An ambitious Kickstarter project called Brainworth wants to make a set of games that will teach principles of computer science. Games in development have players developing an AI to play Snake for them and making behavior trees. You could just play RoboZZle if you like ordering commands, but a frien
The upcoming PS3 game Puppetter looks a little like LittleBigPlanet, with its bright style and paper-like visuals. But the game has more than a little Tim Burton in it. Game director Gavin Moore tells Wired his inspiration for the game: Basically, I’m making this game for my [eight-year-old] son. I
Steam’s Greenlight system, where users vote on the games they’d like to see sold on Steam, has stopped listing the most popular games. Hiding this information suggests that Valve wants users to vote for games not based on how popular they are, but if they look cool. It also means that developers can
Fanfiction is easier to write than regular fiction, because the characters and world are already invented. For the Adventure Time Game Jam last weekend, having a ready-made universe let jammers focus on making games! Here are three of my favorites: Noire Time There’s not much to do, but the pixel ar
Big publishers have their eyes on Kickstarter, the crowdsourcing phenomenon, and want a piece of the action. Obsidian Entertainment’s CEO Feargus Urquhart, whose Project Eternity has been immensely successful, tells one such story on the project’s Kickstarter forum: We were actually contacted by som
Speaking of gamification, which can help motivate people to do boring things, it’s a useful way to learn a language. Learning Japanese kanji, especially, requires a lot of memorization. Koichi and Viet, who are associated with the Japanese culture blog Tofugu, are developing a kanji-learning website
Gamification can help motivate us to do boring things, whether it’s working out or engaging in social media. Over at Bit Creature, Lana Polansky explains how gamification is great for motivating us, but can detach us from emotions and feelings that make life interesting. We simply can’t have experie
Anna the Red makes ridiculously detailed bento boxes. She’s done bentos of Calvin and Hobbes, Totoro, and now, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. The making-of video shows all the tweezing and exacto-knifing that went into this meal.