Mitch Swenson spent some time reporting on the upheaval in Egypt, but found his most meaningful experience playing a videogame in the midst of “Tent City”: Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution in Egypt, means “Freedom Square” in Arabic. And since my January deployment in Cairo, just before
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have released a virtual time machine — for pictures. It’s a super-advanced time-lapse photo system that allows high resolution as well as viewing changes over time such as plants in boom. “With GigaPan Time Machine, you can simultaneously explore space and time at ex
“The world is a playground, and life is pushing my swing.” — Natty Nats
At the the Future of Games conference at UCSC earlier this month, game designer Graeme Devine, known for his work on The 7th Guest and more recently Halo Wars, had some sound advice for designers looking to pull players into the game. He told those in attendance that Star Wars is the best gut check.
Something to think about the next time you boot up Angry Birds HD or Superbrothers: Apple has come bottom of the most comprehensive green league table of technology companies because of its heavy reliance on “dirty data” centres. The list, which is compiled by Greenpeace and released in San Francis
There’s a lot of gaming news out there. We know. It’s tough to keep up. So we’re going to make things easier for you. Here’s what you need to know: 1. There’s a new Wii coming. 2. Rockstar Games has released new screen shots of Max Payne. 3. Minecraft, that Swedish digging sensation, has hit more t
The irony of a series about travelling the world, catching magical creatures, and then battling other trainers having a real life tournament that does those three things is not lost on us. The Pokémon World Championships are coming in August: he US rounds of the 2011 Pokémon Video Game Championship
The man who invented the word robot almost named them “Labori” instead. Close call: As a word, robot is a relative newcomer to the English language. It was the brainchild of a brilliant Czech playwright, novelist and journalist named Karel ?apek (1880-1938) who introduced it in his 1920 hit play, R.
VIdeogame makers spend so much time thinking about the future that sometimes we forget about the past. Wired has an amazing translated piece on the challenges that curators face in preserving old videogames. A must-read for anyone interested in either the curatorial arts or the history of games: In
Jamin had the Intellivision when he was a child. Talk to him in person and watch him tear up. Mashable has more.
A robot and a journalist walk into a bar. The bartender says to journalist, “If you don’t get your act together, robots are going are take your jobs.” FIN But seriously, when a journalist fails to mention a no-hitter in an NCAA baseball game, the first in almost a decade, and a robot program designe
Ryan Bradley (now at Popular Science) did a fascinating essay for our Back to School issue on the inner psychology of babies — and what that means for game designers. In the last 10 years we-and by “we” I mean scientists and academics-have made a fundamental shift in how we think about babies. Paren
Curious what the inside of a Nintendo looks like, piece by piece?
“I think it’s related to the feminist movement, because women had no history. I think a lot of women were looking for history. Technology had no history. You go to painting. You go to any other field and there are many generations before you, but with technology that dealt with art making, it was fr
The fine folks from 5th Cell made us a tee! They made a little game called Scribblenauts. You might have heard it. You can get it here.
PAUSE: Vintage Fresh Prince pic — Zubaz pants, hi-top Nikes, and RBI Baseball for the NES
This $80 NES lunchbox will make you the coolest kid in school. Or someone will beat the living bejeezus out of you to have it. A win either way. [via]
PAUSE: Angry Birds as street art
No joke, I had a dream last night about having dinner with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Roberts. I asked them when they’d be handing down the Supreme Court decision over whether California can criminalize the sale of violent videogames. They laughed. I should’ve shared this information: that it’s ea
Two dashing reviews today! First up, the turn-based goodness of Warlight. It’s not just a Risk-clone. It is a achievement of social communication: True story: A friend of mine was just at the hospital with his mother. She went in for surgery for a tumor-it could be serious, maybe inoperable, or may
PAUSE: Andy Helm’s pixellated Shadow of the Colossus.
Indeed indeed! We’re very fortunate to have a curated page at Kickstarter that lets us highlight cool things that we like (such as this rad trebuchette thing to play Angry Birds on). Check in and again with us to see what we’re interested in. http://www.kickstarter.com/pages/killscreen
About a month ago, we threw a big ole party with the Copenhagen Game Collective in San Francisco in furniture warehouse in the Mission. The results, as you can see, were pretty amazing. We showed games from only Scandinavian game designers and had a lovely DJ set from Victoria Bergsman, formerly
PAUSE: A BioShock illustration is seen through a glass darkly.
A Neo-Geo case made of walnut. [via]
