Operating a television network is not a game. Hold your laughter and that thought. We’ll return to it momentarily. The Networks is a tabletop game that challenges players to perform the duties of TV executives who seek to maximize viewership and, consequently, profit. You bid for shows and talent an
In the interest of accuracy, I must attribute “Christ, I miss the Cold War” to Judi Dench’s M in Casino Royale, because she actually uttered those words. But M never had a monopoly on this sentiment. Here, for instance, is international relations bigwig John J. Mearsheimer’s “Why We Will Soon Miss T
Here’s an idea: If your blog post announcing a game set in ‘Africa’ doesn’t name a single country, it probably needs another edit. To wit, here’s a choice passage from Positech Games’ announcement for Democracy 3: Africa: In the west, we tend to think of Africa as either the target of charity fund-r
I spent the first 11 years of my life reading used car listings and saving up for my first set of wheels. I spent the next four months of my life burning all of these car savings on arcade racers, a relationship that burned so bright and fast that I have never since felt the urge to learn how to dri
The workings of a democracy are never pretty, but in 1994 the process of governmental sausage making couldn’t even be cloaked in a sleek interface. In the spirit of remembering those halcyon days, feast your eyes on the 1994 Texas Budget Simulator created by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public A
I can’t say that I ever imagined myself as a late-night hotline customer. I can definitely say that I never imagined myself as a late-night Justin Bieber hotline customer. But last Friday night I found myself dialing 231-371-1113 from my bedroom to hear the little terror’s cover of Drake’s “Hotline
Corporations are not your friends. Case in point: Lego recently refused to ship a bulk order to artist Ai Weiwei citing a longstanding policy of not directly providing pieces to those who seek to make political statements. Ai took to Instagram to declare: “Lego’s refusal to sell its product to the a
An Interview is not all black—little pops of colour occasionally surface—but you could be forgiven for thinking that you’ve fallen into a world of blackness. And so you have. An Interview is Manos Agianniotakis’ interactive adaptation of Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn’s play “Fake It ‘Til You Make
This is a story about a cheeky gambit that, by virtue of our covering it can only be said to have succeeded. So much for the journalist as a neutral force. But it’s a good, cheeky gambit, so let’s not get too bogged down in the observer effect. Seth van Heijster has created an interactive resume tha
The difference between Cards Against Humanity and the sort of flashcards used for revision is, I suppose, that the latter can come in a greater range of colours. Sure, “a cat video so cute your eyes roll back and your spine slides out your anus” is not the typical exam prompt, but the mechanics are
In case you weren’t already convinced that games are total bullshit, here’s a study in the New Scientist that claims the placebo effect—that noted scourge of hypochondriacs and homeopaths—also works in videogames. Ok, not everything is bullshit, but at least some of it is. The study at hand, which
History, in case you were wondering, covers a good chunk of time. Much of that time has been horrible, but there’s plenty of it. How, then, does one go about representing history? Should the focus be on the time or the suffering? The normal solution to this problem, as is evidenced by the history se
Steve Reich composes music for humans, and good music at that. You could, however, be forgiven for thinking that there is something mechanical to his work. Phasing, the technique most commonly associated with Reich, involves the same sequence being played at gradually—and slightly—divergent speeds.
Cloud Chasers—A Journey of Hope is a pretty game about migration, which is to say that it’s a visually appealing game about the great many ways in which this world is wretched. In a post-apocalyptic world—aren’t all words basically post-apocalyptic at this point?—a farmer and his daughter cannot go
Believe it or not, Brooklyn existed before the days of beard wax, tasting menus, and lazy trendpiece shorthand. Brooklyn 1776, which launches for iOS next week, is about those earlier days. Much earlier. August 1776 was not a calm time in American history. George Washington (maybe you’ve heard of h
There is, as your tinfoil hat-wearing friends are likely to tell you, no shortage of conspiracy surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There are the claims about the second shooter or someone on the grassy knoll. There are shadowy figures in conspiracy lore like “dark complected man,” “ba
Even on the best of days, defusing a bomb is a difficult task. Can there ever really be a “best day” that involves defusing a bomb? Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is not interested in simplifying this task. Developed by Ottawa’s Steel Crate Games, it layers wrinkle upon wrinkle, making the task of
The Chinese government, with the assistance of national internet oligopolists Alibaba and Tencent, is in the process of introducing a new form of credit score that will factor in political compliance, the actions of one’s acquaintances, and the products one chooses to buy. Under this scheme, buying
In 1990, on the hundredth anniversary of Vincent van Gogh’s death, the Journal of the American Medical Association posited that the impressionist had suffered from “Ménière’s disease and not epilepsy.” A disorder of the inner ear, Ménière’s disease is known to cause nausea, hearing troubles, tinnitu
I experienced director Jessica Kantor’s The Archer on Samsung’s Gear VR headset, a $200 piece of kit that, if you believe its manufacturer, “lets you feel the world beyond your peripheral vision.” I did not experience the world beyond my peripheral vision, and was all the happier for it. Clocking in
Let’s say you believe that virtual reality is the future of artistic expression. Don’t laugh; this belief is sincerely held by plenty of people. So, let’s say so you believe that VR is the future, how on Earth do you start to build towards that future? This was the evening’s main question when the t
