Gareth Jones

I recently received a phone call from someone who was interested in Name that Note.

Caller: Oh hi, are you the guy with Name that Note for sale? The musical note recognition game?

Me: Yes, I am. How can I help?

Caller: Oh, excellent! This game is exactly what I need! I’m a music teacher and I’ve been playing the game with my students on my laptop but it would be great to have a local version that I can run from my laptop, rather than having to go online.

Me: Oh! Well, we do have an installer on the website that you can download, and once you’ve bought a license from the site, you’ll be able to play the game on whatever machine you like.

Caller: Great! I’ll buy it now then!

Me: Great, thank you!

I haven’t heard anything from him since!

The online guitar tutoring website, Jamplay, asked us to develop a custom version of Name that Note:PRE to fit in with the scoring structure and look of their existing games.

The whole process took just under two weeks from initial discussions to delivery, with lots of play-testing and adjusting in-between to get the optimum experience.

Head over to the game page at Quak Multimedia for more information.

It’s here at last -  Mercury 1.0 launched today!

For more information either check out the launch post at Quak Multimedia or check the Mercury website directly, where there is even a demo of the software showcasing some of its capabilities.

Mercury is viewed as a live product that will evolve and adapt over time with the needs of our clients, so this won’t be the last time I mention Mercury on this blog I’m afraid!

As well as the software itself, we’ll also be offering a development service where we will either help clients develop their eLearning or develop it all ourselves for an extremely competitive rate.

Any questions? Feel free to ask.

Quak Multimedia will, very shortly, unveil a rapid eLearning creation tool called Mercury.

Mercury is a Flash application that builds rich eLearning from simple XML instructions. Everything about the eLearning can be defined quickly and easily, including the resource’s language(s), navigation layout, number of pages, content structure, sessions, activities, assessments, videos, photos, audio, animations and text.

Course material can be presented in an almost infinite number of ways, with total control over the look and feel and the ability to select from a wide range of options when it comes to functionality – all without typing a single line of code. In fact, you don’t even need to own Flash to make a resource in Mercury.

The product will be launched initially with two pricing options – one for a single use license and one for unlimited use. Further options may be possible at a later time depending on feedback.

I’ll post an update when the site is live, but any enquiries before that time are welcome.

Since the completion of both Name that Note and Name that Note: PRE a while back, these games have been available to play for free on Quak Multimedia’s educational software section. The idea was that people could try the games and get a feel for how they played before deciding if they wanted to buy them for their own music-based website.

Since launch the games have racked up literally thousands of plays between them and although have proven pretty popular among the above-mentioned websites, the logs showed that there was a lot of traffic from certain locations that hinted at the games actually being used for educational purposes rather than as the trials they were meant to be.

I wouldn’t have minded too much if these users were contributing at all to the development of these games by providing us with some feedback, but despite requests, the comments sections have remained empty and we have received no email feedback on these games.

Quak Multimedia doesn’t exist to provide a free service – especially not to people who refuse to contribute anything back – and for providing educators with the necessary tools to help their students perfect their skills I’d have expected some comments and feedback at the very least – or preferably some sales figures that better reflect the usage statistics.

We could have made the games time-limited trials, but doing so would have meant putting more time and effort into developments that are already finished at a time when we are already busy, and all because a minority are happy to abuse good will. It just didn’t seem to be the right thing to do at this time, so instead the games have been removed from the site – but are still available to buy to anyone who wants to support us.

Thanks.

Active Goal Challenge has been translated into Spanish, which makes it our first non-English game. It’s hopefully the first of many such projects though so watch this space.

After seeing Active Ashfield’s Conversion Challenge, Nourish Interactive asked us to make a simplified version for the 4-10 year old kids who use their website.

The ball mechanics were simplified a little and the wind was removed. The branding was of course changed to reflect that of their website, with the starring roles going to Alex and Jasmine.

For more information and screen-shots, head over to Quak Multimedia.

We have has successfully made it through to the next round and has been short-listed as a potential supplier of materials for Round II of Bowland’s Maths resources. This is fantastic news as we are competing against some of the country’s best known, international elearning providers.

For this next stage we’ll be fleshing out some of our ideas and developing them into full, costed proposals. They’ll be submitted at the end of September and then it’s a month or two until we find out if our proposals are to be put into production, with roll-out across Britain’s schools after next summer. Fingers crossed!

In the early hours of this morning I got an email from Quak Multimedia’s GameWrapper alerting me to the fact that someone from Uruguay had become the first person to try to steal some software from me. They tried to steal Quak Wordsearch. They downloaded the wrapper and then ran it on their local machine. In fact, they ran it twice.

Thanks to GameWrapper, they were presented with a message that told them that the request was unauthorised and they were prevented from playing.

GameWrapper not only allows for you to specify who can play your content and who can’t, but it also tracks and records usage around the world and alerts you to any unauthorised attempts to run your content.

GameWrapper isn’t listed on the Quak website as it’s not so much a product but more of a tool that I developed to serve its games, but if you’d like the technology to help protect your content then get in touch.

Name that Note is spin-off that focuses on improving people’s pitch-recognition over the treble clef. This time around, the note in question is played rather than shown, and you must guess the correct note simply from what you hear. You can replay the note as many times as you like, though of course the clock is always ticking so best not hang around hitting the Replay button for too long!

Once you’ve made a guess – whether you’re right or wrong – you’ll get to see the note in question on the stave for a couple of seconds before the game moves onto the next note.

For more information and screen-shots or to buy the game, please visit Quak Multimedia.