![[Talk 4/17] Building Worlds While the Actual World Burns](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/size/w800/format/webp/2026/04/Kara-Stone-Joshua-Dawson-Header.png)
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Games, play, and culture with Jamin Warren
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Mangle your nostalgia with E.T. turned city sim
Remember how E.T. made scary aliens into something relateable? Or how exciting it was that other children had a cosmic adventure? Well forget those parts of the movie that you liked, since none of them feature in the new E.T. game for iOS. At VentureBeat, Jeffrey Grubb assures us, at least, that the
Watching inexperienced gamers is hard; not telling them what to do is harder
Ed Smith let his girlfriend play Heavy Rain, and then proceeded to tell her how to play it. I mean, come on! She hadn’t found all the FBI agent’s clues! She hadn’t even examined the body! I try to explain that she’s an FBI agent, that a boy’s been murdered; I’ll be damned if any serial killer is goi
Tourette’s relief through videogames
Mike Schiller at Polygon relates how his daughter found relief from her painful coughing tic through the DS game Planet Puzzle League. Video games allow her to engage her brain in a way that forces her to process and respond to audiovisual stimuli, without the pressure to be evaluated that comes wit
Let your Facebook friends hug you through Likes
MIT scientists found a way to get in physical touch with your Facebook friends: a vest that inflates whens someone likes something you posted on Facebook. Eric Abent at Slash Gear reports: The idea of this vest – which has been dubbed Like-A-Hug – is to simulate the feeling of receiving a hug from y
How a professional prop maker creates a Skyrim helmet
If you’re going to make a real-life Skyrim helmet, you’re all in, man. You might as well document the process. Volpin Props made a video showing the process. Commissioned for Dragon*Con 2012, this helmet was built to accommodate and accent the owner’s beard first and foremost. Originally the client
Voluntary Swedish sensory deprivation inspires iOS app
Simogo games, creator of Beat Sneak Bandit, is working a game called Year Walk, based on a Swedish custom of the same name. Typically a year walk had to be done on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, during the night. Almost all variations involve having to spend a full day inside a dark room. One was
World of Warcraft player deemed unfit for office by IRL looters
In a ridiculous smear campaign, the Republican party of Maine says that Democratic candidate running for that state’s senate is unfit for office because of her “double life” in World of Warcraft (her avatar is above). Their website against her, meant to out her online persona, highlights a few crude
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