Spook, a location based game I designed with Laura Bordin and Valentina Venza in my final year at IUAV IxD programme, has reached the semifinals of the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. It will now run with 14 more projects for the final round in Beijing (China).

Finally I found a job in Milan!!! I’ve just joined the design team at Assist Consulting. I know, the website doesn’t look so great and it’s not updated but the actual projects are very interesting. And it looks like everybody is really nice up there

Don’t worry, I’ll keep on studying pervasive/ubiquitous games. By the way, if you are an iPhone SDK developer and you want to have a real or virtual beer while chatting on a possible project contact me…

My university studies are over: I graduated in Visual and Multimedia Communication (Interaction Design programme) at IUAV University of Venice.

Now, it’s time to find a job!!! So, give a quick glance at my major works and if you think I might be useful to your cause please download my resume and let me know asap.

Greengrowers is a location-based game to be played in Venice (Italy). I designed it for my Interaction Design thesis with Professors Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor for the Visual and Multimedia Communication degree – IUAV University of Venice.

Players, using GPS technology, grow virtual plants in specific areas of the Venetian campi (squares of the city called fields in Italian since they were open and green land in the past). Resources are given by real weather conditions (water, sun) and site-specific data (humus) and the game is played over 14-days sessions during the four climatic seasons. A series of tools, gained with frequent play, helps each “greengrower” to feed his/her creatures and make them bloom. Players play against each other and the winner of each session is awarded a real plant and can indicate a place in the campi where to plant them with the Local Council sponsorship.

The project will be presented on Wed 22nd April – 9 am, at IUAV University of Venice, ex-convento delle Terese, Dorsoduro 2206, Venezia.

Greengrowers is designed as a casual game for IPhone. From the very beginning I thought the application should have a delicate mood, a sort of poetic spirit.

I’ve always been fascinated by Bruno Munari, a genial designer and artist. His research gave an enormous contribution to visual arts, industrial design, games and creativity. Some of his works, “Disegnare un albero” (Drawing a tree) and “Un fiore con amore” (A flower with love), made me think a lot when I first read them. I decided to take inspiration from these workshops and I started working with coloured paper; I drew plants on different surfaces, from crepe to rice to tissue paper. I tried to make small videos of my drawing process and after that, I realized I could make animations of tiny bits of paper composing a plant figure.

While finishing the final draft of my report, I made some very quick and dirty clips. I’m trying to understand which might be the best solution. I attach a couple of examples, just to give an idea of what I’m trying to work on. Comments, of course, are very welcome.

Download here example A (MOV | 2.6 MB)
Download here example B (MOV | 2.2 MB)

Next Monday, I should work in the photo studio to record all the scenarios I need.

I haven’t been writing on the blog for a while. The main reason is because I’m trying to keep up with my thesis report for the university. Of course, the project has moved on in the meanwhile.

I made a lot of changes to the concept I’ve posted almost a month ago. For instance, Augmented Reality has been replaced by a simpler GPS tracking system; play has been simplified and limited just to the “campi”; time for each session has been reduced from a season to 14 days.

The overall design is almost finished:
-the UI details are being refined
-I’m working on a new, definitive, solution for my graphics (a lot of paper, scissors and stop motion!)
-I’m thinking about some delicate sounds to include
-I should sketch the website look and feel soon

Hopefully I will post some GUI details after this Carnival weekend.

Il test volge al termine. Oltre all’analisi dei booklet di gioco, i partecipanti risponderanno ad un breve questionario per meglio valutare alcune opportunità di intervento sul design. Qui è possibile scaricare copia delle domande che verranno poste. Il materiale sarà valutato nei giorni a seguire e verranno pubblicate le classifiche con conseguente proclamazione del vincitore/vincitrice.

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The test will soon be over. Here is the pre-prototype evaluation interview (in Italian) that players have to fill in. The standings of the game (and the winner name) will be published in the next few days.

From Thursday 29th Jan till Tuesday 2nd Feb, I will run, with 12 volunteers, a pre prototyping test of my thesis project. The players will play on a small booklet I made out of cardboard and paper. After the test, each of them will be asked to fill in a brief questionnaire on the experience. The evaluation will hopefully help me refine the ongoing design.

Here are PDFs of the booklet and the instructions on the prototype (only in Italian)

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Da Giovedì 29 Gennaio a Martedì 2 Febbraio, 12 volontari prenderanno parte al test del primo prototipo della mia tesi. A seguire, chiederò ad ogni partecipante di compilare un breve questionario sull’esperienza di gioco. La valutazione del test e delle interviste mi fornirà utili indicazioni per il design.

Qui i PDF del libretto di gioco e le istruzioni del prototipo (in italiano)

Sto realizzando un semplice prototipo di carta per testare il game design e il concept della mia tesi.

CERCASI TESTERS: il test impegnerà 30-60 secondi al giorno da Giovedì 29 Gen a Martedì 2 Feb. Non è necessario giocare tutti i giorni. Questo va a discrezione. Possono partecipare tutti coloro che passeranno almeno una volta in un campo di Venezia in questo periodo.

Dovrei distribuire degli sketches su carta per giocarci nei campi. E il miglior tester riceverà un vero premio!!
Vi sarà anche una brevissima intervista dopo il test; alcune domande che insieme ai risultati del gioco saranno la base di una prima valutazione.

Datemi la vostra disponibilità commentando sul blog, scrivendo una mail al mio indirizzo email (ivanprovenzale_at_gmail_dot_com), SMS o telefonando al +39 320 7665974, su skype ELAZNEVORP, o su facebook. Benchè il materiale sarà tutto online, spero entro domani, prima di Giovedì devo consegnare di persona il materiale ai testers.

Grazie!!

IUAV IxD Lab1 2008 website is now online.

For The Open Hand project, I worked with Laura Bordin and Valentina Venza to a mobile application that offers a welcoming hand to visitors to Venice. We designed Spook, a kids hunt treasure in the museums of Venice.

During the 11-week studio course I also took part to Applied Dreams, a fast idea-generation workshop with H-umus ongoing project on the application of new technologies for point-of-sale in the shoe industry.