Digital scholarship blog

Enabling innovative research with British Library digital collections

19 November 2015

Gyre and Gimble, plus Gambling Lambs!

It is very nearly International Games Day @ your library! Here at the British Library, we are holding free game playing and making activities from 10:00 to 16:00, on Saturday 21 November 2015. Our theme for the day is Alice Adventures in Wonderland and the event co-incides with the opening of the Library's free exhibition celebrating how Alice has captured our imaginations for so many years.

You don't need to book in advance, just turn up on the day and find us on the first floor in the public area outside the Rare Books and Music Reading Room (up the escalator from the Alice exhibition and turn left). If you have not visited the British Library before, there is information with directions to the building here

There will be an opportunity to create Alice inspired digital games using Pocket Paint and Pocket Code, so please bring along your android phones if you want to participate in this activity. To download the Pocket Code app go here. The Pocket Paint session will be 11:00-12:00 in the morning and the Pocket Code session 13:00-14:00 in the afternoon.

Furthermore, videogames created in the Alice Game Jam and the Alice’s Adventures Off the Map competition will be available to play. These include the 2015 Off the Map winning games:  "The Wondering Lands of Alice" by Off Our Rockers,  "Alice's Garden” by Chris Lonsdale and "A Curious Feeling" by team Hare Trigger Games, which are playable in the exhibition. Also, especially for International Games Day @ your library we are delighted to have Alex Hamilton, Paddy Scott and Dan Barnes of team Gyre and Gimble Games, from the Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies College in Nottingham, who received a special mention from the Off the Map jury for their surreal and comical text adventure "Alice and the Wonderland", which you can play at the event. This team are now working under the name Fancy Crab Studios and you may be interested in following them on twitter at @CrabFancy.

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Image from Gyre and Gimble's "Alice and the Wonderland"

Last, but no means least, there will be a selection of card and board games, with a fine bunch of game enthusiasts from the London on Board group and Gambling Lambs bringing some of their favourite games for us to play. See you there!

P.S. Dressing up as characters from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is strongly encouraged! So dig out your top hats, rabbit ears and pocket watches!

P.P.S. You might want to follow @Alice150_BL on twitter to stay up-to-date with all the fun on the day!

 

Stella Wisdom, Curator, Digital Research

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