Thank the gods for the meta level. If you can’t say anything clever, just talk about not knowing what to say.
Anyway. So a new phase in my life started yesterday, with me taking up my studies in Game Design at the ZHdK. It promises to be quite an interesting time, with interesting people all around. [...]
We Didn’t Playtest This at All is so dumb that it goes around the corner and becomes kind of interesting. It’s kind of like Fluxx, only with less strategy and coherence (and if you know anything about that game, you know it’s already so devoid of strategy as to lack anything like coherence).
Play This Thing! [...]
I was just reading Roger Caillois’ book about games when he brought up the argument that competitions (agôn) are not unlike theatre plays: according to him, they have a dramatic arch, and as such they need an audience. Obviously, that second argument has been refuted by theatre theorists quite some time ago. The competition can [...]
Eigentlich sollte ich über Sennhausers [Achtung, Deppenleerzeichen!] Film Blog ja bloss meine Facharbeit machen und nicht noch drauf rumsurfen, aber dann ist mir plötzlich ein kleiner Nachsatz ins Auge gefallen:
[…] und schliesslich Pro Helvetia-Direktor Pius Knüsel, der die Zeit für gekommen hält, Kultursubventionen für die Erschaffung digitaler Welten bereit zu stellen.
Pardon me. Come again?! Soll [...]
Sonsbeeklive SonsbeekLive is a series of live-action roleplaying events evolving over the Summer of 2008 in the eastern Netherlands. (tags: larp sciencefiction netherlands lang:en) [...]
Yesterday, some friends invited me to see Bodo Wartke. If you haven’t seen him, check him out: he’s really extremely funny, very witty and totally charming. Be warned, though: You should have a pretty firm grip on the German language, otherwise you will miss 80% of his jokes …
For me most interesting to see was [...]
Basically, I got the letter already on friday. But yesterday was Polymanga, so there was no time for blogging. And I didn’t even expect it to arrive that early.
It was already 10pm on friday when my flatmate came into my room. “You’ve got mail” he said. I shrugged – “From whom?”, continuing to slay one [...]
In Deutschland überlegt man sich ernsthaft, Computerspiele zu subventionieren, ähnlich dem Film. ”Nur wenn gute Spiele gefördert werden, haben die schlechten nicht die Bedeutung im Markt”, sagt der Geschäftsführer des Deutschen Kulturrats. Er fordert, dass bereits 2008 mit der Förderung begonnen wird. Computerspiele sind Kunst oder können es zumindest sein.
Ja, der Beitrag ist alt, und ich bin auch nur [...]
Strange that it would take so long for me to realise what one of my biggest gripes about many computer games is: the reset.
Any tabletop game, any story has failure integrated as a possibility, sometimes even as a way to move the story further or give you new options.
Except computer games. Whenever you fail, you’re [...]
Of all the software demonstrated at the iPhone SDK launch yesterday, nothing was more compelling to me than the games. With the addition of the iTunes App Store which will allow iPhone users to purchase and install third-party applications right from the phone, even over the relatively slow connection of the EDGE network, the reward [...]
I just stumbled over a small note in my notebook on spirituality in games. This thought has been inspired by a visit of a church in London1, while they were having mass.
Since I’m note exactly an avid churchgoer, watching the people was quite interesting – most of all the fact that people whenever they would [...]
I wouldn’t want to see the count of slaughtered minions I need to have until I’m at level 70 – but then again, when I’m playing, I’m mostly interested in what I lack until I can complete the quest. It may just be two shades of gray, but it illustrates the job of every good information designer: weighting information by importance, and moving those information pieces accordingly into the fore-, respectively background – and by doing that, new meaning can evolve through the importance those pieces get.
Just wait long enough, and the thing I predicted gets real.
«Wenn du auf mechanische oder fiktionale Beschränkungen stehst, um deinen kreativen Motor in Schwung und deine Mitspieler in die Spur zu bringen, bist du falsch bei The Pool.
…Wenn du schon eine klare Vision der Geschichte hast, die du erzählen möchtest, und dir bei deinen Mitspielern sicher bist, dass sie da mitziehen, dann könnte The Pool das Richtige für dich sein.»
Of course – everyone else blogging about that interview Gamasutra had with Blizzard is fretting about that mysterious team 3…. “World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys.” That explains a lot of things. Not only do they have their own dedicated cinematics team, it is also more than twice as big as the development teams of two of their games!