Archive for October, 2009

Sneaky Cards

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

I really love this game idea: cards with objectives on, that you have to sneak into people’s possession, ideally and most elegantly by reverse-pickpocketing.
(via Boing Boing TV, via someone on Twitter I think)

Gamers Used To Look Inarticulate

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Interesting snippet from this MCV interview with Charlie Brooker. He mimed the bits in Gameswipe* where he’s supposed to be playing and talking to camera, because it’s almost impossible to play a game and be articulate at the same time. This did not reflect well on gamers in early TV coverage:
*Youtube link likely to go [...]

Dieting With Game Mechanics

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

One of the things I sometimes talk about on stage is that game mechanics can make a massive difference to an experience. Even the most trivial and arbitrary rule set can suddenly become incredibly compelling, when people have targets to aim for, a measurement to compete with, or just some rules that allow people to [...]

3 Year Olds Can Separate Fiction

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

This is interesting and somewhat relevant to videogames: At least two studies of very young children have found they can easily separate fictional worlds from each other.
While this isn’t an argument against there being any link between violent behaviour and violent games, it does shoot down one of the more inflammatory and patently idiotic aspects [...]

Only One Man…

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Australia’s refusal of any rating for 18+ content of games boils down to the resistance of one bloke: Michael Atkinson, attorney-general for South Australia. He’s convinced that playing violent games has a bad effect on people, despite not having a shred of solid evidence to show for his claim.
Pause on that for a second: [...]