15 years of the best of game-based arts and culture
Games, play, and culture with Jamin Warren
Become a subscriberSee what I’ve written lately
PAUSE: Redecorate with these 8-bit console paintings.
Filling your house, apartment, or general TV-area with countless consoles can often descend into a chaos of mismatched wired and scratched discs. Needless to say, it doesn’t look too pretty. Now thanks to Etsy seller BiscottoCotto and the popularization of the fine art of spriting, you can adorn you
Scientists unfold brain trafficking patterns to achieve "maximum alertness."
It’s no wonder all those hours fly by in front of your console: your brain is wired to avoid distraction. Graduate psychology students at UC Davis have found that the brain, rather than working harder to stay focused, actually constructs new pathways for information dissemination “so that task-relev
NO PING PONG BALLS REQUIRED: This 6-pack has a built in drinking game.
Student John-John Skoog has designed beer packaging that doubles as a drinking game. That’s because the box folds out into a board game. Here’s his description: 6 beers and a boardgame – yet same weight as before. Simply flatten the box into the game, and use your bottle-caps as the game pieces. Dic
SSX Developers scan NASA satellite images into game world
EA Canada have turned to an unlikely source for help building tracks in the new SSX title; namely, NASA. Data from the Aster Global Digital Elevation Map, a joint project between NASA and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade have been uploaded into EA Canada’s Mountain Man level building
PAUSE: Gamers sketch the virtual spaces they grew up in.
The well-walked paths of our childhood leave a lasting impression on us. This seems true of the virtual spaces we moved through too: A new tumblr blog, Mapstalgia, showcases videogame maps drawn from memory. They range in detail from crude to mathematically exacting, but all show a tenderness for th
Independent Games Festival picks a surreal lineup of student games.
The Independent Games Festival, the videogame equivalent to Sundance, except without all the stars, has recognized 13 innovative games made by students last year. These include a game in which you play as a magic moth (Dust), a game about ballroom dancing in outer space (Once Upon a Spacetime), an i
