quote out of context
It became a game to find the worm in my foot each morning.
“Revitalizing Dead Culture”
Chris, at The Artful Gamer, muses about the history of gaming:
First, let’s correct a false assumption that often undermines this kind of historical exploration: it does not involve living in the past, it involves living through the past. In history we look at ourselves in the present through the past, and come to understand ourselves as standing in a long genealogy of meaning that pre-exists us. Now that’s a lot to swallow for the modernist who sees him/herself as largely being self-made and sees the past as a sequence of barbaric events that are thankfully left far behind her/him. That kind of modernist philosophy still persists today: we see it in people who cannot understand why Yar’s Revenge, Chrono Trigger or The Faery Tale Adventure are still compelling games. They simply stare blankly at the screen and think to themselves, ‘these graphics sure suck!’.
I love this idea.
It is only in history that we glean meaning, context which vivifies truth. It is this sussing out of history, contiguous connected events, rather than parsing abstractions or isolated particulars (both breeding the solipsism/onanism of modernism), that we are able to bring truth to struggle, to know who we are.
Old Mac Video Games I Love
Do you remember these?
Radical Castle (this one is particularly fantastic)
Colorwar 2008
ze came up with a really fun concept:
During the summer we were divided into discreet units, older kids here, younger kids there, Hiawathans by the lake Tawasenthans by the ropes course, etc… But when it came time for color wars you had no idea who would be on your team. It was a release, and it was viciously fun.
So, for a while I’ve been thinking about how a color war might look online. How would you play tug of war, or other group games that were silly, time limited, and awesome… and more importantly how could you create teams within an already functioning environment to have that same people-mash-up effect that we did at camp.
Twitter seemed perfect. So yesterday AM I posted this tweet, this tweet, and this tweet.
Update: Looks like some of the folks at Coudal Partners are on the Orange Team
the art of play | symposium and arcade
March 31 and April 1, Carnegie Mellon University
Games are now generally acknowledged as culturally significant, comparable with film or television in their economic strength if not their public mindshare. But can they be art?
Jason Rohrer is a clear argument for the answer “yes”. And I wish I could attend the conference to hear him speak. There looks to be a great line-up of corporate and indie game designers, all of whom have done fantastic things. If you go, then I want pictures, video, or your thoughts. You can email the appropriate links here and consider me jealous.
Perfectionism
Jason Rohrer, author of Passage and Gravitation, discusses his difficulties with game design and a new game is born:
The trap of perfectionism is particularly treacherous for computer programmers, since we’re saddled atop of Turing-complete programming languages that are capable of doing almost anything. Every bug is fixable. Every behavioral rough spot can be smoothed over with just a bit more coding, a smidgen of extra special-case logic. Programming isn’t like carving something out of marble, where if your sculpture’s nose is too small, you must either live with it or start over with a fresh block of marble. Our code bases can be massaged indefinitely.
In designing a game to explore this issue, I thought about players tweaking some set of game objects toward a goal, but forcing them to decide how far toward the goal they needed to go. If we give the players multiple sets of game objects and goals, and force them to divide their limited time among these “subprojects,” they will need to make interesting decisions about which projects to polish, which to leave flawed, in which to skip completely. This is quite different from traditional level-based game designs, where players must finish a given level before moving on to a subsequent level.
hat tip to Waxy.org
D&D Flowchart
So kottke linked to an “exposed to D&D early” flowchart. It’s awesome, of course, and I identify with more of the chains than I care to admit. None of this is odd.
What is odd: it’s copywritten by the New York Times.
Er?
Line Rider
It looks like a new Line Rider game will be coming out for the PC, Nintendo DS, and Wii
“The hope only of empty men”
Seven minutes is a platform puzzler about the last seven minutes of your life. You haven’t won unless you see the credits (I haven’t seen the credits yet). And it’s free.
via Indie Games
Return to Dark Castle
I can’t express how important some video games have been to me, much like certain novels. They check mark certain points in my life, adding not only nostalgia (with all its deceptions) but a vividness and urgency towards life and the importance of enjoying good and beautiful things. Strong words, I know. Needless to say, when I saw this trailer I nearly wept.
Returning to Dark Castle means returning to good days, the black and white days of my old Mac Plus. I can say these days are good, despite family drama, since I always knew my father was looking over my shoulder as I was killing vultures with rocks.
Gravitation
Remember Passage? The same author, Jason Rohrer, has created his new game, Gravitation, in much the same style. I am still noodling over it, but I like its feel.
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Crayon Physics Deluxe is a brilliantly simple concept: get the ball to touch a star to advance to the next level. You do this by simply drawing simple machines to exploit real world physics. The video is a must see.
Ms. Pacman
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA1PY8YVk7I[/youtube]
