Magpie is a serious game and an advertising platform: it challenges the user through a number of web pages in search of clues to solve enigmas. The gamer, like a magpie, flies from page to page and take back the solution.
Try it and write here your comments!
www.magpienigma.com
We are doers. Internet enthusiasts, passionate about design&coding, eager learners and bold explorers. We love start-ups. We proudly work with them. Interaction design | Lean digital development | Graphics & Communication We operate internationally and we sit in via San Domenico 30, Torino (Italy) - want to drop a line? we@thedoersproject.com WHAT KIND OF START-UPS DO WE WORK WITH? We mainly work and collaborate with start-ups related to the digital market. Our knowledge is based on our expertise on the very field, together with a continuous research across digital tools and the dynamic landscape of the digital life. Our preparation is rooted in the area of user research, strategic design and interaction design, which naturally lead us to shape and release projects that value the user experience as major competitive factor. WHAT DO WE MEAN WITH INTERACTION DESIGN? Interaction Design (IxD) brings technology to people, and people to digital services. IxD goes far beyond how the interface looks like: it is about the design of the whole User Experience and plays a key role in determining the success of a digital service on the market. For digital startups, IxD is a paramount competitive factor. Our experience of interaction designers - which we expand every single day with you - consists on a number of strategies to bring and keep users to your startup - and every company or projects with similar needs. WHAT ARE OUR RESOURCES? We have multiple tools in our pocket to take personal care of the majority of a startup's needs. From Business Modeling to Information Architecture and Web/Mobile Development, we help you to take the best from a synergy of different design methodologies and technologies (from User Centred Design, to Behavioural Testing, to Lean Development, Code Versioning, CSS Frameworks and Preprocessors, Business Modeling, etc). Most importantly, we help you to keep the always changing components of a startup's strategy in its early life, always together. We have a good network of connections that we can put at your disposal for the fulfillment of tasks that we cannot afford to cover directly (though keeping nevertheless the crux of the matter), or for financial support. And of course our best resources are our experience, time and effort. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FROM THE START TO BE FULLY OPERATIVE? In average, from the idea to the MVP (Minimum Valuable Product, a.k.a. The legendary Alpha Version), from 3 to 6 months. It depends on a combination of elements, including our (growing and growing) experience in keeping risk factors under control. HOW DO WE EVALUATE AND SELECT THE START-UPS TO FOLLOW? For us is very important to meet the people, not just the idea. That's why we always encourage to drop us a line in order to meet personally over an informal lunch, so you can present us your project with your own energy, sympathy and personality. The evaluation process starts there, understanding together limits and opportunities, according to the information you provide us with, our experience and network of connections, an eager exploration of the matter and a little bit of gut feeling. HOW MUCH WILL YOUR PROJECT COST? It depends on whether we collaborate as a team - which includes our involvement as equity and risk holders in your company, or not. We are not a traditional consultancy agency and we have developed a capacity to really adapt to the needs and constraints, also financial, of every startup we believe into. WHAT IS OUR SCALE OF INTERVENTION? Each start-up have a different scale of intervention according to the project itself, the resources available and the strategy that we agree to follow. We adapt to your competences, providing you with complementary support. We have been collaborating with all kind of team's morphology: with or without developers, w or w/o full time availability, w or w/o kids, of every nationality or dialect, incorporated or not, newbie or serial, etc. HOW MANY START-UPS THAT WE FOLLOWED, SUCCEDED ON THE MARKET? (see The Doers Numbers/Facts/Assets 2011-2012 )
Graphic design / illustration. Of few words.
Senior arsenic - Engineer - Dr. - Project and team lead, editor, biz dev. T shaped - From Open Cinema to Sustainable Urban Development.
Communication Designer. Graphics, Images, Colors lover. Blog's curiuos and web's victim.
Interaction design, in love with information visualization, coding enthusiast, teacher of information visualization at IED turin
Hello, Doers! I’ve been playing your Magpie game for a bit and I’d like to give some feedback. First off, it looks very pretty, the background and dialog boxes look very good. The first page is good, it let me know that it was a text based game and presented the format in an easy to learn way. The Theme selection page was a little strange though, it wasn’t totally obvious to me that “what a fuck” was a theme that I had to type in the box. This was because I was a little confused at what “what a fuck” meant. In English, “fuck” is mildly strong obscenity and the grammar in this case didn’t make sense. Did you mean to say “what the fuck” ? In either case the strength of the obscenity kind of clashes with the pretty background… The next page was very good I thought, the clue was understandable (although the grammar was a bit off). I would have said “They say this should be done with slowly and peacefully, but usually it is fast and hasty.” The coffee making page was straight forward, the desert page was a little difficult because I don’t understand Italian, and the mySpace page was difficult because I didn’t see any connection… until I saw that the band was named “Scrambled Eggs”! And then it was obviously breakfast. The next page was difficult! I didn’t know what the connection was and I couldn’t figure it out. But I cheated
and looked at the javascript to see that it was icarus, which makes sense because the candle lady is on fire, the coordinates are in greece and the youtube video is burnt by the sun. The last page took a little trial and error but it was obvious for some of the answers that it was the name of the artist. And then it was clear that most were names. Anyways, it was a fun game, a little short but very cool! Thanks!