This year’s theme is Media, Freedom and The Web with the focus is on journalism but there are plenty of opportunities to get involved for those of us into gaming. It runs over the weekend 4th to 6th November 2011 at Ravensbourne College in North Greenwich.

The Hive London Pop-Up is running from 12pm to 5pm on the 4th and 5th November. A group of educational organisations will teach young people how to:

• produce a podcast
• edit an interactive video
• develop a mobile app
• design an online game
• remix a website

You can sign up for Hive London here.

The Learning Labs are a series of short sessions that will teach you a new skill. Many of these are journalism-oriented and the two games-related courses are:

• Beginning Development for HTML5 Games
• Convert a single-player game into a multi-player one

And finally, the Design Challenges are for creative people to build something during the festival. Highlights:

• Games that rock the browser - Port a classic game to run directly in a web browser
• Webmaking with Hackasaurus: How can we teach the world to hack? – Use Hackasaurus tools to build games and turn the open web into a giant learning, making, and play space.

Event though the festival ain’t cheap at £60 per ticket, it’s a great opportunity to learn new skills and meet the people who make things happen. I’ll be there.

Get more info from the Mozilla Festival site and check out the Mozilla Festival blog for updates.

Google Plus is going for web-browser gaming in a big way as well, with last month’s launch of Games for Google+.

Since a large chunk of my Sundays seem to be spent clicking on these attempts at sucking the into the murky waters of microtransactions, I’ve decided to launch this new weekly column focused on browser games. First up: The Sims Social, which has been available in open beta for a few weeks now.

At heart, it’s The Sims but faster. You have the classic meters that go down over time: social, fun, food, bladder, hygiene and sleep. These decline over time and you only need to perform four of the appropriate action to fill up the meter. Make Sim friends with your Facebook friends and pootle about little house and gain simoleons to buy new furniture, build new rooms and so on. Click on an object to bring up a radial menu, choose what you want to do. Practice skills like writing and cooking to level up and visit other people’s houses to improve your friendship. Same old, same old, right?

Not quite. For those of us who know The Sims, the differences are jarring. Firstly, there are no jobs. We all seem to be perpetual Open University students who just lounge around at home, occasionally slapping some paint on a canvas or jamming on a guitar to feel like we’re achieving something.

Secondly, playing on your guitar improves your fun levels but not your skills. And learning to cook will improve your skills but not assuage your hunger. It’s an annoying little time sink and I don’t see any advantage from a business perspective. On a slightly different note, playing lightsaber wars with your torch appears to be a seduction tactic in the Sims Social universe. Geeks represent! ;)

Third and finally, the entire game seems to be geared around spamming your friends. It’s virtually impossible to progress without being prompted to post on at least three Facebook walls. Bought a double bed? Sorry, can’t build it yet. You need a wrench, four pillows, four “dreams”, 8 “loves” and a “bling”. You could try generating them yourself through the suggested actions but it’s far faster to just spam your friends with messages saying “Can you help me build my bed by sending me 1 soft pillow? They’re free to send!”. Bought an expansion room for your house? Sorry, you need to ask three friends to help you out. It’s just not possible to build a house by yourself. If you go over to a friend’s house and see something incomplete, you can’t click on the object and volunteer to help them out. Nope, gotta wait for that help request. Not just on the wall, either. You get the notifications in game as well for a double whammy.

It’s sad, really. This could be quite a fun but every time I log in, I’m greeted with a scene like this:

The game is still in beta so it’s entirely possible that all this will change as times goes on. On the other hand, what websites aren’t in beta these days? Facebookers, head on over to The Sims Social to virtually shag all those friends you’ve secretly been lusting after. They won’t even know…

So Thomas Was Alone is “A minimalist game about friendship and collaboration” What does that mean?

Mike Bithell: Minimalism is a movement in art and design which has always appealed to me. It’s not just about simplicity, it’s about boiling down to the core of the experience. Applied to games, it’s about cutting through the layers of technology and fashion to create an experience which does the bare minimum aesthetically, but does so to achieve a purer gameplay experience.

I really love the ‘white box’ stage of development (where levels and mechanics are prototyped before art production). I’m not anti-art, but there’s something transparent and cool about seeing game design that can’t hide behind an awesome lighting engine. When the mechanics work, it’s stunning.

I’ve been interested in making the game equivalent of a great buddy movie for a while, and an early prototype for a more complex game gave me an idea of just how much fun could come from characters with differing jump strengths and shapes working together to get to goals. I realized that the layers of complexity I had planned were a distraction, and tried to pull it back to the core design.

Thomas. He has friends now.

MB: Well, to be honest, at first it translated to “game made in 24 hours about blocks jumping on top of each other”.

I decided to explore that idea through a prototype for a game focusing on a small band of allies working together, each one’s abilities enhancing those of their friends. The minimalist aesthetic fit the time constraints, but I did try to set a tone through colour and type. It wasn’t quite a white box game but it kept the simplicity I wanted.

As I’ve begun to develop the game into a larger, Unity based project, I’ve tried to hang on to those original goals and not be too distracted by all these fantastic toys.

How did you manage to get featured on Kongregate?

MB: Being featured on Kongregate was the direct result of a massive groundswell of support from the gaming press and community. Sites like Kotaku, Joystiq and Eurogamer really got behind the game and what I was trying to do. The guys at Kongregate sent me a really kind congratulations message, and put me on the front page. It was an amazing place to be, and that’s where tens of thousands of players started playing.

Mike Bithell. Perturbed Designer.

MB: I joined the industry roughly four years ago. I started at Blitz Games Studios as a Junior Designer, where I learned a ridiculous amount from a lot of very talented people. At the start of this year, I moved to sunny London to become Lead Game Designer at a startup called Bossa Studios, a social games company which is poised to do some incredibly innovative and creative work in the space. Our first game out shortly, and we’re always on the lookout for talented people to join us!

And tell us more about yourself.

MB: Mike Bithell, 25. I’m obsessed with videogames, which take up an embarrassing amount of my life. Like most designers I find myself interested and inspired by almost anything. The average design conversation I enter into with my massively patient friends or partner takes in everything from architecture to german theatre via bauhaus. I’m a geek with a roving eye!

What are 3 games are you enjoying the most right now?

MB:I really like Infamous 2. It’s just so damned competent. Every design decision feels thought out and considered. I love the boss countdown, a simple idea that achieves so much. On my PC I can’t put Frozen Synapse down, I love what the guys have done with their single player campaign – random seeding was the perfect way to go with such a tactical game. And finally, on my phone, it’s all about Hard Lines by Spilt Milk Studios. It’s shocking no one’s combined Tron and Snake in such a neat way before.

Why didn’t you go completely independent and set up on your own?

MB: There’s no better time to go indie, and I considered it. For me though, it didn’t feel like the right time. I still feel like I’m just starting out, and have a lot more to learn. I do everything I can to surround myself with people I can learn from. Working for them is a great way to do it.

In the future I’ll probably focus in on my private projects, but I’ll have to be a far better designer before I do that.

If you could do it all differently, what would you change? Also, what do you wish you’d known before you started?

MB: I honestly don’t think I’d have approached my career any differently with hindsight. It’s not always been easy, but I think it’s brought me to where I am today. There’s still a long way to go before I get where I want to be, but I think I’ve finally got a decent foundation.

What are the future plans for your independent (i.e. non-Bossa) work?

MB: Well, Thomas Was Alone (super special platinum proper cool edition, or something to that effect) is coming along nicely. I’ve moved to a new city, begun learning a new engine, and am 85% done on coding the game. Focus now shifts to great art (for which I’m receiving the help of the best colour guy in the business), stunning music (produced by a guy fresh out of Uni, can’t wait to share it – this guy is amazing) and level design (which, I fear, is down to me).

I’m planning to release it on PC and Mac early next year at a fair price, with other platforms to follow if the desire is out there. Following on from that, I’ll probably have a break, then crack on with something else. I’m pretty sure I can’t stop doing this now – making games is part of who I am.

What is it?

Cute but evil Flash-based animated game. Stickmen and blood included. Parental Guidance advised.

Is it fun?

Yes! For a half hour or so. Then it gets quite stressful.

Is it worth the price? (Free!)

Just 5 minutes of your time to check it out? Yes.

Why?

It has stickmen and splashy blood effects! What more could you want?

Gameplay is very simple and repetitive yet weirdly addictive – defend your castle by grabbing the invading stickmen with your mouse and flinging them up into the air. When they land, they squelch into a little puddle of blood and die. As you progress through the levels you gather points for survival and for the number of stickmen you kill and the stickmen come at you faster and faster. With battering rams!

The points can be used to upgrade your castle defences, building thicker walls, or a temple to convert the marauding stickmen to your side to give you archers and other military units. Gives you something to strive for when your wrist is giving in to RSI.

Links:

http://www.xgenstudios.com/play/castle/

Screenshots