The Last Drive - CD/DVD Now Released

Last year, Chaos Created/Befour filmed and edited a music concert for DVD release for The Last Drive, a reformed rock/punk band who are massive in Greece and big in other European regions.  The DVD has now been officially released as part of a Live CD/DVD pack entitled Time Is Not Important.

The footage we edited from was recorded in Athens last year.

From Wikipedia:

The Last Drive is a Greek garage revival rock group which formed in 1983 and broke up in 1995. They are regarded by many as the most important Greek rock group of the 80's and one of the most important and influential groups of Greek rock history.

In early 2007, the band announced on their official website their reunion for some gigs. They performed live in Athens on May 11th, 12th and 13th -all three dates being sold out- in Thessaloniki on the 19th and in Larissa on June 2nd.

Their first record ("Midnite Hop") is re-released by Greek DIY label Blind Bastard Records. They also played at the "Open Air Festival" in Athens on July 6. Finally, they were the headliners on the first day of the "Indie Rocket Festival 2007" (along with the Devastations, Acid Cobra and the Cesarians) that took place in Pescara, Italy on June 22nd . In May 2008 the band did another Greek tour while a live CD-DVD covering their reunion shows in Athens was just released Blind Bastard Records. The band is currently active composing and performing new songs.

More information here
Band's web site is here
Buy it here

Climate Change Project Final Version Released

Our "Colin CO2" software has now been released.

The project, developed in Flash by Electronic Blackboard for MWNet, The West Midlands Regional Broadband Consortium, features two games developed by Chaos Created designed to increase environmental awareness in young children.  It also features a story which introduced "Colin" (CO2) as a character and explains the effect CO2 has on the planet.

The project features three games in total, providing a final outcome of a printable certificate.  This encourages children to make the best decisions and learn the basics about being environmentally friendly.

Electricity
Children learn how devices use electricity, and how switching off unused devices will save energy around the home, producing less "Colins".

Temperature
Children learn how putting on an extra layer of clothing, instead of turning up the heat, is better for the environment.  Children could also insulate the loft, leading to further discussions on how making changes around the home can save energy.

Transport
Children learn about environmentally friendly forms of transportation, such as walking and cycling, and also how public transport is better than other vehicles.

The software is now available to schools in the area through the internal network, but you can view the software on their public web site here.

Bug Fixing, Updating, and BDO

Spending the week producing a final version of the Climate Change software, updating activities for a refresh of the i-board Numeracy project and producing a new activity for the Big Day Out project, which should be off to our artist Stuart later today (this one's a lot of fun).

Two New "Games" From Chaos Created

More of a heads up than a grand announcement, but we're cracking on with two new products at the moment of our own.  The first is Melloweh which has been in stasis for a little while and in some form of development since 2004.

Melloweh actually won a runner up prize for multimedia, awarded by HP, back in 2005 for its demo.  The original demo was built using the Creatures Evolution Engine, developed by Creature Labs/Gameware and combined an artificial life game with a narrative and level based play.  I'll get around to posting the development diaries for the demo in good time, but one of the most interesting aspects was that we actually built the models for the world (constructed by Carla, who is now working as a set designer on film and television) in which the creatures, a  bug species, lived.  We then photographed them and combined them with some CG elements (including the creatures themselves).  The idea was interesting, and worked well.  Steve Grand and Ian Saunter did the same for the original Creatures game, for anybody here that played those games.

Since then, up until early 2008, the project was pretty much on hold (aside from the occasional dabble) as we've been busy working on other things, but we've got going again on the project recently (and made contact with those responsible for the original demo).

The second game (which may actually arrive slightly earlier than Melloweh, and is actually less of a game) will be a spin off, using the same technology, but aimed at a different audience and I'll post more on this soon.

We're using a different "engine" this time around (which is more flexible for us, and also extends the capabilities as to what we can do), so there's been a bit of a "from scratch" element to it, but it's coming along nicely, and we'll be ready for a release later this year on both products.

The idea being that the development for both products will be treated as one product for the next few months, and then they will spin off in different directions once the framework and AI is complete as both projects are very closely linked.

But for those that are interested, there is still an AL (artificial life) element to it.  In fact, the last few months have been spent working on the 'brain' and the results are pretty impressive so far.  And we've started knocking about some of the internet aspects of the game too.

The art will come later on.  At the minute, the graphics are all placeholders (in fact, for the most part, we're using the original model photographs and graphics from the demo as those placeholders).

Anyway, there will be more information to follow.  Obviously, there's not much to give away at the moment as most of the work, to date, has been on the back-end stuff, but I'll blog about the "brain" and the guts of the games shortly.

The best thank you present ever??

Sam came down last week and dropped off a batch of her infamous brownies as a thank you for maintaining her web site.

A swear these are the best tasting brownies I have ever had.  The batch only lasted around 7 hours with my housemates around.

Further verification of their tastiness - the last time Sam made me some, I was in London cutting the 5:13 trailer.  Whilst we were editing, a squirrel came through the window and took one straight from the cooling tray.  Lucky thing.