "clickety click." I have a feeling this is a joke that may not be ending any time soon...

Emma, I believe when I get home I'll comb the garden looking for some sort of snail or grub, so I can return the tribute favour you so kindly bestowed on me.

(Oh, and Emma? Try not to give your older brother Ellery too much stick over the fact that you got a better score than him in the Trading Card Game... )

Whatever nervousness I had about the WebDU Trading Card Game rapidly disappeared as it quickly became apparent that most people at the conference, from speakers to attendees, had caught the trading fever. It was lovely how enthusiastically people embraced the idea, and how much it succeeded in its fundamental objective of creating a talking point to get everyone engaging socially.

Kai Koenig and I fielded a slew of questions about the finer points of the rules, and I hear the Daemon team did the same. There were semantic debates about the meaning of 'behind' and 'next to', philosophical questions about who was really considered 'American', and poor Dale Rankine copped some good-natured ribbing about the special rule for his card along the lines of "sorry, Dale, had to bend you over as you were worth more to me that way." Ahem. Well, quite.

Some people chose to collect all the cards and get them signed, rather than enter the final competition. Others could be seen with their stash laid out on the conference floor, consulting pages of hand-written notes as they sought to divine the most valuable hand, and someone even whipped up a Flex app with some data grids to do the same! There was trading and bartering and haggling. The BlueScope Steel team were not unafraid to let me know their expectations to do very well in the prize department! Wonderful stuff.

With the animations and various other materials we were preparing in the leadup to WebDU, I had to make some decisions about the limits of the game. One of those was sticking to 15 types of cards, which precluded having a card for every speaker. Apologies to anyone I left out, even those who badgered me mercilessly about it- yes, Adam Lehman, I'm looking at you!

My thanks go to my fellow gaming fan Kai Koenig, whose support, enthusiasm, insightful suggestions about the gameplay, and fab bit of CF scripting magic to score the cards were all invaluable. Also to Geoff and Julie and the Daemon crew, who provide both a venue and an atmosphere where this sort of experiment can thrive. And let's not forget Adobe, Wacom, Microsoft and Friends Of Ed who provided a mouth-watering swag of prizes.

Finally, congratulations to Zoe, who not only submitted the winning hand but was also part of the winning Queensland team for the pre-conference Code-warrior event. About the only piece of Queensland's weekend dominance that she couldn't claim a personal hand in was the Maroons thumping of the Blues in League...

Next objective: ramp up the game for Adobe MAX! All we need to do is scale it up to 5,000 attendees! :-P

We all know that we'd trade in our kick-ass hi-tech jobs in an instant if it meant we could spend our lives designing and playing games, right?

I mean, the new features of Flash Player 10 are amazing, but how can they compete with the latest ultra-rare MTG or WoW trading card? Am I the only male on the planet who thinks Bella Sara looks pretty cool? (Ok, don't answer that.)

With those heavy philosophical ponderings in mind, we present the WebDU Trading Card Game. It sprang from a conversation I had with Geoff Bowers from Daemon at the lovely Web On The Piste conference in 2007. I'd recently been playing a lot more board and card games, and Nectarine NZ had been involved in design and rule revisions for three board games: The Amazing Moa Hunt, The Great Goanna Hunt and The Amazing Mammoth Hunt.

When I mentioned all that to various developers, the reaction was eerily uniform. Their eyes would mist over and they'd be caught in a reverie about a long-distant time when there seemed to be endless hours devoted to deciding whether it was better to choose the +5 Sword Of Cleaving or the +4 Axe of Fiery Vengeance; a time when things like Play By Mail games existed; when phrases like "Car Wars", "Traveller" and "Squad Leader" had a mystical currency. (For those of you with somewhat less geeky mis-spent childhoods, just think of playing Monopoly or Squatter or Risk with your siblings- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...")

It was then that Geoff and I realised that there had to be some sort of game at WebDU 2008. It had to be fun and simple and open to anyone, regardless of whether they were keen on games or not. It had to promote social interaction: for me, that's where board and card games shine above PS3/XBox/PC games. And it had to involve PRIZES!

So Geoff and Kai Koenig and I batted around some ideas and I came up with a rule-set. All you need to do is collect a hand of cards and submit them. Here's a sample card, designed by the fabulous Tracy at Nectarine Oz:

There'll be a couple of card in each conference bag, and more handed out throughout the conference. The highest scoring hand will win cool stuff. Easy, right?

Except... each card also has a rule on it (expertly blurred in this one, but if you really squint... it looks even more blurred.) And those rules provide various ways to increase (and perhaps decrease!) the value of your cards. Furthermore, even rules you don't know about may still apply to your cards!

The best way to discover rules is to get more cards, or else *shock* *horror* talk to your fellow attendees. (For those of you who are programmers, refer to 'social engineering'.)

Trade cards! Haggle! Offer inducements! Swap rule information! Remember, rule knowledge is scoring power! But it also helps to have a good set of cards.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how it goes. Kai's writing an app to score all the submitted hands, and we're planning to have live updates of the highest scores at the final session of the conference. There's already been a bit of buzz about it on Tim Buntel's and Mark Mandel's blog, and I'm keen to hear what other people think about it and watch how it all plays out. So all you WebDU attendees, grab your cards, bring your enthusiasm and I'll chat to you at the conference!

Ps. No stealing cards. No fake cards. No bodily harm should be involved. Pushing your fellow attendees into the trash compactor to gain their cards is frowned upon.

UPDATE: Wondering how it all went? Read about the post-mortem here!

I don't know if this really ever happened, but given my experience with marketing departments, I'd say it's at least a 50/50...

Just in case you missed the whole bracket thing, it's a piss-take of Microsoft's text styling at Heroes Happen Here. And if you haven't played Team Fortress, you need to crank up that Heavy and run around (just make sure there's a Medic in support!)

Oh, come on, you know you'd by more software if it was bundled with a TCG!

And in case that last speech bubble is too obtuse, it's an oblique reference to the fact that Eye Of Judgement is built around the PS3, a direct competitor to Microsoft's XBox. Get it? Get it? Oh, what self-referential characters we are...

Brilliant speakers sessions, geek conversation and perhaps a couple too many beverages- it must be WebDU! We'll be rolling up to Sydney in June with some more animated conference openers, and no doubt there'll be the tradition lineup of fab speakers and Adobe stars. So book your tickets and come and join Geoff and Julie and the Daemon gang (and us!) for the rollercoaster that is WebDU!

Ps. If you missed any of the previous animations (or wish to fondly recall good times), we've got them up on the interweb:

WebDU 2007 animations
WARNING: Contains parody.

WebDU 2006 animations

WebDU (MXDU) 2005 animations - introducing Sparkle!

WebDU (MXDU) 2004 animations.
WARNING: Rude words!

I don't know where the idea for this came from. I mean, it's not like I've ever made any uber-geeky giggling jokes like this when I've been at a trade show.

Now, I need to point out that James suggested that the final panel should have referred to Seven of Nine, not Sub-Commander T'Pol. And he's probably right. But I'm old-school, and Vulcan chicks are hot, and by hot I mean totally sweet. So sue me (or sosumi, if you prefer, you Apple geek).