March 2012
11 posts
Video Games: Notes and Reviews: Metro 2033:... →
LOL “It makes it more difficult to aim and close combat is awkward and feels like trying to catch a fish between your legs while looking through binoculars.” Marius, this is one of the funniest metaphors I have ever read. Great job man.
ongameplay:
Metro is clearly an FPS, but a one that can deliver strong atmospheric virtual space. While this is the strongest aspect of the game...
Miniatures: Control & the Self →
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On Ruining Dear Esther
This critical essay originally appeared at Oh No! Video Games!
N.B. In the course of this article, I will ruthlessly spoil Dear Esther, certainly for those who have not experienced it, and in all possibility for some who have.
The haunting landscape of Dear Esther
“There’s nothing better to do here than indulge in contradictions,” says the narrator. His British voice is deep and theatrical,...
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Documenting Play
Here’s a collection of photos I’ve taken recently of people playing around ITU, including some fierce sessions of J.S. Joust, Nordic Game Jam and some matches in the GameLab. You might as well use Flickr’s full screen slideshow. Press play on the sweet jam I provided to further your viewing pleasure.
Original Article
Modern Craftsman: Go take a hike, Norman →
I think one of the biggest flaws of our first semester education was failing to integrate user design concepts and Aarseth’s notion of ergodicity. There seems to be some ambiguity about whether you’re discussing gameplay or design inefficiencies. Consider Suits’ definition of a game:
To play a game is to engage in activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of...
A Blog on Games: The Electric Boogaloo: Perception... →
Really liked that section of Merleau-Ponty in your last essay— I should read some of his stuff. Meanwhile, have you ever read Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Falsity in the Extramoral Sense?” I think you might like it. Full text in English available here.
emilselectricboogaloo:
Yesterday our lecturer Gordon Calleja touched upon the issue of using the metaphors of ‘immersion’...
!GamyGamyGamy!: Justice in Minecraft →
If you’re looking for more about how behavior is constrained in virtual worlds, I suggest Lessig’s Code. The full text is available on Lessig’s site.
gamygamygamy:
While you can built on your own in the creative mode of the game in which you have all the materials the game has already in your possession from the start and start building what you want to build, for example a...
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Play, Carnival, Spectacle:
A few quotes I gathered today that resonate.
“Festival only makes sense when its brilliance lights up the sad hinterland of everyday dullness, and when it uses up, in one single moment, all it has patiently and soberly accumulated.”
âHenri Lefebrve, Quotidienne 2
“It should not be forgotten that worse than the cheat is the one who disdains or refuses to play, ridiculing the...
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Is Emergence a Metaphysical Property?
Yesterday, for Digital Game Theory, we had an excellent guest lecture by Espen Aarseth, the very fellow that fired the starting pistol that began the academic race[1. A race to establish an ego-centric academic citation path dependency; to have one’s terminology widely adopted as the foundations for a new field. Until the dust settles, why not throw one’s hat into the ring?] commonly...
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Radical Minsky?
I had never read all of Marvin Minsky’s seminal essay “Telepresence,” nor had it really sunk in that its venue was venerable sci-fi mag Omni.[1. He thanks Asimov, Heinlein & Sagan in the footnotes!] I was surprised to say the least to read his radical conclusion, shortly after considering telepresence’s possibility for increasing alienation:
Finally, in a strange...
