O-Dynamic Games
2004-2006 · Entrepreneur
The production table seen whole: a deep red drum on a plinth, its playing field lit in bands of red, amber and green around a dark centre disc, with floor lights washing the boards beneath it.
The ApartGame console started as a graduation project. This is what happened when we set out to turn it into a product, at the New Entertainment department we set up inside JVH Gaming with Roel Creemers.
Without feigned modesty, it was a true eye-catcher everywhere it went, from conferences, resorts and exhibitions to lounge bars, and people enjoyed playing it. For more than a year and a half we had the room to develop the ApartGame into an improved, more robust prototype with fine-tuned gameplay, aimed at the catering industry and fitted with a coin slot. Along the way ApartSpel and ApartGame Console became O-Dynamic Games, or O-game for short.
What we were selling
The pitch was that O-Dynamic Games combined the sensation of a computer game with the good old family fun of a classic board game. That combination challenged players physically while it created a social setting that brought friends and family together. The inviting large round shape and the ease of navigation encouraged players to move around the console while trying to push the right buttons, which tested the focus and physical ability of even the most seasoned player. People of all ages could be part of the action, regardless of their agility, and the sturdy construction held up during the liveliest competition.
It had been played and tested by a wide variety of people in many different environments and locations. It was originally designed and developed for an audience with physical challenges and underdeveloped motor skills, but it soon turned out that everybody enjoyed pushing the right buttons.
The product
The console was to be supplied with four games, expandable to a total of sixteen: action and reaction games, mental and strategy games and more. It could be played by one, or by as many as fit around it. It would ship with the necessary hardware and software, could be adjusted in width and fitted with a coin slot to suit different environments, and both the interface and the console itself could be customised.
The production specification, including the planned Standard and DLX line, is on the ApartGame console page.
Where we wanted to take it
User studies and market research came back remarkably positive, and putting this machine on the market was a longstanding wish. By 2006 we were looking for an investor for a successor with significant improvements: water resistance, more colours, easier maintenance. That would have given the console greater flexibility across a wider range of locations, and made the games more interesting still.
The locations where we expected it to be at its best: concerts, events and theme parks, promotions, queues at stands, the catering and leisure industry, and therapeutic use.
Who built it
Roel Creemers and Dirk van de Mortel, with Mr Hendrikx, and the employees of JVH Gaming who took it from prototype to production.
What came of it
The investor never came. The table reached a production specification, a product line and a price, and then stopped there. Two of them still exist, which is the whole of it.