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.
It’s that time of year again! Occupy Wall Street is back and over 300 protestors were ousted from an attempt to take Union Square Park. As a refresher, OWS was the loose, decentralized organization that claimed Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for several months, sparking protests around the world.
If the skills we learn in games don’t matter, why are they so unforgiving? NYU professor Jesper Juul and Jamin Warren talk about why we can’t hide from failure in games.
In what I am convinced is an ode to The Sun Also Rises,Surprise Bullfight features both surprises and bullfighting. Unsurprisingly, the game comes from the twisted and bizarre talent Mark Essen and adds another strange feather to the hat of the Adult Swim games network.
Paul Hughes has been making Dungeons and Dragons art at his blog for years so he wanted to generate a way for others to do so easily as well. The following project ensued: This intricately illustrated 36″ by 24″ playable dungeon map poster encapsulates the Dungeon Master’s Guide’s complete rules for
Passage is a game about love, loss, life, and separation. Canabalt is about a man trying to get away. So naturally Sergio Cornaga thought the two should be blended to make Passagebalt. File this one under game as punchline. I made it to age 66 before dying alone. You basically run, age, and die. I’m
KS contributor and British cartoonist Louis Roskosch has a new graphic novel out entitled Leeroy and Popo. Leeroy is an an unemployed bear and spends his days smoking weed with dino pal Popo. (You had me at unemployed bear): In Leeroy and Popo, we join the dilatory duo as they overcome obstacles as
Video Russian art collective Pprofessors have taken to the streets of Moscow with dozens of giant red pixel people engaging in various activities like flying planes and, um, just sitting. Reminds me a bit of the work of Mark Jenkins, only more ominous. You can see more of their work on their LiveJou
At SXSWi last week, a comment from Ben Terret, head of design for the UK Government Digital Service, had particularly resonance for us gameplaying folks. The panel was titled “The New Aesthetic: Seeing Like Digital Devices” and walked through the myriad of ways that our understanding of modern reali
One of our new favorite Kickstarters is for the audaciously delicious Velociraptor! Cannibalism! some Philadelphia-based board game makers: Velociraptor! Cannibalism! is a card game of survival, mutation, and the occasional volcano. Based on a crude understanding of natural selection,Velocipator! Ca
Over at Buzzfeed, John Herman notes that the introduction of new retina displays for the iPad is giving mobile app designers pause about a previously overlooked design element: fonts. He points to the app Readability’s licensing of fonts from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, one of the most establish foundrie
Video Brad Crawford has a trailer for his new documentary titled 100 Yen. There aren’t a ton of details but in his words: 100 Yen is a historical documentary about the evolution of arcades and the culture surrounding it – from the birth of arcades to the game centers that still thrive today. With a
Ok, so maybe this isn’t a game per se, but after taking a peek at Bloom’s Biologic at SXSWi this year, I thought it’d merit a mention. In a panel on “The Contemplative Power of Play” featuring ngmoco’s Justin Hall and thatgamecompany’s Robin Hunicke, Ben Ceverny discussed how games can help as get a
As a fan of games, you probably wonder “Why don’t big publishers like to take risks with new properties?” A look at this year’s titles certainly bears that out — Halo 4, Borderlands 2, Diablo III. These are all retreads of reliable winners, but there’s nothing new on the horizon. At this year’s DICE
Is nothing sacred? We all witnessed mankind’s defeat to the device known as Watson on our beloved Jeopardy!. Then there was Deep Blue’s crushing blow to chessmaster Garry Kasparov’s spirits. Now there’s Dr. Fill, according to the NY Times. Created by an AI guru and Oxford Ph.D holder, Dr. Fill can c
Author Helen DeWitt was asked by a journalist about books that she’s re-read during her lifespan. What ensued was a 5000 word list of her favorites — but more notably, she outlines how that book had changed from her initial read to her subsequent re-read (or rerereread as it were). She explains: Rer
The critically championed Journey can be taken together or solo. Either way, it’s arguably an interpersonal desert, due to creative decisions that leave little to the imagination. Here’s why.
Since Apple recently agreed to let independent auditors into their suppliers’ factories, Buzzfeed editor Matt Buchanan decided to ask some other tech companies if they’d do the same. He received no response from Sony but Microsoft was a bit more forthcoming, though they wouldn’t be taking the same l
For those who’ve toyed with the difficulty of games like Spelltower or QWOP, we know our relationship to our keyboards can be challenging. Over at Wired, Dave Mosher points to a new study that suggests that where words are may have effects on how we think of them. To be more precise, a new study fr
Leave it up to Radiolab to ruin everything. In a blog post, Robert Krulwich pointed out something that’s old news to scientists. The color we know as pink is just a combo of two existing colors, red and violet, and as such does not actually exist on the rainbow. Bummer. he goes on: I know, of course
In 1977, Tandy released a desktop computer called the TRS-80 which quickly became a hit with hobbyists and tinkerers. One of those was Jim McGinley who gave perhaps one of my favorite talks of GDC this year so far about the “lost” game designs of the TRS-80. What’s fascinating is how well some of th
“Enjoying making something leads to making something enjoyable,” Nintendo game director of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3D Land Koichi Hayashida closed his GDC talk yesterday. But last year’s devastating earthquake made the process difficult. Against the bleak backdrop of the the date of one
Can games really do anything? That’s been the messaging over the last year or so since the release of Jane Mcgonigal’s Reality is Broken. But is that really so? At a talk at today’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, game designer Margaret Robertson outlined some of difficulties they faced
Michel McBride-Carpentier’s new title Bauhaus Break is a “casual drop & match game for iOS influenced by Set and Drop7, with a Constructivist art style.” It’s also a bit tough as you have to match similar object by similarity or difference. But the aesthetic sensibility is quite the highlight as Mc-
Renaud Hallée wrote us about the protoype of his new game “Tambour.” The visuals are sparse, but the concept is fascinating. Two drummers, one battle. Each player sends armies of notes against the other to vie for rhythmic supremecy. Take a look. Video -Jamin Warren
