15 years of the best of game-based arts and culture
Games, play, and culture with Jamin Warren
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Is swordplay in videogames anything like the real thing?
The sword has a special allure. Who hasn’t imagined being an expert duelist or grabbed a friend and sparred with a couple of sticks? Videogames are often the manifestations of our fantasies, an attempt to fulfill our dreams in a virtual version of a reality we wished we were capable of. They allow
Capcom to release fan-developed Mega Man fighting game for free
So what do you do if you’re Capcom and somebody makes a Mega Man–Street Fighter homage? You could: A) Do what other big companies do and leverage lawsuits to squash the release and dissemination of the game. or B) Release the game for the creator. Generate a ton of buzz (positive instead of the neg
"Of the $50 billion that was spent worldwide last year on games, less than 10 percent was spent on casual content"
-Greg Richardson, CEO of Rumble Entertainment, at the Game Monetization Summit. It’s a common argument that doomsaying about the state of the game industry fails to take into account digital games, the total sales of which are pretty much unknown. If casual experiences only represent 10 percent of a
Episode 3 of Kill Screen explains why cars in Forza are just big wind instruments
Last month, I travelled to Redmond to visit the offices of Turn 10, the home of the Forza franchise. I’ve never been a big racing games fan (outside of karts, of course), but much like sports games, I’m interested in the design challenges involved in making games like those. With racing games, espec
Help genius neuroscientists map the brain with a game
Sometimes I want pizza and sometimes I want donuts; the brain is a mystery. Thankfully there are some scientists out there who are tired of our animistic scratchings and Freudian guesswork and are actually trying to figure out how the old brain box does its job. Right now some of the very best are f
The crazy games they played in the USSR because they couldn’t play ours
Today, Russia makes atmospheric and weird games like Metro 2033, still available for free by liking THQ’s page on Facebook. Back in the wine-stain birthmark days, when playing American games was niche-niche, they played an arcade submarine-battle game called Morskoi Boy, which was not made in a game
Are cutscenes ever really necessary?
This video, from Extra Credits, does a terrific job assembling the case against cutscenes: they’re never as good as real movies, they take the player out of the game, they frequently violate the rules of the game, etc. The author’s point that it’s wrong to tell a designer to never use cutscenes is w
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