Cool Toy Art - Meet my Munny
Games used to be for kids. So did toys. Now, however, kids seem to be growing up too fast whilst us adults are reverting to our childhood. I have a liking for urban vinyl toys, a subset of what are known as designer toys.
They’re honestly the coolest thing to have on your desk or mantlepiece or - for some people - in specialist toy display cabinets! Most of these toys are design by talented individuals or small design outfits, such as Sheffield’s Tado, who I’ve been lucky enough to work with. I find the range of designs very inspiring, particularly the way many toys are customised.
For example, meet my Munny, handpainted by one of our artists.
If you want your own Munny, or other toys, visit sites such as KidRobot, Octane3, Forbidden Planet, Tokyo Toy Store, or my current favourite UrbanRetro (who also do fabulous iPod gelaskins such as the one I have - the Exploding Dog robot design which always gets a few aaahs). For those interested, you can find daily news on an amazing assortment of designer toys over at Tomopop or Vinyl Pulse. Careful though, you’ll want one, and then another one, and then another. Before you know it, you’ll be addicted.
Here are some more Munny pics - picked out from abduzeedo’s inspiring design blog.
To wrap up - no pun intended Mr Mummy Munny - 138 Munnies by French collective Jeanspezial were designed in 2 weeks and can be found here.
Tags: designer toy, kidrobot, munny, tado, toy art, urban vinyl, vinyl toys
Developing for WiiWare (Nintendo Wii)
The Nintendo Wii. Apparently it became the fastest selling games console in British history. It’s certainly the first home console to cross demographics so effectively, with everyone from young children to their grandparents prepared to have a go.
Has that success come at a price, however? Anecdotal evidence is that the Wii is kept as a [...]
Google Lively - Google take on Second Life
Sorry for the interruption to the indie platform article series, but massive news from Google. They’ve finally announced their virtual world project. Google Lively is plug-in based application that runs within a browser and hooks into existing social networks, such as Facebook.
With over two and a half years of development, this is a major project [...]
Developing for Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA)
EDIT: I’ll be updating this article shortly following Microsoft’s XNA / XBox Live Community Games announcement. Suffice to say, XNA is now a potentially fantastic route for indies to take, but it does depend how it is promoted to users. If they don’t ever see your games, they can never buy them however good they [...]
Indie help! XBLA, WiiWare, PSN or PC?
Choosing which gaming platform to develop for is a difficult decision, yet it’s one which many indie developers take too quickly. I’m going to share a few thoughts that I hope will help guide developers in the right direction, and that may provoke discussion amongst developers of all levels of experience.
A question I hear all [...]
NESTA games event report
NESTA announced their support for the game industry at a launch event yesterday. There were a few short speeches from a somewhat eclectic mix of people including Rory Cellan Jones (BBC Technology Correspondent), Adam Gee (Channel 4), Paul Durrant (Dare to be Digital), Richard Wilson (TIGA), Jon Kingsbury (NESTA), and Charles Cecil (Revolution Software). Frank [...]
NESTA to announce game industry support
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited down to a workshop at NESTA, a UK science and arts innovation support agency. Along with a small number of other developers and representatives from the likes of TIGA and BERR, we discussed how NESTA could potentially help the UK game industry. Today [...]
A day in the life of Tuna
Ever wanted to know what a creative director gets up to at work? The truth is out. Our Andy likes to do a spot of sewing. This is our idea of “research”.
Also, a prize kudos to any old hands who recognize the books to the left of the LCD.
Tags: creative director, humour, sewing, tuna
Yahtzee yawns over MGS4
Yahtzee, the fastest speaking presenter since that rather bizarre French bloke on Rapido, has posted his review of Solid Snake’s latest adventures in Metal Gear Solid 4. I’d love to give my take on the game but I have a pathological hatred of games with lengthy cut scenes and piecemeal gameplay. Actually I wouldn’t know [...]
It’s ALIVE!
It’s been a long time coming, but newretro.org is finally here!
I’ll be posting about a wide range of topics about different aspects of game development, and particularly about indie games. I’ll also have be posting a few items about other things that interest me, such as about vinyl toys, genre film and television.
For more about [...]
