A great perceptive piece on “barely games”, imagination, collecting and play. Not so sold on the speculation as to how to manufacture these kinds of experiences, but recognising and understanding them is definitely important.
Spoilerific. But yeah, that level does not belong in the OTT context of the surrounding game. Also, a straight “you are the bad guy” might have worked, but what they’ve done instead weakens it IMHO.
A great look back at the context of the original Call of Duty. Infinity Ward still seem to be doing thought provoking set pieces, but the new additions of eminem-soundtracked hoo-rah sentiment are a bit saddening (especially when taken alongside Bioware’s recent marketing travesties).
Lord British takes time off from his space-faring career to show off a fraction of his collection of Automatons on the Halloween edition of the Martha Stewart show.
A study & exercise based tutorial on ruby metaprogramming. Seems like a nice idea, and well produced.
Looks like a nice place to work. If only every office had a library of tech books, SF & fantasy books, boardgames, role-playing games, and video games.
One of a series of 360-degree wrap-around illustrations from kozyndan.
Slides and notes from a talk on randomness in game design by Greg Costikyan (of Toon, Paranoia & Star Wars RPG fame).
Crazy sounding Windows virtualization method. Run sandboxed software directly from the web, with no need for an install, and no conflicts with existing versions.
Board game news and reviews site from Robert Florence, better known for the cult videogame review shows Consolevania and VideoGaiden.