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The XBox 360's dangled by the
2005 Microsoft/Amazon Web Services Developer contest
were just the kind of carrots that can drive me to spend my
spare time coding...
I started with exploring what others were (not)
doing with Amazon Web Services,
and settled on the
idea of developing a game based on data exposed
by Amazon web services.
Initial ideas were ambitious: A multi-player 3D world where Amazon.com
products were represented as objects...
Players would walk around the world, interact (chat) and solve
puzzles (built around AWS data) to open-up new paths and/or
powers. Ideas for world-building with Amazon data were
inspired by Borges'
Labyrinths
& Garden
of Forking Paths and Walter Moers' City
of Dreaming Books.
Easier dreamt (or managed) than done with ones own hands! A quick dive
into 3D DirectX and rendering engines made
me realize that this vision was
too ambitious for the
limited time (and frankly - intelligence) available.
With time running out, the original idea
shrunk into a much simpler (1D) concept of a casual gaming (think Wii)
environment into which anybody could plug-in simple games.
The
pitch was that by making products a
part of the gameplay,
popular casual games can be used to promote and cross-sell products and
generate repeat visits.
Although way simpler than the initial idea, I was able to
implement this by the contest's deadline. Amazames even
overshot the 'Honorable Mention' target and won the
Second Prize.
Someday I hope to implement the Amazon-world I had envisioned
initially, but for now,
I have a itch that is serving as motivation
for my next project...
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