Jamin Warren founded Killscreen. He produced the first VR arts festival with the New Museum, programmed the first Tribeca Games Festival, the first arcade at the Museum of Modern Art, won a Telly, and hosted Game/Show for PBS.
Christopher Ketcham’s “antimonpolist history of Monopoly” at Harper’s is a great read, a mixture of economic and social theory with a board game everyone knows. There’s a section that describes how the original version of Monopoly, called The Landlord’s Game was designed to teach people the threats
Pig Chase is hands-down one of my favorite projects to emerge over the past year. Designers and researchers at Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) and Wageningen UR have been working on a project to allow farmers to engage with their pigs on more than a “feed me” level. Per the project’s mission, “Thei
At this weekend’s Practice conference at NYU, experimental game designer Chris Bell described the four archetypes that he and the members of thatgamecompany uncovered during the course of development of Journey. It’s something that you’ve probably suspected all along — that the way you play a game m
A very earlier Kickstarter project, James Kochalka and Pixeljam’s collaborative Glorkbot’s Mini Adventure is going on its third year of development. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — we’re all busy people and the team has been eeking out details along the way. James sent me a note about new foota
No subways here in NYC and a lot of debris on the streets. Tom lost power and Joe has no internet. Mine is spotty, so apologies in advance for a light writing day!
The New Yorker goes deep on the Wachowski sibs as prep for their upcoming adaptation of Cloud Atlas. Fascinating little nugget buried below: It was around the time that Larry and Andy saw “2001” that they first directed together: on cassette tape, they read a play inspired by the “Shadow” comic book
As part of the Ludum Dare competition, animator Tom Campbell went all Tom Hanks on his entry by creating Adrift. Skirting the game/non-game conversation for a moment, Adrift falls somewhere between interactive wallpaper and Tamagortchi. You are, well, you and you are stuck on a boat for the foreseea
Burlington, Mass youth program Guard Up, Inc. is teaching kids how to live-action role play. Meghan Gardner told Wired: “This program is designed to engage kids and teens in live, story-based adventures where they play a character in an ongoing storyline.” Sounds like fun to me. As that saying goes,
Sometimes it’s nice to imagine games as occupying the same space as literature. We’re not there yet, but we can do the next best thing with the red pen of revisionism. Author Ernest Hemingway had this to say about the nature of his craft in a 1934 issue of Esquire. I’ve “amended” Hemingway’s words o
How do virtual dogs fit into the larger world of computer-canine interaction? Matt Novak over at Smithsonian has been doing a deep exegesis of The Jetsons because why not. On the introduction of Astro, the robot dog, Novak makes a salient point on why we need robotic pets in the future: In an effort
Christoffer Hedborg is a gameplay programmer for Might and Delight, developers of the charming forthcoming Pid. But apparently he has free time to do explorations of his own. Hedborg has given few details about the nature of his side project Eleven. What we can divine, however, is that it’s very geo
It’s fall. That means you’ve nestled up on your sofa, arranged the magazines on your coffee table in a visually-acceptable arrangement, and will now spend the next dozen consecutive weekends glued to your television. You will be watching sports, playing video games, or hopefully doing things that in
German electronic producer Boyz Noise’s new video transmogrifies your everyday keyboard into a living breathing, um, person. The spot was co-directed by Patrick Jean, who you might remember, directed the phenomenal short Pixels that had old-school videogame characters invading New York City. – – –
If you loved Wing Commander as a kid, you’re in for a treat. The franchise’s creator Chris Roberts teased his new project Space Citizen, a space sim that will apparently reinvigorate the genre and restore its place alongside democracy as mankind’s greatest achievement. He is, of course, crowd-fundi
A bit of late note, but at Maker Faire earlier this month, I caught a glimpse of one of the more ridiculous contraptions at the fest (and this is a place that had an alley dedicated to steampunk.) The winner of the 72-hour hackathon Red Bull Creation, Thumby Wars is the brainchild of the Maker Twins
The finefolks at Kornhaber Brown asked me to come into the studio to talk about indie games for their PBS Offbook series. What they created is one the finest primers on the potential of indie games staring Zach Gage, Leigh Alexander, Eddie Boxerman & Andy Nealen, and Darren Korb. Fun stuff!
Titled “The Most Retro Video Game System Ever,” comedian Adam Conover walks unsuspecting friends through the gas-powered machinations of the Skaris One-Bit. It eerily reminds us of every awful lo-fi project that we find. Indie or just awful? You make the call.
It’s easy to get lost in the sea of indie games these days. At this year’s Independent Games Festival, I found myself treading water when I came across Brighton-based dev Reece Millidge who was nominated for Excellence in Visual Art. It’s a smaller category, but one of my favorites. I’m fan of aesth
From an interview in the Atlantic this week: The Atlantic: It sounds like you’re saying that literary “talent” doesn’t inoculate a writer—especially a male writer—from making gross, false misjudgments about gender. You’d think being a great writer would give you empathy and the ability to understand
Terry Cavanagh’s first iOS game is utterly dizzying. His past titles VVVVVV and At a Distance play with distance and difficulty with easier measures, so it’s no surprise that Cavanagh’s turned up the crazy with Super Hexagon.
