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design from a long time ago

recent posts

  1. Sven's avatar
  2. Unknown's avatar

    I’m one of the author’s in the 2022 opdc (didn’t win anything, still trying to bear up under the shame…

  3. Arya's avatar
  4. Max Clark's avatar
  5. Kfix's avatar

    Thank you for this very interesting collection, and for wrestling with the obviously mixed feelings on this anniversary. And thank…

Category: Meaning

  • GDC 2008 – Part One – My Slides

    Finally got around to posting my slides from both the Game Designer’s Rant and my Immersion talk. You can grab them over on the right along with all the presentations I have ever done. You don’t need my permission to give these presentations to your coworkers or students or do whatever the hell you want…

  • Can a computer game make you cry?

    Yes. (thanks to Pat who sent the link)

  • Festival du Nouveau Cinema Presentation

    So I had the opportunity to give a presentation at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema here in Montreal yesterday. The theme of this years Festival was ‘Immersion’ and much of the Festival was devoted to exploring new techniques in displaying film (360 degree projection, 3d, etc), and as a component of the Festival they did…

  • Harvey Smith Interview

    Last month there was a short interview with Harvey Smith in Game Developer that I really enjoyed, though I thought it was pretty short. Fortunately – it was short – as in a condensed version of a much longer (and much more interesting) interview on Gamasutra. Kudos to Harvey for making a game that says…

  • Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock

    The problem of what the game is about [traduit en francais ici] About a year ago, I praised Ian Bogost's critique of Bully and lamented the unfortunate lack of game criticism, as distinct from game reviews. Roughly speaking, we could say game criticism is for game developers and professionals who want to think about the…

  • Virtual Minefields

    This amusing story of how Minesweeper was updated for Vista floated across my desk the other day. The post is a year old now, but worth a read. With all the effort we expend trying to expand our audience beyond the rather easy-to-please domain of teenage boys and young men, I wonder how much we…

  • Vederman Throws Down the Gauntlet

    So for those who don’t already know, my game grabbed the cover of PC Gamer (US) for our exclusive unveiling. It’s the October Issue, on shelves now. It’s packed with details, well written, and I think the smart lay-out really leverages some of the look and feel elements we’re shooting for in the game, which…

  • On Authorship in Games

    Not that long ago, famed film critic Roger Ebert stated that games are not, and indeed, cannot be, art. Recently, following up on a response made by author/game convergence guy Clive Barker at the Hollywood And Games Summit, Ebert clarified his claims. Ebert’s basic argument is that art requires authorship, and that games abdicate authorship…

  • Smith -vs- God

    Well, I guess if you really believe in abdicating authorship, disagreeing with the church is as good a place as any to draw the line given that they’ve thrown in their chips with the biggest author of ’em all. Sarcasm aside, I’m glad Harvey stood up and fired back on this, because this whole thing…

  • Hollywood’s Bloody Ballet – What Game Design Can Learn From 300

    OrIf We Would Just Kneel – And Why We’d Rather Die For all of the lip service we pay to the notion of convergence, how many of us really understand what it means? Most often in the game industry convergence is used exclusively to refer to the coming together of games and movies. More ideally,…