Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.05.2012, Page 42

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 5 — 2012
zOMBIES | In your phone!
Software developers at Iceland-
based Mindgames have created
an iOS game that uses your brain-
waves to play. yes, your brainwav-
es. The premise of the game is as
follows: A zombie is hankering for
some human flesh, which is not
unusual for the walking dead. Only
this zombie is sophisticated and
eats his brains with a spoon, so the
player must bend a never-ending
supply of spoons to fend him off.
To learn more about ‘28 Spoons Later,’
a title that is almost certainly homage
to the epic zombie flick ‘28 Days Later,’
I’ve decided to pick the brains of CEO
Deepa Iyengar, an entrepreneur and
neuroscientist living in Iceland.
WHICH CAME FIRST, THE zOMBIE
OR THE SPOON?
The spoons came first. We included a
scene in our earlier game, ‘W.I.L.D.’ in
which the player has to concentrate to
bend a spoon to get it into a bowl of
food. Then, in the next scene, feed a
hungry baby alien by relaxing to float
the spoon across the room into its
mouth.
We noticed that players really liked
bending the spoon. Maybe not surpris-
ing, since psychic spoon-bending is
an old meme from the ‘70s and ‘80s,
thanks to Uri Geller. So we wanted to
centre our next game on spoon-bend-
ing.
Most good videogames need a
story. Why is it so important to bend
as many spoons as possible? Well,
staying alive is a good motivation for
many things. What is cool and can kill
you? Aliens, yeah, but these days it's all
about ZOMBIES.
NOW, “THE GENTLEMAN
zOMBIE” IS CONFUSING TO ME
BECAUSE zOMBIES ARE AS A
RULE THOUGHTLESS EATING
MACHINES. ExPLAIN yOUR
DEPARTURE FROM COMMON
zOMBIE LORE.
Our zombie is a gentleman zombie. He
has a passion for gracious living and
believes that eating with spoons, in-
stead of tearing brains apart with your
hands, adds meaning to life. So, as long
as you can keep ruining his spoons, he
won't be able to use one to dig into your
brains.
If he weren't so polite, it wouldn't
matter whether or not you bent the
spoons—he'd eat your brains right
away! This was a clever solution by our
programmer Pétur Orri Ragnarsson.
Anyway, don't be so racist against zom-
bies.
…SO IS THIS GAME AIMED AT
zOMBIE NUTS LIKE ME?
All of our games are meant to give the
player a fun way to become good at
controlling his ability to concentrate
and relax. But each one targets a dif-
ferent sort of player.
This game, ‘28 Spoons Later,’ is the
most conventional one we've made so
far; it's for gamers who want to earn
points to see their progress and com-
pare how good they are with how good
they were yesterday or how good their
friends are.
You never finish the game because
the spoons just keep getting more and
more difficult—you can just get better at
not dying early.
I READ THAT MINDGAMES IS THE
FIRST IN THE WORLD TO SELL AN
IOS APP CONTROLLED By THE
USER’S BRAINWAVES. IS THAT
TRUE AND HOW DOES THAT FEEL?
As far as we are aware, yes, we are the
first company to sell a brainwave-con-
trolled iOS app. Our first release, Tug of
Mind, came out in late December 2010,
but we had actually finished it back in
March 2010—we just had to wait for the
brainwave headset to be released!
At least for a little while more, we
get to keep being "first in the world"—
first brainwave-controlled iOS app,
first brainwave-controlled iOS game,
and now the first brainwave-controlled
zombie game. It is cool to be first in the
world at something, but we also want to
become the best in the world.
WHAT'S IT LIKE TO DEVELOP
SOMETHING LIKE THIS IN
ICELAND AS OPPOSED TO
ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD?
Iceland is the best place to make the
kind of games we want to make—games
with innovative gameplay and aesthet-
ic. As you know, Reykjavík is bursting
with talent in music and design, and we
are lucky to have two of the best as our
cofounders and designers: Ragnar Már
Nikulásson, who did the graphics ani-
mation and composed the music for ‘28
Spoons Later’ and Katla Rós Völudóttir.
NOW, WHAT DO I NEED TO PLAy
THIS GAME? BECAUSE AS IT IS,
I COMMAND My IPHONE TO DO
THINGS WITH My MIND AND
NOTHING HAPPENS.
Uhm, Our games are all available on
the iPhone/iPad App Store. The XWave
sells for US$99 at www.plxwave.com.
There is also a new headset coming
out in March, the NeuroSky MindWave
Mobile, which unlike the XWave will be
wireless (bluetooth). We have a proto-
type in the office and it's comfortable
and easy to use. I don't yet know what
the price will be, but I don't expect it to
be more than US$150..
Words
Nanna Árnadóttr
Illustrations
Mindgames
Training To Survive The Icelandic zombie
Apocalypse? There’s An App For That
Zombie Iceland author Nanna Árnadóttir chats with Mindgames CEO Deepa Iyengar about ‘28 Spoons Later’
“Our zombie is a gentleman zombie. He has
a passion for gracious living and believes that
eating with spoons, instead of tearing brains
apart with your hands, adds meaning to
life. So, as long as you can keep ruining his
spoons, he won't be able to use one to dig into
your brains”
THE NUMBER 1 MUSIC STORE
IN EUROPE ACCORDING TO
LONELY PLANET
SKÓLAVÖRÐUSTÍG 15, 101 REYKJAVÍK AND HARPA CONCERT HALL
We interviewed Deepa about Mindgames last year. To learn more, see
“Telekinesis For Dummies” on grapevine.is: http://bit.ly/JVOG1D