Our first “node” is pretty exciting. Glean of Glob, for those who haven’t read Ricky’s excellent post here, was part of a collection of collaborative art projects on display at the Jerwood Space in South London. Being within easy reach of all major media (3 times in one post – Jeez!) sources, it would doubtlessly be ripe for review, and so it was on 2nd August 2008, Tom Sutcliffe, that bloke out of, off of the Guardian and a couple of book writers* did some talking about it for top notch Arts programme “Saturday Review” on BBC Radio 4.

*David Aaronovich, Malorie Blackman and Michael Arditti

We started by going to the pub a couple of times to kick ideas around, and fairly soon set up a blog to discuss our ideas. You can find it here, but it may contain spoilers, so it’s probably worth playing the game first.

http://barkwayraddow.wordpress.com

In one of our early meetings, Dan told me about the world of Glob, which he had created as a number of small painted scenes on an old corkboard he had rescued from a hospital bin. The more he told me about the different inhabitants of Glob, the more it seemed like a great setting for a game, and we gradually moved in that direction. I won’t say too much more about the game itself here.

We were conscious that the game would need to be installed in the  gallery space (alongside other, more traditional works by the other groups – drawings, photographs and sculpture), and were concerned that we didn’t want Glob to feel too ‘computery’. To this end, we created a ’set’ from cardboard boxes and wood which would hide as much of the computer as possible – only the mouse and the monitor screen were visible.

The exhibition itself went well. At the private view it was being played almost constantly, by a wide variety of people. My favourite was a couple in their 60s who played through Glob to completion, helping each other along the way, and having a great time. When I went to speak to them afterwards, they told me it was the first videogame either of them had ever played. We also received a favourable review on Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Review’ programme.






You can play the game here: http://www.gimme5games.com/index.jsp?id=glob

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