A chapbook of game poems for Atari VCS, PC, and Mac
among the “Ten Most Anticipated Games of the Year” —Voxy “Excellent and completely out there.” —Wired “A Slow Year takes zen inspiration a step further, with four interactive haiku.” —Boing Boing Winner of the Virtuoso and Vanguard awards 2010 Indiecade Festival A Slow Year is a collection of four games, one for each season, about the experience of observing things.… read more
My Spring 2010 seminar
Some of you might be interested in this, the course description for my Spring 2010 graduate seminar/studio course, LCC 8823 Special Topics in Game Design and Analysis: The Atari Video Computer System: Hacks and Demakes In this intensive seminar, we will explore every aspect of the Atari VCS (2600), the most important early home videogame console. Based on a critical-technical… read more
Thoughts on Education, Research, and Progress
I recently read Paul Lockhart’s incredible essay “A Mathematician’s Lament” [PDF]. Lockhart, a mathematics teacher at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, wrote the piece in 2002, but it wasn’t published until last year, on Keith Devlin’s monthly column. “A Mathematician’s Lament” begins with the nightmares of a musician and a painter, both horrified to see their art forms turned into… read more
A Visit to the Bestiary
When I was a philosophy undergraduate student, I had a life-changing experience in a class on the philosophy of language. It was a good class, as undergraduate classes tend to be: I learned the basics of a subject had known little about previously. The course was taught by a newly minted PhD whose specialty was that subject. She was young… read more
So good for beautiful people
On last week’s episode of Mad Men (season 3, episode 4), the fictional Sterling Cooper ad agency shot a TV spot for the then-new diet cola Patio. 1962-3 was the year of diet soda, with the introduction of RC Cola’s Diet Rite, Pepsi’s Patio and Coca Cola’s TaB. As often happens after the show, I found myself pondering old products… read more
On the British Government's neglect of Alan Turing's role in the history of computation
In the winter of 1952, Alan Turing called on the Manchester police to investigate a break-in at his house. He suspected an estranged lover was responsible and, being the earnest man that he was, reported his suspicion to the police. The problem was, Turing’s lover was Arnold Murray. Homosexuality was illegal in the UK, and Turing was convicted of gross… read more
My DiGRA 2009 Keynote, on Videogames and Ontology
What follows is the text of my keynote at the 2009 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference, held in Uxbridge, UK September 1-4, 2009. The text corresponds fairly accurately to the address I gave at the conference. In a few cases, I’ve added some clarifications in square brackets, where additional context or commentary was relevant. Videogames are a mess So… read more
My Position Paper on Game Criticism, DiGRA 2009
At the 2009 Digital Games Research Association conference, I participated in a panel organized by David Thomas, “You Played That? Game Studies Meets Game Criticism.” The other panelists were William Huber, Margaret Robertson, and José Zagal. The panel posed the following question: What is game criticism? How should the academy claim its place alongside game journalism as a productive voice… read more
New Book Reviews
Some recent book reviews, one each of all my books: First, LB Jeffries wrote about Unit Operations at Pop Matters. It’s nice to see that title getting covered outside of the usual academic venues. Second, from Jennifer deWinter an extensive review of Persuasive Games, including a blow-by-blow for each section and chapter. This review is gratifying because it sits squarely… read more
The Politics of Play in Military Video Games
Routledge has just published Joystick Soldiers, a new book about military videogames edited by Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne. I wrote the foreword for the book, so I suppose I have to admit that my recommendation comes partly on those grounds. Still, as I wrote in the foreword, the book “both embraces and resists the role of militarism… read more