![[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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Brainworth wants to turn learning computer science into a game
An ambitious Kickstarter project called Brainworth wants to make a set of games that will teach principles of computer science. Games in development have players developing an AI to play Snake for them and making behavior trees. You could just play RoboZZle if you like ordering commands, but a frien
A game that will keep children indoors for hours, where they belong
The upcoming PS3 game Puppetter looks a little like LittleBigPlanet, with its bright style and paper-like visuals. But the game has more than a little Tim Burton in it. Game director Gavin Moore tells Wired his inspiration for the game: Basically, I’m making this game for my [eight-year-old] son. I
Steam’s Greenlight no longer allows listing by most popular
Steam’s Greenlight system, where users vote on the games they’d like to see sold on Steam, has stopped listing the most popular games. Hiding this information suggests that Valve wants users to vote for games not based on how popular they are, but if they look cool. It also means that developers can
EA used college athletes’ real names in development of NCAA bball game
Anyone who plays college sports videogames will know the absurd experience of playing as athletes modeled faithfully in appearance and ability after current college players, who are referred in the game to only by number. This, of course, is a consequence of the NCAA’s prohibition against amateur at
What we talk about when we talk about Japanese "adult" games
1UP has a great take on the prurient Western conversation about Japanese sex games. This thoughtful piece both examines what our obsession with “perverted” Japan says about us, and the actual place of these games in Japanese culture. For the interested, a great companion piece is Richard Bernstein’s
Everything is fine with the Tokyo Game Show, insists Tokyo Game Show organizer
Over at Wired, a really good look at the pared-down Tokyo Games Show, which Microsoft did not attend for the first time in god knows how long, which featured a lot more “social and smartphone games” (read: NURT REEL GMEZ d00d) and a which ended in a well-attended rearranging-the-deck-chairs-contest.
Sonic creator to games industry: stop making so many sequels, consarnit!
Remember yesterday when I wrote “this is an industry in which creating a new story and a new set of characters is now considered a flamboyant risk”? Neither do I. But Yuji Naka, in this illuminating interview with the Verge, voices much the same sentiment. Imagine how sad it would be if great direct
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