Om for Atari and iPhone
After two years of off and on development, I’ve just released my relaxation game Guru Meditation, simultaneously for Atari VCS and iPhone. The game is a re-imagining of and homage to old Amiga lore, an exploration of what a game that legitimately deals with inactivity would feel like, and (through the iPhone version), an exploration of attention and compromise in… read more
A medititation game for Atari VCS and iPhone
Guru Meditation is my attempt to create a legitimate zen meditation game. It is also partly (perhaps largely) a reimagining of and homage to the Amiga lore, and for that reason I wrote it in 6502 assembly for the Atari VCS, so that it could be played with a joyboard, an unusual “joystick for the feet” manufactured by Amiga in… read more
Notes on Nick Montfort
Two quick notes relating to friend and Racing the Beam coauthor Nick Montfort. First, he has a new blog, Post Position, which already boasts a number of insightful posts on games, IF, constraint, and other topics that will probably interest you if you are reading my site. Second, as Nick noted in passing in one of his post positional posts,… read more
CRT Emulation for the Atari VCS
This spring, I had the pleasure of advising a Georgia Tech Computer Science capstone group. The capstone is a requirement for the degree that is meant to draw on all aspects of the students’ experience in the program. Each project requires an advisor and a customer. In my case, I played both roles. The project I came up with was… read more
CRT Emulation for the Atari VCS
One of the main themes of Racing the Beam is the strong affinity between the Atari VCS and the CRT television. The system was designed around the TV and it interfaces with that display in an unusual and specific way. In today’s world of huge, sharp LCD monitors, it’s hard to remember what a videogame image looked like on an… read more
On "Bushnell's Law" and why it is misunderstood. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra
Here’s a game design aphorism you’ve surely heard before: a game, so it goes, ought to be “easy to learn and hard to master.” This axiom is so frequently repeated because it purports to hold the key to a powerful outcome: an addicting game, one people want to play over and over again once they’ve started, and in which starting… read more
Where to find me this week
It’s time again for the Game Developers Conference. Here’s my speaking schedule for those of you who might be interested. Serious Games Summit. Monday-Tuesday, all day, Room 3007, Moscone West. I co-organized the summit with Ben Sawyer, which means you can blame us if the content isn’t to your liking. Where Were the Election Games?, Monday, 2:10p-3:10p, Room 3007, Moscone… read more
Michael Agger has written a nice piece in Slate about the Atari and Nick and my book Racing the Beam. The article does a great job characterizing the book and what we hoped to do with it. My favorite part comes at the end when Agger wonders aloud if a similar book could be written about the Nintendo Entertainment System… read more
The Atari in the Boston Globe
The Boston Globe today features an interview with Nick Montfort, my Racing the Beam co-author, about the Atari VCS and our new book. My favorite part of the interview is reproduced below: IDEAS: People … are still creating 2600 cartridges? MONTFORT: At this point, it’s sort of more like zines as opposed to commercial book publishing. It’s on a different… read more
The nice folks over at Hatchet Job had me on their podcast this week. You can listen to it on their website, or subscribe via iTunes. Topics covered include the Atari, games and activism, Karl Marx, ice cream, and. It’ll be up to you to judge how my reputation emerged, but there’s no denying those cats did a hatchet job… read more