Some people see things that are, like this washing machine arcade game, and say why. Others see things that are not, and 'shop them in. You guys are the latter bunch.
Lee-Wei Chen's "Real Play" grabbed a lot of attention when it was exhibited last weekend at the London Design Festival at Trent. In a nutshell, the game combines coin-operated laundry with a coin-operated video game. As long as you play, the machine will wash your clothes; if the game ends, so does the wash. The object is to get your laundry done. Thing is, we never see the actual game that's being played. That's where you guys come in.
Source Image: "Real Play" by Lee-Wei Chen, Kingston University.
As far as exploitables go, there's a human, a cabinet and a blank screen. There should be something in there you can turn into more funny.
Please Read This
You may have noticed that our comment system is again being cranky with image uploads. Sometimes we get a thumbnail and no large-size, sometimes we get no thumbnail and a large size, sometimes we get neither. This is not your fault. But I want to make sure that no one's work is lost.
Please include, in the text of your comment, the url from your image hosting service. This is a good backup in case a sure-fire finalist's full-size image gets lost to the nibbles. The 20 best will get rounded up and published at the end of next Saturday. Meantime, I and the rest of the starred commentariat will approve and promote as many as we can so folks can see them and pass judgment.
I know it's annoying that such a simple process requires an instruction manual longer than Monster Hunter's. Just trying to make sure no one's effort is wasted.
This is the rest of your no-frills step-by-step procedure to participation in the Kotaku 'Shop Contest.
1. Create your 'Shop.
2. Upload it to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. It's stupid simple. No account is necessary.
3. This is very important: You must use the URL of the image itself. In imgur, this is the second URL it gives you after you upload the image. It's under "Direct Link (email & IM)"
4. At the beginning of the comments roll, click "Start a New Thread"
5. To the right of your name, select "Image."
6. Paste the imgur URL in the image URL field. It's the field that says "Image URL."
7. You can add editorial commentary if you want, but then just hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, paste the image URL as a comment.
8. This is important: Keep your image size under 1 MB. It will not upload to comments if it is over that size. What's more, we're getting reports that if your 'Shop is more than 1000px tall (vertical), it won't upload. If you're getting the broken-image icon, try resizing to a smaller dimension.
Thanks again for helping to make this such a popular weekend feature. Now start 'Shopping!
You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at owen@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.