I have a couple of collabs running and whether you're an animator or illustrator, you'll be able to join in a novel idea.

160BPM Music Mash Collab
Do you like crazy music mashes featuring an eclectic mix of music? Ever wanted to see that translated into animated form? This is for you.

Each person animates one or more 3s clip of a song at 160BPM (that's 8 beats). I'll stick them together, repeat some of the better ones fiddling with sound levels within flash and then submit it to the portal.

It's an original idea and you only have to animate 3s, so there's no excuse to not join.

Thread is here.
If you don't fancy fiddling with audio and want to get straight into animating, pick a music clip from here.

Electric Earth Collab
Everyone knows the dangers of plugging 200 things into a single socket. It's ludicrously dangerous and works as a metaphor for the way we're over-taxing the planet.

This will be a real-life exhibition, with accompanying web-pics. In this exhibition. 'Earth with wires plugged in' will be a central image whilst other pics surround it, with carefully positioned wires and 4-way adaptors letting other picture 'plug into' the overstretched earth.

Just now, I'm needing more pics. These can be made in Flash, Photoshop, any other program, or sent to me physically. Any style is fine. Just make sure it fits the theme, is 300dpi if you send it digitally and the wires are positioned exactly according to the rues.

I'm hoping to get enough pics together to exhibit this at a local cafe in November. Nothing needs to be perfect. Then I'll book other walls, keep raising the overall quality and try and get it into the Gallery of Modern Art.

Rules are here.
Thread is here

Firstly, my biggest project is arriving on March 12th 2009. No hints are coming yet but I really hope you all love it as much as I think you will.

Secondly, I'd like to point out 'Game-a-Day'. Chris DeLeon's been making an interactive thing every day and range from toys, experiments and playable metaphors to simple, inventive games. That's commendable dedication to exploring a medium! He also fulfils many game requests (so if you want to see a simple game made without doing the hard work yourself, drop him a line. ;-)) and writes a little exposition about each game.

finally, I wanted to alert you to a forthcoming game being made by myself and trig1. Expect it in the first few days of March - it's a game involving the deletion of falling stuff, but has rules unlike any puzzle game I've played (and I've played more than any man has a right to).

It'll be my first game set to a high production standard, by which I mean... quality graphics! A dancing ghost! Cut-scenes involving a laid back giraffe! Expect 25 levels of fruit&fish puzzles.

Here's an old WIP screenshot.

March 12th 2009.