Humane Games

Puppy Chow Recipe

rafaelfajardo — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:08:01 -0600

Look, that thing about playing Cyberpunk hit me in the face with a blast of nostalgia, okay? We used to play the Sisters of Mercy, and my friend Brian’s mom always made a giant batch of Puppy Chow. Crispix cereal + chocolate + peanut butter + powdered sugar = a bunch of slightly crazed but pretty happy nerd kids pretending to be hackers and street samurai.

(My character was a blatant Molly-from-Neuromancer ripoff, a Eurasian street samurai with fingerblades and a monofilament katana, who once—by virtue of a dice roll that was nothing less than miraculous—narrowly avoided getting turned into cold cuts by a monofilament web that someone else had strung up in a doorway, and which neither I nor the GM remembered until the other player reminded us as my character was charging down the hallway to the door. The GM let me roll to see if she would successfully slide under the web at the last second, and incredibly, it worked.)

(I was a prize dork, and I’m proud of it.)

(Yeah, I know, I know—”was?”)

Brain can be trained in compassion, study shows

rafaelfajardo — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:05:17 -0600

Brain can be trained in compassion, study shows:

to read…

laughingsquid: Dungeons & Dragons Clue, Classic Clue With...

rafaelfajardo — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:41:36 -0600

laughingsquid:

Dungeons & Dragons Clue, Classic Clue With Dungeons & Dragons-Themed Game Pieces and Game Board

emergentfutures: Nintendo claiming ad revenue for user-created...

rafaelfajardo — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:56:02 -0600

emergentfutures:

Nintendo claiming ad revenue for user-created YouTube videos

The Japanese game giant is not following the path of music publishers and film studios in demanding this content be blocked, but rather wants to place ads surrounding videos featuring Nintendo games, like Let’s Play videos. The revenue from these ads would go to Nintendo, not the video’s creators.

Full Story: Gamespot

who is adding value to whom? who is the remora? who is the orchid? who is loyal to whom?

Where did the idea for Dots come from? Moberg: A lot of the...

rafaelfajardo — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:15:00 -0600

Where did the idea for Dots come from?

Moberg: A lot of the early thinking was just looking at what was already out there, what was highly illustrated or cartoonish, and deciding we wanted to do something new, something that wasn’t out there.

But why dots? Why not coins, or squares, or birds flying through the air?

Moberg: Well, some of my inspiration for the design of the game actually came from the fine art world. I copied and pasted a bunch of fine art images from Google into my design documents and thought, if an app could be like fine art, maybe this would be it. But Dots was also inspired by board games. Old-school board games are fun and playful but have such — I guess the word would be neutral — such neutral personalities that anyone can approach them and play them. (via Creators of the Addictive Mobile Game Dots on Game Tips, Making Money - Lauren Goode - Product News - AllThingsD)

The good news is that my Dots addiction may come with some added...

rafaelfajardo — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:30:21 -0600

The good news is that my Dots addiction may come with some added cognitive perks. Casual games like Dots—video games that are quick to access, easy to learn, and require no special game skills (a category that includes many other smartphone games, like Bejeweled and Peggle)—were subject to a study on gaming and cognitive ability conducted by East Carolina University’s (ECU) Psychophysiology Lab in 2010. The study, conducted with dozens of U.S. consumers, was designed to explore the effects of casual games on subjects’ short-term cognitive acuity, including cognitive response time (how quickly a subject completes a task) and executive function (how often a subject completes a task correctly). Subjects who played Bejeweled and similar games for 30-minute periods showed an 87 percent improvement in cognitive response time and a 215 percent increase in executive functioning when compared to a control group. These cognitive gains should not be interpreted as making gamers “smarter,” per se. Shortly after ECU published their study, the BBC and Nature found that brain training software like Nintendo’s Brain Age doesn’t really improve your reasoning, memory, or problem solving in the long run, and any gains wrought from incessant gameplay are confined to the specific types of tasks required by a game. The six-week online study, which involved 11,430 participants trained several times each week on cognitive tasks designed to improve reasoning, memory, planning, and attention, found that whatever skills players picked up were not immediately transferable to unfamiliar tasks. More recent research confirms that cognitive perks picked up from gaming are skill-specific and not general gains in intelligence. According to research published in open access journal PLOS ONE by Adam Chie-Ming Oei and Michael Patterson of Nanyang Technological University-Singapore, playing video games for an hour each day can improve subsequent performance on cognitive tasks that use similar mental processes to those required in a specific game. (via Can playing Dots on your iPhone make you smarter? - Salon.com)

"Mom, can I play on the iPad?” my daughter calls from the kitchen, where I’m sure her hand is..."

rafaelfajardo — Sun, 19 May 2013 13:35:44 -0600

““Mom, can I play on the iPad?” my daughter calls from the kitchen, where I’m sure her hand is hovering over the device, waiting for my assent. It’s Saturday morning. My husband left early for a round of golf, and I’m an “okay” away from a blissful hour sequestered with my writing book and favorite pen. Heck, I might even have a chance to finish this story instead of letting it tumble around in my head, spitting out phrases while I’m cutting into the right lane to avoid the car in front of me. My other option for her is TV, but I’d rather have her on the iPad because she’ll be either playing Minecraft or watching YouTube videos of other people playing Minecraft. She’ll build a world in “creative mode” with a swimming pool full of wool and probably a library. Her world will be blissfully threat-free until she switches over to “survival mode,” when the creepers, zombies, and pigs appear. “There are also spiders, Mommy,” she tells me, reading over my shoulder, “and pig men.” To get ideas and inspiration she’ll watch YouTube videos of others playing Minecraft, like SkyDoesMinecraft, who recaps his quests as he saves villagers and cows. (I think the cows get saved; I’ll have to ask.) Sometimes Ava will watch Minecraft videos authored by people I assume are the spawn of drunken sailors who drop f-bombs and m-f bombs, amongst their “kill that ass-wipe” quips, which I’ll hear from the other room and say, “Ava, choose another video please.” So I prefer Sky, because he might have a clue that there’s a bunch of third graders watching and he does not swear like aforementioned cliched sailor spawn on leave from morality. But even the cursing Minecrafters are better than pre-tween-targeted sitcoms on Disney or Nickelodeon. Let my sweet impressionable kid spend a day with China on AntFarm or Alex on Wizards of Waverly Place and my parental battles erupt. Bad language is easy to curb, but stupid adult stereotypes, sarcasm, backstabbing behavior, and contempt are not. I have yet to see an episode of any tween sitcom (as I’ll call them) in which the adults are not morons and the dialogue between the young characters is not caustic. I can tell Ava a dozen times a day to be kind with her words. I can tell her that how she says something makes a difference, that she has a choice of being hurtful or helpful. But in the end, I give in to her request to watch Minecraft so she’ll still believe adults are intelligent, trustworthy counselors who can provide a broader perspective. I know a fight is coming and my ability to advise may dwindle as Ava’s teen years approach, but I’m not willing to have my nine-year-old disregard everything I say. I can hear Sky from the other room, where Ava is watching as he quests for, well, whatever he quests for on Minecraft. Gold? Butter? I don’t know. But Sky, if you’re reading, I hope you find it. Thanks for keeping the language PG.”

- Choosing Minecraft Over Disney — Editor’s Picks — Medium

via killscreen: (via @gaijingames)

rafaelfajardo — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:34:13 -0600

via killscreen:

(via @gaijingames)

zerofeedback: Three hundred games. I started this site with a...

rafaelfajardo — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:05:22 -0600

zerofeedback:

Three hundred games.

I started this site with a simple criteria: collect freeware games that were posted by the developer and received no comments from that community for at least six months. (I later changed it to three.)

Three hundred games fit this heuristic. It’s hard to tell how many more are currently out there. Are yet to be made.

It’s never been easier to make games. It’s never been easier to make a game that goes overlooked.

Two hundred games ago, I highlighted the diversity of these games. Games of every genre. Featuring pixel art, 3d models, hand-drawn sprites, ASCII. Traditional and experimental mechanics and experiences. By new and established developers.

We need more.

More developers. More games. More voices. A system to support them.

More communities which foster a culture where developers of all backgrounds and skill levels can receive constructive feedback on their games.

More journalists and curators who are willing to dig deep in forums, tool-specific sites, massive game jams. Who realize that most games don’t have expiration dates. Who can appreciate the interesting ideas in otherwise unpolished games.

Bill Russell on Playing In The Zone

rafaelfajardo — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:04:46 -0600

stoweboyd:

Playing ‘in the zone’ is what many athletes call their experience of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s flow state, the complete absorption in what you are doing.

Bill Russell, Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man

Every so often a Celtics game would heat up so that it became more than a physical or even mental game, and would be magical. That feeling is difﬁcult to describe, and I certainly never talked about it when I was playing. When it happened, I could feel my play rise to a new level. It came rarely, and would last anywhere from ﬁve minutes to a whole quarter, or more. Three or four plays were not enough to get it going. It would surround not only me and the other team, and even the referees. At that special level, all sorts of odd things happened: The game would be in the white heat of competition, and yet somehow I wouldn’t feel competitive, which is a miracle in itself. I’d be putting out the maximum effort, straining, coughing up parts of my lungs as we ran, and yet I never felt the pain. The game would move so quickly that every fake, cut, and pass would be surprising, and yet nothing could surprise me. It was almost as if we were playing in slow motion. During those spells, I could almost sense how the next play would develop and where the next shot would be taken. Even before the other team brought the ball inbounds, I could feel it so keenly that I’d want to shout to my teammates, ‘it’s coming there!’—except that I knew everything would change if I did. My premonitions would be consistently correct, and I always felt then that I not only knew all the Celtics by heart, but also all the opposing players, and that they all knew me. There have been many times in my career when I felt moved or joyful, but these were the moments when I had chills pulsing up and down my spine.

[…]

On the ﬁve or ten occasions when the game ended at that special level, I literally did not care who had won. If we lost, I’d still be as free and high as a sky hawk.

Moving so fast that everything is a surprise and yet nothing surprises.

Emergent business has to play at the edge, in the flow, dancing just before the point where it trips.

Emergent Digital Practices: Bored of Farmville? Try Tahrir Square, the game

rafaelfajardo — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:17:19 -0600

Emergent Digital Practices: Bored of Farmville? Try Tahrir Square, the game:

emergentdigitalpractices:

In May, Facebook users who are looking to waste a little time online will have a new option; a game called Tahrir Square Defense will allow them to relive the glory days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Alkottab, the Egyptian games development company responsible for the game, describe…

8bitfuture: Wow, check out those ‘3D’ graphics. In my mind the...

rafaelfajardo — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:35:47 -0600

8bitfuture:

Wow, check out those ‘3D’ graphics.

In my mind the graphics in Myst were still amazing, so it’s kind of disappointing to actually see it again and realize how dated it looks now.

This was the 1993 entry for Wired’s ‘Most jaw-dropping game graphics’ list of the last 20 years - check out the full list here.

Low-polygon counts, to be sure, but the compositions and the proportions have an enduring beauty. The control of the lighting and atmoshperic haze was, and remains, masterful both visually and ludicly. Clues and gameplay were hidden in the shadows.

"It’s time to stop thinking of computer programming as a specialty subject. Schools should respect it..."

rafaelfajardo — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:16:09 -0600

“It’s time to stop thinking of computer programming as a specialty subject. Schools should respect it as a fundamental skill.”

- Why High Schools Should Treat Computer Programming Like Algebra - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic (via infoneer-pulse)

via @emergentfutures: Game Theory and the Treatment of...

rafaelfajardo — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:39:01 -0600

via @emergentfutures:

Game Theory and the Treatment of Cancer

Thinking about cancer as an ecosystem is giving biologists access to a new armoury of mathematical tools for tackling it, such as evolutionary game theory

Full Story: Technology Review

to read. cancer cells as rational actors? selfish genes indeed.

Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!

rafaelfajardo — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:32:29 -0600

thehawkeyeinitiative:

I recently received an email from an anonymous fan sharing how she pulled a Hawkeye Initiative themed prank on her CEO to illustrate a problem with some artwork.
My personal compliments to her and her accomplice on a mission well done; they perfectly took they perfectly took the concept of The Hawkeye Initiative one step farther, and effected actual change. I hope this gives you as much of a laugh as it did me (the artwork is currently my desktop), and inspires you to be unafraid to stand up and take action in your own awesome way.

Now, excuse me while I go play my new favorite mech game. :)
-Skjaldmeyja

AnonymousFan8675309:

I work with an all-female team of data scientists, in the gaming industry. This makes me the professional equivalent of Amelia Earhart riding the Loch Ness Monster.

I love my job. Our company in particular is great. Firstly, our game (HAWKEN) is beautiful and people love it. Secondly, half of our executive branch is female. Half of them are punk rock, and all of them are badassed. Our gender awareness standards, compared to the industry at large, are top shelf. We are talking Amelia Earhart in Atlantis, at a five star resort, getting a mani-pedi from Jensen Ackles. I have it good.

For the last six months of my tenure at Meteor Entertainment, there has been only one thing I did not love about my job. This
picture:

Our CEO loves this picture. It is to all appearances his favorite piece of comic art for the game. He had it blown up poster-sized, framed, and displayed on the out-facing wall of his office. There, it looms over the front room like a ship’s figurehead. It is the first thing workers and visitors see when they enter the building and the last thing they see when they leave. This little lady’s undermeats have been the open- and close- parens to my work world for the last six months.
I loathe this picture.

Why do I loathe it? How, you ask, can I stay mad at a sweet young belle who has so obviously taken a break from her important welding to offer me a piping hot cup of coffee and/or a vigorous hand job? (And probably, given her apparent safety consciousness, simultaneously?) If you don’t already know the answer, you might want to check out things like #1ReasonWhy, and the Bechdel Test, and also this, and this, and this and this, and all these other things. (And while we’re talking you should check out this other bullshit right here.)

So at our office holiday party, while our CEO was having everyone in the company sign it, I stand there grinding my teeth into tiny shards. Until, suddenly, it came to me: a vision.

And so it came to be that I approached Sam Kirk, a wickedly funny co-worker who shared my sentiment. Sam, turns out, is a very talented artist who can be bribed-slash-inspired using a medley of feminist indignation, hysterical giggling, and two $90 bottles of añejo tequila.

A month-and-a-half later, our vision was a reality. I give you:
Bro-sie The Riveter.

I want to make it completely clear that everything in this prank that required actual talent was done by Sam. Find this, and more of Sam’s art, at TheRealSamKirk.com.

We blew (ahem) Brosie up poster sized. We framed him. And then, at 7:30 on Monday, April 1st, we snuck into our CEO’s office and switched them.

I stood in the entryway, dizzy with joy. It was glorious. There Brosie stood, proud, nipples testing the air like young gophers in springtime, the post-apocalyptic breeze gently swaying his banana hammock. Brosie said, loud and proud: “Get ready, world! I am here to lubricate your joints and tighten your socket.”

I basically spend the next few hours having a joy-induced neurological episode.

As the morning progressed, Brosie (ahem) revealed himself to our co-workers. The air resounded with startled, suppressed gargles of mingled joy and horror. Some take pictures. Some instantly turn and flee. Several men blush and grin in vindicated solidarity. Several women ask us for prints. At this point I am in total rapture. This is the moment I have been dreaming about for six months.

Yet somehow everyone in the office manages to keep quiet about it. Until, finally, our CEO arrives.

We hear a loud: “What the hell is this?!” And then all goes quiet. Ten minutes pass. We panic.

We are both suddenly and painfully aware that we have, in fact, just punked the CEO of our company. He is by all accounts an awesome dude. He is also a late-50s ex-army guy who happens to determine our employment futures in an at-will state. Meep.

Twenty more minutes pass. And then our CEO comes up to my desk, taps me on the shoulder, and says this:

“That was a brilliant prank. You called me on exactly the bullshit I need to be called on. I put up pictures of half-naked girls around the office all the time and I never think about it. I’m taking you and Sam to lunch. And after that, we’re going to hang both prints, side by side.”

Ruby Underboob and Brosie the Riveter, together at last

Yeah. That happened.

This wonderful experience has taught me two things that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and in gaming. It taught me this:

Lots of men (like Sam) are already sympathetic to the stupid, constant crap women put up with in gaming/STEM, and they are ready and willing to call that crap onto the carpet.

And, most importantly, many of the guys who are behind that stupid, constant crap are totally decent, open-minded human beings who just don’t realize they’re doing it. You know how sometimes you don’t realize how much you and your girlfriend are talking about shoes or menstruation until some dude walks into the room? Well sometimes guys don’t realize how much they’re talking about titties.

We just haven’t been around enough for them to notice.

There is only one solution to that, ladies. Bust out your baby-Gap tee and your protective welding goggles, and let’s turn this damn industry into the environment we want it to be. It’s hard work, and yes, there are a couple genuine assholes along the way. But if Ruby Underboob can brave the occasional droplet of molten metal, so can we.

Speaking from experience, it’s worth it.

—K2

About our CEO, Mark Long:

Mark has a long and storied history with, among other things, research, games and comic art. He’s a partner in the RoqlaRue gallery in Seattle, representing “chick art.” Mark considers himself a feminist activist. He is proud to have created a graphic novel trilogy with Nick Sagan (Carl’s son) that features a female hero so strong, Hillary Swank is attached to star as her.

Mark and I are now in an open dialogue about gender in comics and gaming.

dropouthangoutspaceout: In relation to that Gorz quote I would say videogames have become one of...

rafaelfajardo — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:07:34 -0600

dropouthangoutspaceout:

In relation to that Gorz quote I would say videogames have become one of those “spheres” that was supposed to separated from “real life”, which explains, once again, why “gam3rz” are so virulent in their defense of sexism, separate spheres, border patrolling, racism etc. It’s that “private sphere” that they shared with others which was conceived as their private garden, their summer cottage. Mass produced hobbies, mediated through gatekeepers like trade and enthusiast press is one reason why “games” became a private sphere.

Under monopoly capital we get mass production of private life with private homes and the monarchy of the bourgeois family. The bourgeois class created the private because it had the resources to manufacture a world distinct from the aristocracy and the monarchy while the previous classes, farmers and serfs had no concept of the private. Think about how brands are supposed to be private - they are families you bring into your kingdom because they are lifestyles and ideas and whatnot embodied as subjects - even if those subjects are just commodities. Brands, rather than products, become citizens of sorts and are represented by their various manifestations in your private kingdom.

I think that these things are then, in a sense, under your care as a sovereign and that the gardens, the houses, the collections, the games, are your responsibility to protect from the pressures of capitalism. Remember, this separate sphere is all we have outside of work itself. It’s this private sphere that is supposed to lend true meaning to our lives - not our shitty job that we grudgingly wake up for every day. This is where shit matters and as it happens when things are under your care you give a lot of damns when something appears to attack them.

These responses can often be healthy if they are things like our families and our friends. Our private joys, our pets, our heirlooms, the objects whose use value without a doubt transcends any kind of exchange value. This carries over, however, also to brands and hobbies and things that are just as emblematic of fascist and reactionary imaginaries. In videogame culture that has manifested as a kind of knee-jerk move towards defense at all costs. It’s this kind of Churchillesque war against the aggressors that has lead to the transphobic garbage that has taken place over the past few days, and that which was manifested against Anita Sarkeesian last year.

So what comes out isn’t so much entirely about a hatred of women (though much of it is) but also about the reaction against the drive of a more communal impulse to challenge that hegemony of the private sphere. To move against bourgeois values means to attack, in one sense, that autonomous sphere of production and reproduction of the monarchy of the home. It means to rip that tiny sphere of sovereignty that so many people, robbed of any other space of control in their lives through rampant capital accumulation, have. It also shows how the economic movements of our world come around and viciously react against things they seem so far away from.

Medialab Prado: Solid Interfaces & Urban Games CFP

rafaelfajardo — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:00:28 -0600

emergentdigitalpractices:

Solid Interfaces & Urban Games: Digital Games in the Public Space. Call for Projects

Open Call for project proposals to be developed during a production workshop for the creation of video games related to public space and the city as an interface (July 1-7, 2013).

During seven days of intensive work, ideas will be tested and prototypes developed by working with partners and technical assistants.

Deadline: May 31, 2013.

More information

letsbuildahome-fr: Rooftop Racetrack: 1928 via Retronaut “The...

rafaelfajardo — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:41:37 -0600

letsbuildahome-fr:

Rooftop Racetrack: 1928 via Retronaut

“The Lingotto building, Turin, Italy, once housed a Fiat factory. Built between 1916 and 1923, the design had five floors, raw materials going in at the ground floor, and cars built on a line that went up through the building. Finished cars emerged at rooftop level, where there was a rooftop test track. It was the largest car factory in the world at the time. Le Corbusier called it “one of the most impressive sights in industry”, and “a guideline for town planning”.”

Twilley: I’d love to hear more about the design process and how...

rafaelfajardo — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:35:36 -0600

Twilley: I’d love to hear more about the design process and how you went about testing different iterations. Did you storyboard narratives for possible cities and urban forms that you might want to include in the game? Librande: The way the game is set up, it’s kind of infinite. What I mean by that is that you could play it so many different ways that it’s basically impossible to storyboard or have a defined set of narratives for how the player will play it. (via Sim City: An Interview with Stone Librande - Venue)

"SimCity 4 was literally prototyped in Excel. There were no graphics—it was just a bunch of..."

rafaelfajardo — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:44:27 -0600

“SimCity 4 was literally prototyped in Excel. There were no graphics—it was just a bunch of numbers—but you could type a code that represented a particular type of building and the formulae built into the spreadsheet would then decide how much power it had and how many people would work there. It just statically calculated the city as if it were a bunch of snapshots.”

- Sim City: An Interview with Stone Librande - Venue (via thisistheverge)