January 2012
35 posts
“Chess is a simple game of marvelous depth. Though it uses a small set of...”
– Fissure opens in chess AI scene - Boing Boing
D-Pad: Directions in play/art/design. →
dropouthangoutspaceout:
Having recently moved to Toronto to pursue graduate studies, mrghosty (curator/media artist skot deeming) continues his work of video game culture art events, beginning at Interaccess with the launch of the D-Pad series.
Designed to be part social event, part art event, part pop-up arcade, D-Pad will bring together works from a variety of disciplines that share a...
Just North of Something Important: Pop is not... →
barthel:
Here is an actual thing Richard Beck says in his n+1 piece about Pitchfork:
But the story of The Beatles doesn’t begin with John, Paul, George, and Ringo deplaning at JFK. It begins with Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 1722 Treatise on Harmony, which began to theorize the tonal system that still…
I’ve been thinking about Game Criticism (which I tend not to read), and about...
“Gamification” treats people like children — children who need to be manipulated,...”
– Brent Simmons
My take. (via tommorrisdotorg)
Scoreboard Jesus
thenewinquiry:
(image via)
Can Tim Tebow, the latest American exemplar of “muscular Christianity,” get a witness?
by Elissa Lerner
Unless you’ve avoided all sports news since Thanksgiving, you’ve probably heard the name Tim Tebow, the Denver Broncos quarterback and evangelical Christian who likes to thank his lord and savior Jesus Christ for winning football games. Despite his awkward...
2 tags
Happinomics →
bobulate:
Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, answers how it’s possible to measure something as subjective as happiness:
See also: A recent study showed that very few experiences affect us for more than three months.
Measuring subjective experiences is a lot easier than you think. It’s what your eye doctor does when she fits you for glasses. She puts a lens in front of your...
““We want to strike a balance… having people with a mix of different...”
– Games as creative practice: NYU Game Center’s new master’s program - GameCareerGuide.com
“So Jenn Frank wrote an astonishingly great piece ‘On games of chance, cheating,...”
– Determinism (mostly for Jenn Frank (but you might be interested also?)) | ben abraham dot net
Now on my “To Read” list…
“I’ve created this website called Video Game Design as a way to document our...”
– Site Launch: Video Game Design for the Classroom
Kevin Hodgson is a reflective teacher who has begun teaching game design. He has just launched a new website chronicling his journey, and that of his students.
“I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most.”
– Margaret Atwood (via fuckyeahfeministartandliterature)
We have been thinking about joy, fun, and learning.
7 tags
WatchWe are hosting a node of the Global Game Jam. We are very excited!
“Solved Games
Awari (a game of the Mancala family)
The variant of Oware...”
– Solved game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My students asked themselves if they could “solve” Mancala computationally.
notgames:
[Muscular dystrophy patient Mary] doesn’t care if it’s “cheating” to call upon some kind of assist mode that would allow her to make the jumps a little more easily. For Mary, she just wants to play and enjoy the game -she has no desire to enter some videogame competition where that would make a difference.
Game design in the 1980s was necessarily challenge-oriented. The zenith of...
KAYLA GUTHRIE: How did you start writing about art?
CHRIS KRAUS: [...] I didn't really think very much about it, but obviously the way to describe something is just to say what it is and then say what it means to you. And that's basically the recipe for art writing: what is it, and what does it mean? I was certainly familiar with art writing done by poets over the years. Art in America had that wonderful tradition of hiring poets, and I went back and read criticism by people like the poet James Schuyler and his close friend, the painter Fairfield Porter, who wrote art criticism that is so graceful and immediate and complex. I love that. Frances Richards, who writes for Artforum, is another poet writing about art; there's a bracing, slap-in-the-face, shocking difference between that and writing by a professional critic. It's writing that perceives the work on the same plane as the visual artist, but articulates it in a different way. It's experiential.
Web games: Press pause, then resume | The... →
vellum:
Butterfield on Glitch and designing in perpetual beta
“By retreating into beta, Glitch can avoid becoming an evolutionary dead-end. Two...”
– Web games: Press pause, then resume | The Economist
“Kevin Slavin:
There’s not a direct line. But they both derive from some of the...”
– A conversation between Rob Walker and co-founder of Area/Code, Kevin Slavin : Observatory: Design Observer
Found via @Notational about @KevinSlavin
“1. Stop rewriting code. Engine reuse, library reuse, etc.
2. Stop chasing...”
– Raph’s Website » Making games more cheaply
found via BoingBoing.net. Go read the rest at Raph’s blog. I’ll wait here while you do.
“What Dan advances is a kind of aesthetic theory for games that might be called...”
– Chris Bateman in Stories and Games (3): Experiencing Fiction, about Dan Cook’s Shadow Emotions and Primary Emotions (via notgames)
Asteroids in Kodu! →
fuselabs:
Tim Meek is a UK based educator and one of the founders of the innovative Kodudes program in the UK. One of his students made a remarkable Asteroids game in Kodu, complete with thrusters, shields and even smart bombs!
Not only does he demo his game, but spends time walking through his kode to show how he made it.
Amazing!
The Orthodoxy Within Game Studies
christianmccrea:
The game studies instinct to magically and imperially overrule game design needs and realities is facing more and more resistance. One thing that’s emerged in the last few years is a focus on how systems of all kinds produce meaning. It remains a positive development because game studies has travelled a long way without paying systems much respect. It might seem staid sometimes...
Watchdinosaurparty:
(via A social active game experience | Work by Adam)
A nice little preview video about the merits of physical play and social gaming experiences. Looks like Adam Henriksson has had some good thoughts about creating custom hardware for different (and awesome) types of play experiences.
1 tag
Against (a particularly reductive reading of)... →
dropouthangoutspaceout:
So as Cristian Mccrea said yesterday “So, that sure happened”. It’s off gamesnetwork and in your face.
I’m going to start by saying that I’m not going to tackle some of the core issues that Sicart attempts to assail. I feel that at times he has reduced the nuances of proceduralism to a characature, but I will such responses to those who actually wrote the books. I have...
