My links and notes for this day

• • Braid: Unforgiven. (Semifat Sediment)
    "Being able to go back and fix your mistakes is not the same as being forgiven for them. Maybe that’s what all those storybooks were trying to tell us." Lovely.
    (tags: braid difficulty games writing )
  • Social Networks: The Case for a "Pause" Button | 43 Folders
    "If you’re an adult who’s at a place in life where you need to pretend you’re interested in people whom you are not actually interested in, then “fake following” should be more than adequate for your needs. But, if you’re here to actually read things and to enjoy the thoughts, photos, and opinions of actual people who have good and bad streaks, it wouldn’t hurt to have an easy way to hit “snooze” for a while." Merlin Mann is very sensible.
    (tags: friendfeed socialnetworking friends friending interaction broken fixed merlinmann )
  • Feministe » Hair-pulling and braid-weaving
    "It seems to me that Tim and the nameless characters of the epilogue represent archetypes of some kind. They don’t stand in for every man and woman, certainly, but they’re emblematic of a certain kind of dysfunctional relationship, one where “I’ll protect you” turns into “I’ll control you.”" A smart, sharp reading of Braid, that understands its gameiness.
    (tags: braid games criticism writing critique narrative )
  • QuirksBlog: iPhone events
    "The mouse is a continuous pointing device; the finger is discontinuous. That’s a profound difference that I wish I were able to clearly understand and explain." PPK on how MobileSafari responds to Javascript's mouse actions.
    (tags: webkit safari iphone javascript interaction )
  • Morality Tales - BioWare Versus The Issues | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    "I think, in these fleshed out circumstances, an RPG could be the most remarkable place for getting to grips with matters like abortion and euthanasia. I think _because_ they’re the sorts of subjects it’s completely pointless to talk about in the pub, because it inevitably descends into people entrenching themselves in their currently held position and then hurling stones at the other side, that the RPG would be a space in which the emphasis of thought and consideration would be squarely on you." John Walker on the problem with BioWare's attitude to morality, and some potential solutions.
    (tags: bioware rpg writing morality narrative games choice play debate issues )
  • Opentape
    "Opentape is a free, open-source package that lets you make and host your own mixtapes on the web. Upload songs (via web or FTP), reorder, rename, customize the style, and share what you like on other sites with an embeddable player."
    (tags: php webapp muxtape music sharing streaming )
  • Versus CluClu Land: I Pay Tribute to the Master Chief
    "I've heard that Japanese developers, who have traditionally held American game development in low esteem, have a great deal of respect for Bungie, and you can understand why. Bungie has done for shooters what Nintendo did for platformers: they've turned the visceral joys control and motion into the centerpiece of the game."
    (tags: bungie halo games interaction physics motion control embodiment )
  • The Diver’s View - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com
    "Thomas Finchum, an American diver competing in Beijing, describes the view from the 10-meter platform at the Water Cube." Incredible, interactive panorama from the top board in the Water Cube.
    (tags: diving olympics photography interactive panorama )
  • uxweek 2008 (tecznotes)
    "Greebles are the parts that "look cool, but don't actually do anything". There's an entire discipline here composed of special effects artists and asset designers working to hide the plywood spaceships and simple game world polygons beneath an encrusted surface texture." And this is the trick to make the little bits look like part of a whole. Lovely talk from Mike at UXWeek.
    (tags: uxweek mikemigurski information data effects greebling bumpmapping mapping visualisation surface webofdata credibility )
  • Fake following
    "One of the new features of FriendFeed (a Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following". That means you can friend someone but you don't see their updates... It's one of the few new social features I've seen that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn't just make being social a game or competition."
    (tags: socialnetworking socialsoftware interaction design friendfeed )