ApartSpel and other names

ApartGame has had a few names over the years, which sometimes makes it confusing what we are talking about, or which table a text you come across refers to. This page sheds a light on that quirky matter.

ApartSpel, 2003

From the start in 2003, when the idea was conceptualised and then built, we had brainstorm sessions dedicated to its name, and we came up with ApartSpel. So we registered a web domain and started developing flyers and texts. After a first iteration, and another one, and another one, to make the game more robust and easier to transport, we went everywhere we found interesting.

ApartGame Console, 2004

One day early in 2004 I got a grant from the HKU (Hans Wolters) to go to Vienna, Austria, to the CHI conference. ApartSpel needed to be international, translated to English: ApartGame! And since we were changing it anyway, we completed the name with its purpose: ApartGame Console, AGC. The flyers with Dutch text were translated to English to match.

O-Dynamic Games, 2005

Time passed, and with every outing we received feedback from the public. ApartGame has the word “apart” in it, and unintentionally refers to evil things from the past. When we placed the prototype under the wings of JVH Gaming Products in 2005, we once again dedicated sessions to its name. What came out was O-Dynamic Games, or O-game for short, and that is the name the table carried from then on.

Which name means what

They are all the same table. On this site the ApartGame console is the graduation project and the prototype that travelled, and O-Dynamic Games is what it became at JVH Gaming. ApartSpel lives on in the first Dutch flyers and in the old web address, which the Wayback Machine still remembers.