St David’s Day has taken over at www.wales.com. Fun, recipes and activities… you can even learn the Welsh national anthem phonetically.

Then test your Welshness with this multilingual interactive quiz.

I was lucky enough to judge the Swansea Metropolitan University’s recent Casual Games Awards 2009. The students presented their projects, based on projects set as part of their syllabus.

Tom Orchard won the BSc award showing a strong, commercial idea for a Snickers game featuring Mr T from the A-Team.

Richard Morgan won the BA award with a racing game that was not far off commercial standard and a first class side shooter too.

There is some very strong work coming out of the University at the moment and we are working closely with them in their second semester – giving the modules a more commercial flavour. We’ll be giving the students a project or two based on real-life commissions with real-life deadlines.

Well done Tom, Richard and all of the shortlisted students.

Based on a concept dreamed up by the Visit Wales team, we designed and built an email and Flash app with a truly retro flavour.

Our illustrators based the execution on those wonderful little 3D wooden puzzles that you can still find in specialist toy shops. Combined with a retro illustration style and packaging, it’s a fine looking campaign that extols the virtues of the varied regions of Wales, including horned beasts, waterfalls taller than Niagara and our very own monster of the deep called Teggie.

Take a look here and enter the competition to win a hamper full of Welsh goodies.

A variant of the yellowBird camera is utilized within the Google Streetview technology. The prominent difference is that the yellowBird camera records video instead of photographs. The camera uses six cleverly divided lenses in order to capture every possible viewing direction.

yellowBird videos can then be embedded on a web page using a special player. On the surface, it looks like a normal Flash video player… but it’s not. Whilst the video’s playing, you can drag the picture around to look wherever you want to look. It’s very cool. Take a look (it may take a little while to load):

There’s another yellowBird demo available here: http://tmobilesingalong360.co.uk
Or you can check out the yellowBird website at what’s got to be one of the silliest web addresses we’ve ever seen: http://www.yellowbirdsdonthavewingsbuttheyflytomakeyouexperiencea3dreality.com – good luck remembering that!

The new site features a bunch of little guys called The LeeVs…

LeeVs love nothing better than playing in the wind, chasing each other, racing each other and generally running around having fun together. They enjoy floating down the river, paddling in puddles or cycling around their Regional Park.

The accessible site features extensive use of Flash for interactive games and character animation that really brings the LeeVs to life.

Lucy Hose, the Regional Park’s Marketing Manager, said “The new site has been designed to encourage children to learn through having fun and to find out more about the Regional Park and the environment. We’ll continue to update the pages and youngsters need to keep a look out for competitions which we’ll be running on the pages. My favourite game is Rob the Ranger!”

We pulled out all of the stops to get the site looking fantastic for the youngsters – our illustrators worked very closely with our Flash team and created a whole virtual word for the LeeVs to inhabit. The site features lots of little surprises that delight youngsters.

For example, you’ll be reading about birthday parties in the park and all of a sudden, a little bright blue bug will wander around the screen, or a LeeV will ride his bike right past you and even pop a wheelie for you.

More kid’s sites in the pipeline

We are just about to launch another two sites for young people, a bit closer to home, but we can’t say too much about that yet.

Matt Howard, our Technical Director and Information Architecture guru said “There are a whole different set of usability rules to apply to sites for younger audiences. We have lots of experience designing for children of all ages for clients like Careers Wales, Welsh Assembly Government, DTI and the Mid and South Wales Safety Camera Partnership, so we have learnt a lot along the way”.

“Our illustration team have even been commissioned to design and produce a whole visual language for youngsters with special educational needs (SEN) and this has been so successful it looks like it will be rolled out across Wales and hopefully nationally”.

From a design perspective, designing for kids is just very good fun. Why just have a ‘help’ link when you can have an animated wriggly worm pointing the way!

The model in the designs above is our very own eMarketing project manager, Sali. The guys have also just completed a double page spread for Men’s Fitness magazine and just about the whole team appear in it (in various states of undress!) – you’ll have to wait to see that one.

You can take a sneak peek at the Adobe work here.

As soon as we have a spare hour or two, our guys can’t wait to start playing with this stuff. Watch this space.

Our illustration team worked very closely with our Flash guys to make this classic arcade clone look fantastic. If you are Welsh or love Wales – this will make you grin, I guarantee it.

Dig in behind a pit head, Conwy Castle and the Millennium Centre and let the battle commence.

To celebrate the feast day of our very own St David, we have devised a ‘How Welsh are you?’ interactive quiz for our good friends over at www.wales.com.

Even if you are born and bred in Caerphilly, it may still hold a few surprises for you. You don’t need to be Welsh to have a go and you even get a certificate celebrating your honorary Welshness at the end of it.

The game was designed an built by our illustration and Flash teams, based on sketches and ideas from pupils at Ysgol Niwbwrch, Anglesey, after the Schools Councils Wales ran a competition to win prizes of up to £1000 for their school.

The youngsters’ ideas were amazing – and the presentation of their game was first class. We have heard that they are very happy with the end results. Tough customers indeed!