On September 25, 2008, Phantom Compass founder Tony Walsh will join Jill Golick in conversation about writing for digital media. Part of the monthly "Writers Watching TV" discussion series presented by the Writers Guild of Canada, Tony will talk about some of his previous freelance writing projects and recent Phantom Compass projects for interactive platforms.

What are some of the challenges and opportunities for producers, writers and storytellers presented by digital media? What happens to the relationship between audience and author in an interactive setting? We hope to address these questions and more.

The event will be held September 25 at Camera, 1028 Queen St West in Toronto. Seating is limited. There's a cash bar. We're not sure yet what time it starts.

After months of hard work and steadfast collaboration, we're pleased to be able to announce the results of our first major services project (we've got others in the queue, but can't currently discuss those).

In collaboration with Six to Start and Kudos, Phantom Compass has written "Liberty News" (access blocked outside the UK), a fictional future news site set in 2013 that extends the universe of the BBC Three TV series Spooks: Code 9 through breaking news stories, photos and videos, just seconds after events happen in each episode. Visitors will also be able to contribute their own video, comments and photo uploads to this "alternate reality" site, search out information about the main characters, and participate in live Q&A sessions with inhabitants of the Spooks: Code 9 world.

Liberty News is a Kudos and Six to Start production for BBC Three, created and executive produced by Dan and Adrian Hon for Six to Start and Linda Paalanne for Kudos, with Rosie Allimonos executive producing for the BBC. Written by Phantom Compass and directed by Adrian Hon. Full press release here.

I'd like to thank Six to Start for including us in this exciting project, which seems to have a great deal of support behind both the TV broadcast and interactive component. Thanks also to my team at Phantom Compass for a fantastic effort: To Alanna Vopni (Writer, Production Coordinator), and Lindsay Mills (Interactive Writer) in particular. We're hard at work at another project as I write this, stay tuned for details!

I'm just wrapping up my first project with Phantom Compass, which has been my first glimpse into a new media world. I quickly realized that it's a world with seeming endless possibilities and that's exciting to me--I just love the idea of creating not just a show that someone can watch once a week but really creating a 360 degree experience where small aspects of a TV series could become gameisodes, mobisodes and/or webisodes, allowing the viewer to get more involved in the world of the show. I have a television series idea myself and since working on this most recent project I've had some new and exciting ideas that will help extend the concept into multiple platforms.

Having been a TV production coordinator for about eight years on a news magazine show and several DIY shows I have the interesting opportunity of being able to look at what's different between linear television and "extended" or interactive television and I came to a crazy conclusion: they're actually quite similar. Keep your audience in mind--that applies to all content no matter what it is.

More...

ARGFest is the premiere player and developer conference for the Alternate Reality Game industry and community. This year, the event will be held in the Theater District of Boston, Massachusetts between July 18-20 -- we're pleased to be sending ARG specialist Lindsay Mills to the conference.

Lindsay will be a panelist on the topic of "From Player to Puppetmaster," having been both a player and puppetmaster for years. She recently helped us create interactive content for an upcoming TV series (more on that project when we're allowed to talk about it).

We've got something special planned for conference-goers, so if you're in Boston for the event, keep your eyes open. You may find signs of Phantom Compass in unexpected places...

July 08, 2008 -- Phantom Compass and IT GlobalSecure are pleased to announce a strategic partnership for the development of secure digital and cross-media games. Phantom Compass develops and operates social and cross-media games that inform, entertain, educate, and persuade for a wide range of industries. Phantom Compass customers increasingly recognize that security is key to the success of their projects.

"We create games that inform, educate, persuade and increase productivity. Our clients' games are serious business and our clients expect serious security," said Tony Walsh, founder of Phantom Compass. "IT GlobalSecure will help us deliver game systems that resist piracy, hacking, exploitation and other problems."

Social gaming is growing rapidly and faces increasing security challenges: educational games include high scores that can be hacked, advergames and social games collect sensitive personal and demographic information, and many games need secure payment processing. The partnership between Phantom Compass and IT GlobalSecure brings the best in innovative game design and security to our clients and their customers.

"Phantom Compass is a leader in expanding the reach of games for new markets and new uses", notes Steven Davis, CEO, IT GlobalSecure, "It is a pleasure to support their social and cross-media game projects and help ensure that Phantom Compass clients achieve their objectives, securely."

Social Games and Cross Media Games are an increasingly important tool for traditional businesses, media firms, marketing and advertising companies, not-for-profits, and educational organizations to reach out, engage, and educate their customers and the public at large. Phantom Compass and IT GlobalSecure are pioneers in shaping this emerging industry.

More...

We'll be presenting briefly on Wednesday June 25 at FlashinTO, Toronto's Flash user-group. The event is free, and is a great way for Flash developers and designers to network and learn. Presentations are 10 - 15 minutes apiece, and Phantom Compass will be showing off our latest work in progress, a single-player real-time strategy/puzzle game for the Web.

Tony Walsh, the company's founder (that's me), and developer Jos Yule will be discussing the collaborative process between designer and programmer during early-stage development. Concept and design materials will be shown, including several iterations of game mechanics and an early prototype.

Hope to see you there!

It’s been just over five months since I founded Phantom Compass--the company’s distributed team has grown as we’ve taken on more and more projects, and I’ve been getting very valuable feedback from co-workers, associates, and clients about our evolving positioning.

In a nutshell, we’ve had a tremendous amount of support, but we have been putting out mixed messages regarding our core line of business. Initially, we’d hoped to do any interactive work at all, but after months to consider our positioning, we’ve decided to strip down and focus on what we love: making great web and cross-media games.

While we risk turning away non-game interactive projects, we are able to concentrate our business development efforts into a single area. Certainly eliminating confusion about what we do will go a long way towards increasing our industry presence.

We are currently pursuing leads in the entertainment, education, and communications sectors with the message that we lead the way to productive play, approaching common challenges with innovative, game-based solutions.

Russell Montgomery has been working with us for a while behind the scenes, but today I'm pointing our spotlight directly at him. Russell and I have worked together on and off for over a decade. As our new Technical Director (replacing James Eberhardt, who has moved into a consulting role on our support team), he offers expert guidance during the concept, production, and deployment phases of front- and back-end development, providing efficient, reliable, and maintainable solutions.

Russell comes to us from Kaboose, where he was the Technical Director for one of the world's largest family-focused web portals. Over the course of his 15-year career, he has worked on projects for Bell Canada, Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Deloitte, Aegon, Mercedes Benz, General Motors, McDonalds, Nike, Athletes World, and the National Basketball Association (NBA). We're glad to have him on board the good ship Phantom Compass. Yarrrr!

I'll be attending the Virtual Worlds conference in NYC on April 3 and 4, and will also be available until early afternoon on April 5th for meetings. My presence at the conference last year was largely due to Redpoint Ventures bringing me out for a chat--I was only in Manhattan overnight, but this year I hope to take in a lot more of the conference and the city.

Hope to see you there, drop me a line if you'd like to connect.

I'm back from Austin, Texas, where I enjoyed my fourth year of South by Southwest Interactive. This year, I organized and participated in two panels as well as helped out as an advisory board member for the Screenburn festival.

The first panel, entitled "Cross-Media Cross-Pollination: Mashing Up Video Games and ARGs," involved Dan Hon (Six to Start) and Dee Cook (Addlepated.net). The second conversation, "What Can the Video Games Industry Learn From ARGs?" officially involved Steve Peters (42 Entertainment) but was open to input from all. Thanks to all who contributed, in particular to my fellow panelists, but also to Jane McGonigal and Ken Eklund for adding some serious ARG clout to the second discussion.