What the state of women in Hollywood's tells us about women in games
Today I listened to NPR On Point on the ride home. The topic was “A big year for Hollywood women?”, with film critics Manohla Dargis and Nicole LaPorte discussing (and deflating) recent buzz about the “Year of the Woman” in movies. If you listen to the show online, you’ll be struck by how much the conversation about women in film… read more
Will XBLA's Game Room ever support new games for old systems?
Back when the Nintendo Wii first came out, I wrote about a hope for it, specifically for its Virtual Console feature. Here’s what I said: Without exception, the Virtual Console has been touted as a digital distribution channel for new games and “classic” games from vintage consoles. But the Virtual Console suggests an application for serious and independent games that… read more
My game among the Nuovo category finalists
The Independent Game Festival (IGF) has announced finalists for the 2010 competition. I’m happy to say that my game A Slow Year is among the finalists in the Nuovo category, designed “to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games.” The Nuovo jury has also issued a statement about their… read more
Making books appealing
Harman offers his thoughts on the virtues of short books, with a mention of the conversation he and I had in Cairo about the constraints of the Atari and how they relate metaphorically to book authoring. The flavor of the genial teasing seems to be “haha, getting lazy there, aren’t you?” But in fact, it is harder work to compress… read more
Mark Fisher on discipline and pedagogy
I read Mark Fisher’s excellent little book Capitalist Realism this week. It’s a short book long on insights, many of which provoked me, some of which I disagreed with, and a few of which I want to share. Here’s the first of the latter kind, from a discussion of the post-disciplinary nature of contemporary higher education. Ask students to read… read more
Abstract puzzle games and the mathematical sublime. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.
I want to discuss two excellent abstract puzzle games for the iPhone: Drop7 by Area/Code and Orbital by Bitforge. But there’s a problem: it’s hard to talk about abstract puzzle games, particularly about why certain examples deserve to be called excellent. Sure, we can discuss their formal properties, or their sensory aesthetics, or their interfaces. We can talk about them… read more
Electronic Arts Eyes the South
You may have heard that Electronic Arts is considering opening a large studio in Georgia, either in Atlanta or Savannah. Many of us in the area had heard rumblings about this, but the Atlanta Business Chronicle filed the first official story on the matter late last week. Georgia has offered tax incentives for film production for many years, and a… read more
Promotional Materials for Think Inside the Box
Nick Montfort and I are giving a lecture tomorrow (Friday) at UC Irvine, as a part of the Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds lecture series. The talk, held at 4pm in Donald Bren Hall, covers aspects of Racing the Beam and platform studies. All of that’s just context so I can show you the awesome poster Liz Losh… read more
A definition for ordinary folk
Recently I was speaking to a writer about my recent work. She’s doing a feature for a local magazine on creativity research and design practice in the region. I’ve been fortunate to get a lot of press over the years, and it’s become increasingly important to me to find ways to make my work comprehensible and applicable to a general… read more
Exhibiting Guru Meditation
I spent part of today assembling and testing Guru Meditation cartridges. Some are bound for collectors, but I’m also readying one to ship off to Slovenia for exhibition at Pixxelpoint 2009, the 10th International New Media Art Festival. The theme of the show is “Once Upon a Time in the West,” and it focuses on work made for “obsolete” platforms.… read more