Children’s play these days doesn’t require much packaging. Downloadable games lack the physicality of a box of Legos—that satisfaction of peeling off the disposable outer shell for the first time to reveal whatever is hidden within. You might say digital games have no packaging or, on the other hand
A new data visualization project from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design allows us to see how much of our language is silent. Silenc cleverly recombines written and spoken language into a unique, synesthetic reading experience. By means of a red light filter, the viewer can interactively
While long-awaited game announcements have been as sparse as usual from the quiet Bellevue-based studio, Valve has instead been announcing new tools in the last few weeks that empower users in creative ways. At the recent Games For Change conference, they revealed an educational initiative called Te
In case you missed the chance to meet the creator of the Choose Your Own Adventure series last Sunday, rest assured that you still have more opportunities to relive your childhood. Zach Weiner, of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, is kickstarting a new “choosable pathway gamebook” called “Trial of
Virtual currencies have been in the news a lot recently, pointing to the need for a more nuanced understanding of the way gamers spend their money—whether it’s real or not. Jamie Madigan has been posting an interesting (and entertaining) series of articles about the psychology of loot in Diablo III
Game developer Jay Pavlina, of Super Mario Bros. Crossover notoriety, is currently kickstarting a new game project called Super Retro Squad. Rather than borrowing characters directly, Pavlin says he is creating a new set of characters, including “Manny and Lanzo, two German miners” who “must rescue
Seth Porges recently spoke to Ford about the way games are making their way into car design—a new development in the “gamification” pandemic. Achievements? Badges? Of course, this will all sound very familiar to anybody who’s ever logged onto Xbox Live or Foursquare. And Rork is unashamed to say th
According to Tom Stafford, the science behind human laughter is more than it’s cracked up to be. So if we want to understand laughter, perhaps we need to go deeper, and look at what is going on in the brain. The areas that control laughing lie deep in the subcortex, and in terms of evolutionary dev