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PAUSE: this is your cat on Yu-Gi-Oh!
Hats off to BuzzFeed for curating the finest-quality cat material on the internet. But this one is especially relevant. I mean, this kid doesn’t even need an iPad to play with his cat. [BuzzFeed]
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Do videogames abet cyberbullying?
As the recent resolution of the case following Tyler Clementi’s harassment and suicide illustrates, regulating online spaces is a difficult (if not impossible) task with potentially fatal consequences. Harder still is drawing the line between legitimate hate crimes and “cyber bullying,” which has st
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That’s right, Martha Stewart is coming to CastleVille.
Just when I thought Zynga’s place in the game industry couldn’t get any weirder or more contentious, Mashable gave me this little gem: Martha Stewart is setting up house on Facebook. From now until mid-April, players of Facebook gameCastleVille will be able to interact with a virtual (and much young
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PAUSE: A tour through 8-bit videogame history in Snafu’s new music video.
Video Sna-fu Grand Désordre Orchestre‘s new music video for their song “Dreamorama” first seems like it’s just making a kitschy reference to 8-bit nostalgia. But as the video (made by French filmmaker Pierre Manry) progresses, the arcade history it pulls out is impressively comprehensive—making refe
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Can videogames be overtly philosophical?
A few years back, Ian Bogost began writing a 3-part series asking if one could ever build a “metaphysics videogame.” Part 2 was published shortly thereafter, leading with the promising question: “what kind of videogame” would such a philosophical inquiry make? Unfortunately we never saw the final po
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How do you design a demon? Try asking Blizzard.
Designing for a franchise that has spanned much of PC-gaming’s history must be a daunting task, especially given the controversial reaction Blizzard was met with when they first unveiled Diablo III’s heavily World of Warcraft-inspired look. Just look at the shift from Diablo II’s final horned monste
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Cheat Sheet 3/27: Robert Bowling leaves Activision, Another BioShock enemy, and Rovio moving forward
Here’s today’s wrap up of mainstream gaming news: – Activision’s Creative Strategist Robert Bowling, also known as “fourzerotwo” has resigned from his position. – The BioShock: Infinite team has revealed yet another of the big bad guys: The Siren. In other news, the movie has once again been put on
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Play of the Day: Epic sax swinging in Epic Sax Game
Kill Screen contributor, comics artist, academic, and high-concept game maker Pippin Barr debuts a new game today. It’s called Epic Sax Game and it’s a glorious feat of keyboard jamming, Guitar Hero spoofage, paint-by-MIDI, and Eurovision homage. Check out this video (at your own risk) to see/hear t
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U.S. Rep. Joe Baca undeterred by videogames’ First Amendment protection
Videogaming has a cycle of ebbs and flows—there’s a season for a slew of high-profile games for the holidays, a season for late-summer doldrums sprinkled with arcade and indie offerings, and a season for U.S. Representative Joe Baca, Democrat of California’s 43rd District, to introduce unconstitutio
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PAUSE: Chris Burden’s kinetic toy car sculpture comes to life.
Video We mentioned performance artist Chris Burden’s new installation Metropolis II, now showing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, once before, but we just discovered this video, directed by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, that walks us through the work. Per LACMA’s description: Metropolis II
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How much money would you skip to not work at Zynga? One developer explains his tough decision.
Shay Pierce was a developer at OMGPOP, creator of the immensely popular Draw Something, and was faced with a dilemma. Now that Zynga had acquired his company, should he join the mothership or stay behind? It was Tuesday night. News of the acquisition had been relayed to me only hours before. On Mond
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Indie muse Daniel Johnston’s new iPad game/app/thing features Decemberists, Shins, Yo La Tengo.
Daniel Johnston, Texas indie muse and king of the hand-drawn album cover, has released a new iPad app called Space Ducks to coincide with the release of his new graphic novel. It is, of course, “intergalactic saga of epic proportions that will make you rethink life, death, existence, and your place