If that’s not good enough for you, try Similar:Why Tetris is the 'perfect' video gameRather than wanting to make a film about…AestheticsNew Data Shatters Video Game Player Stereotypes: Gamers Regularly Involved in Community, C…”Gamers are everywhere and they’re every…BusinessJerz Nerdcation 2013On a visit to the Washington DC area for…CulturePompeii artifacts at the Carnegie Science Center…
While reviewing proposals for a new games journalism assignment in my video game culture and theory course, I found myself thinking about Floyd the Robot, from Planetfall. Some students were commenting excitedly about the emotional impact of the airport scene in Modern Warfare 2 (you are infiltrating a terrorist cell, and the game requires you…
What would be more awesome than a colorful display of iconic images from 100 beloved games? How about a colorful display of iconic images from 100 beloved games on cupcakes? Similar:35% of my site visitors right now are using mobile devicesThis year I have seen an uptick in the p…CybercultureMy college writing students are out…
I’ve just finished my final training run as a nanotech-augmented super-agent. Nasty terrorists holed up in the ruins of the State of Liberty have captured one of my fellow agents, and it’s my job to get him out. In real life, it’s 2002, and I’m just a guy in Wisconsin. My four-year-old son is asleep…
My online three-week course will start tomorrow morning. It will lean heavily on blogging, so chances are I’ll be a bit more productive than usual in that area. Video Game Culture and TheoryThis course isn’t about learning how to “win” a game, nor is it about programming or design. In fact, according to a recent…
It’s a spoof, but it’s well-researched and contains plenty of insight. Similar:This Is Not a Book: Thomas Jefferson & Apple's App StoreHumanities professors from the Universit…AcademiaPfully Pfizered and pfeeling pfine so pfar. Current_EventsBuzzFeed plagiarism, deleted posts: Jonah Peretti explains.In 2012 my former Slate colleague Farhad…BusinessThe Essayification of EverythingThe word Michel de Montaigne chose to de…EssaysHow…
I just played this Every Day the Same Dream. Simple, stark, and in places charming. I smiled and thought a little. Similar:A Message from Hester Prynne (Student Video)Have I mentioned lately that I have awes…AcademiaDuring a modest snowfall, I’m passing the time in a public place where someone else has tu…Stay tuned for more live…
I’m gearing up to teach Video Game Culture and Theory for the third time. It’s a 200-level elective, with no prerequisites. Students will have taken a basic comp course, but some won’t have done any academic research yet. I’m conscious that some students may have difficulty switching from playing the games they want to play,…
The first part of a walkthrough of the classic (1993), a moody, contemplative point-and-click adventure that defies the stereotype of games as violent and chaotic. Popular with women and causual gamers, but also appreciated by expert gamers for its puzzles and graphics (photo-realistic CGI, with pre-rendered animations), it was the top-selling game for nearly a…
Fascinating student project from Zach Whalen’s “A Videogame Canon” course. Adventure. Rules, Representation, and Meaning in Colossal Cave Adventure Analysis of Colossal Cave Adventure Social Impact Colossal Cave Adventure as an interactive narrative and similarites [sic] to fictional novels Other projects include coverage of PONG, Half-Life, and Super Mario Kart. Similar:Practicing Intellectual, Evidence-based DisagreementThis is…
Long story on the epic fail that is (was) Duke Nukem Forever. The Duke Nukem Forever team was unusually small; by 2003, only 18 people were working on it full time. This might have been adequate back when the game was announced in the mid-’90s. But in the years that Broussard had spent tweaking Duke…
I was showing my 7yo daughter some classic arcade games. She asked if I could teach her to make a game of her own, and proceeded to describe the premise. You are a water sprite, catching fish and avoiding sharks. Blowing bubbles at the fish makes you lure them in; blowing a bubble at a…
I’m gearing up to teach a Video Game Culture and Theory course this January. The first time I taught it, in 2006, it didn’t occur to me that students who were looking for information on, say, Space Invaders, would just play any old flash clone, without being discerning about whether it was a faithful port,…
Good overview of the concepts Johnson explores in his book Everything Bad is Good for You. Similar:Oscar Wilde and the Importance of Being Earnest (Part 1 of 2)https://youtu.be/tF4ndwOoPPsCulturewhen someone say ur joke louder than u and get all the creditAmusingI’ve been teaching with this handout for over 25 years, updating it regularly. I just…
Some interesting synergy in my feed reader this morning. The hidden story of the 3D engine – by the people who write them Videogames are beautiful now. It’s not the figurative beauty of yore – the iconic charm of Pac-Man, the elegiac simplicity of the vector-mapped space craft in Elite. Modern games are edging toward…
I would have trimmed about 20 seconds, or given the two lackeys more to do. Still, “The Tetris God” is worth a chuckle. Similar:Senior Tech #1: How To Master TextingIt’s funny because it’s true. http://…AmusingImaginary Friend (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 22) Glowy Alien Befriends Mopp…Rewatching ST:TNG If there’s one thin…PopCultThe boy wins once…
Atari Arcade is the place to find beloved Atari classics including Asteroids and Lunar Lander. You can play them all here online, any time and free of charge. —Atari.com My kids came over to my laptop, attracted to the chirps and beeps of these games. My 11yo son shooed me away from the keyboard and…
Via Jay is Games We are pleased to announce a very special Casual Gameplay Design Competition, one focused entirely on interactive fiction! For CGDC #7, we’re calling on IF authors to craft one-room games incorporating the theme “escape”. It’s text-only this time around, so you can spend your time polishing puzzles instead of pixels. Full…
Sadly, I haven’t had time to play any of the IF Comp games this year, but here are the winners. Vote Summary Place Game Avg. Std. Dev. No. Votes 1 Rover’s Day Out 7.96 1.65 92 2 Broken Legs 7.39 1.72 92 3 Snowquest 7.37 1.41 101 Similar:This is what the techbros are excited…
While much of the talk covered well-known libraries (SDL, OpenAL), game engines (Ogre, Irrlicht), physics engines (Bullet, Tokamak), and content creation tools (Blender, GIMP), there were a few surprises. One was how many open source game-creation systems I found (4, more than the zero I expected). These are Game Editor (2d with export to some…