![[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)
15 years of the best of game-based arts and culture
Games, play, and culture with Jamin Warren
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Writing emails, playing Pong with your eyes.
Because augmented reality glasses should probably be for those who actually need them, researches continue developing more economical solutions for suffers of debilitating strokes and spinal-cord injuries, Engadget reports. These glasses track eye movement with $35 worth of parts. The tracker works
The stolen likeness of one Johnny Cage.
As early as 1992, games were mapping human faces onto screens. Mortal Kombat was one of these games, and its first actor was Daniel Pesina. Verge has the story of how one game design student ran into Pesina accidentally as he was teaching martial arts. The gracious game actor agreed whole-heartedly
The unseen, unspoken ethics in NYC pickup basketball.
A feature in yesterday’s NY Times charts the tale of an amateur baller who found his way to Brooklyn from Florida via Portland, seeking “the city’s mythical ownership of pickup basketball.” Intent on discovering the “city’s truths” in basketball, Isaac Eger found out how to take a hit, dance around
When killing avatars is justified.
In his review of the pseudo-subversive Spec Ops: The Line for Grantland, famed game writer Tom Bissell lists 13 potential reasons why we play a genre of games whose volume of violence surpasses that of most mediums up to this point. From passages to personal stories to jotted notes, the review is as
Humor, the purest form of play, explained by The New Yorker’s cartoon editor.
Humor is poorly understood—and frequently misunderstood. Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor for The New Yorker, posted an article yesterday that touched upon play and humor. And that episode of Seinfeld. Whether we find a comic funny or not, he says, is determined by the degree and nuance with which th
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