six to start

Not really. It’s our Mac Pro workgroup server, running OS X Server 10.5.2. We’ve had quite a bit of fun with it, if by fun you mean “something involving two 802.11n draft wireless routers getting up and falling down, DHCP shenanigans, being confused about Standard and Workgroup servers, learning about Open Directory in, quite frankly, a bass-ackward way, but ultimately quite impressed at the level of integration”.

Ben and I have spent the most time out of everyone playing with it, so here’s the bits we liked:

• The “Standard” server, with the quite ludicrously easy to use Server Preferences
• Time Machine backups to a server AFP volume. Nice!

And here’s the bits we didn’t:

• The “Workgroup” and “Advanced” servers which are so far removed from the Standard server that you actually have to sit down and read the manual(s) to work out what to do.
• The obsessive hold OS X has to the Directory Server, so much so that Ben’s Macbook Pro won’t allow logins unless it’s in the office (not much use on a laptop!)

Now, we know OS X Server is a Powerful Tool and Not a Toy, but really, it looks quite lickable and, for a few minutes, does a good job of pretending to be (relatively) easy to administer. We’re not sure that the problems we’re having (multiple 10.5.2 clients not being able to find, well, anything over Bonjour when using 802.11n) are related to the server or just 802.11n being quite crap in draft. It’s hard to diagnose without changing everyone over to being a wired client, which just isn’t particularly fun at all. It’s getting to the point where we’re going to have to Get Someone In to have a poke at it, because although it’s quite working, it’s not yet working perfectly, and for things like setting up VPN access (so someone can tunnel in and use RDP to a VMWare XP image - the only explanation I’m going to give there is “Sage Line 50″) we’d much rather someone who knew what they were doing were, well, doing it.

Ben Burry joined Six to Start in December of 2007 as a Senior Developer after fueling his interest in gaming and interactive narratives at Mind Candy. He spends a good deal of his time elbows-deep in code, explaining why it would be nice just once to not push the boundaries of what’s possible and discussing technical issues with Moishe.

Beautiful Katamari for the 360 arrived yesterday in advance of its street date. There are some irritating niggles: there’s no autosave after every level, and for a console that’s got (for most people) a spanking hard drive attached to it, it really does take a while to save and load games. A surprisingly long time, in fact: one that makes you feel as if the game’s crashed.

On the other hand, with a big enough screen, and sitting close enough to it (read: too close), it’s possible to get very quickly seasick and headachey, which is the main impression I walked (nay, stumbled) away with after about half an hour’s worth of play. Everyone else managed to have more fun with it, though, but we were disappointed that there didn’t appear to be a quickstart for split-screen co-op/versus play.

Oh well. Time to find a chipped PS2…

We celebrated Kass’s birthday this week, but we haven’t really properly introduced her to anyone yet. Here she is:

Kass Schmitt joined Six to Start in February 2008 after nearly fiveyears at the BBC doing things like nursing Celebdaq, engineering elusive pop sensation Jamie Kane and rescuing Leeds from forecasts of 188°C at the Weather Centre. Kass is a technical project manager at Six to Start which means that she spends most of her time figuring out how to deliver amazing things on time and under budget or, when no one’s looking, reminiscing about life on the high seas. Kass can currently be found at her desk practicing knots.

Kass, our new technical project manager, joined Six to Start earlier this month from the Beeb, where she was a senior developer at the Weather Centre, but more interestingly to us, used to work at Interactive Drama and Entertainment - where she was a senior software engineer on Jamie Kane. That’s fantastic for us, because if there’s one thing we (I mean Adrian) like to do, it’s force our engineers to accomplish at least seven hitherto impossible things on an even more impossible timeline before breakfast, and having a cracking TPM is one part of making that happen.

Anyway, it was Kass’s birthday this week, and you have no idea how hard it is trying to find a birthday cake this close to Mother’s Day.

PSFK introduced The Purple List earlier this month. In their own words:

At PSFK, we’re trying to find more ways to spread inspiration to help companies change to make things better. One way is to help them find the right people in the right place for the right job.

Introducing The Purple List - a network of 100 of our trusted contacts. The Purple List is a community of trends and innovation professionals who can help you with projects big and small, full time or ad-hoc.

There’s no longer a need to find inspiration from the other side of the world by hiring a big local agency - simply contact a member of The Purple List.

One of the first projects we helped PSFK out on was having Amanda and Christine bring over a couple of representatives from Apple - Harriet DeVoy, Creative Director for Apple Europe, and Danika Cleary Lasuzk, one of Apple Graphic Design Planners over to our new offices so we could talk a little about what we do, ARGs, big games, and how fantastic the iPhone could be as an ARG platform (and we’re not the only ones to think so, either - GigaOm thinks Perplex City would’ve been fantastic on the iPhone). For all that Apple do, though, they’re tremendously conservative in their communications (not for want of people like Harriet and Danika trying, though) but it was a great opportunity being able to get them excited about the ways in which gaming and ARGs in particular help connect brands with audiences.

We’re really, really proud to have been invited to join PSFK’s Purple List European network - we’re in tremendous company and it’s great recognition from PSFK to be part of their network. Thanks, Piers!

I’m speaking at SXSW Interactive this year on a panel co-organised by myself and Rachel Clarke - Stories, Games and Your Brand. The esteemed Roo Reynolds and Jeremy Ettinghausen (who’s leading the Penguin Books side of a project we’re doing) will be joining us, and we’ll be covering such diverse topics as:

• advertising and gaming
• soap operas
• virtual worlds
• storytelling and engaging experiences
• brands engaging in entertainment
• gaming versus advergaming

and a whole host more.

As Rachel points out, we’re a very English panel (it’s like an invasion), so here are some suggestions for why you might want to come along:

• no one can resist that English accent, never mind four of them
• we’re scheduled against Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook
• all the cool kids have moved on from Facebook already
• we’re making an amusing bet about how many times we can not mention Facebook seeing as we’re scheduled against Facebook. Facebook.

It’ll be fun - come see us - Sunday March 9, 2pm, Room 8.

We’re really excited about a project we’ve been working on for the last couple of months with Jeremy Ettinghausen and Sam Binnie over at Penguin.

Story, alongside gameplay, is at the heart of what we do, which is why teaming up with a publisher with such rich history and commitment to storytelling has been a great opportunity for us, and an opportunity to do something a little different from what we normally do. We’re conscious that the only prior example of our work has been Perplex City, which is markedly different from the projects we’re working on now.

While Perplex City was very game and puzzle heavy - or at least games and puzzles had equal weight to the story we produced, our work with Penguin is all about telling a great story and exploring new ways of telling those stories, ways that wouldn’t be possible without the internet. This doesn’t mean there’s going to be no gameplay in the Pengrin project…

There’s not a lot more that we can say at the moment, apart from give you a glimpse of part of our planning process:

We’re launching in March, so if you’d like to know when everything goes live, please sign up.

Update: Some people think we’re working with Eric Harshbarger on this project. Sorry, but we’re not. Eric’s fantastic and while we thoroughly enjoyed working with him at Mind Candy, we’re not currently working with him on anything. We do look forward to having the chance to work with him in the future, though (Hi, Eric!).

We’re quite serious about games at Six to Start: where serious means hiring out a room with a ten foot screen at BAFTA for our employees and close friends, THX certified sound and nice comfy chairs. And drinks.

Look, see how serious Mink is about playing Guitar Hero. That’s how serious we take games. So seriously we set about playing them with grim determination, and a fanatical devotion to rhythm games.

The evening was only marred by a complete lack of foresight on my part by grabbing We Love Katamari for the PS2 and forgetting to check whether the disc was in the box. Good one.

Anyway, at 4:30pm on a Wednesday, we’re struggling in the office with the decision as to whether or not to (finally) buy a PS3 and working out the logistics of importing Rock Band from the US.

We’ve got a new home, one that’s not Adrian’s.

Six to Start now lives at:

Six to Start
Southbank House
Black Prince Road
Vauxhall
London
SE1 7SJ

Look, there’s a map, too:

View Larger Map

With our new-fangled home (of which pictures are coming soon, once we’ve sorted ourselves out and assembled the quite frankly massive IKEA order that’s on its way), we’ve got a phone number as well. You can get in touch with us at +44 33 3340 7490.

Nearly a month ago today, Six to Start closed its first funding deal with NESTA - the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. We’re really excited to be working with NESTA - they’ve got tremendous enthusiasm for what we’re doing, and the investment has helped us take on a couple more staff as well as (finally, and in time-honoured start-up tradition) help us move out of Adrian’s flat.

More on the news at the Guardian: ARG start-up wins £100k investment.