Links & notes for this month

• • teh tumblr
    "I imagine this is how everybody who responds to the idea of Twitter with “Who cares if you’re eating a sandwich?” envisions Twitter." Yes.
    (tags: funny twitter socialsoftware bias humour )
• • The Online Photographer: The Leica as Teacher
    "A year with a single Leica and a single lens, looking at light and ignoring color, will teach you as much about actually seeing photographs as three years in any photo school, and as much as ten or fifteen years (or more) of mucking about buying and selling and shopping for gear like the average hobbyist." This is not a bad point.
    (tags: photography learning teaching leica writing )
  • Insult Swordfighting: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    "It will [violent metaphor] you." Mitch has seen one too many press releases, methinks.
    (tags: games press pr e3 mitchkrpata writing funny humour )
  • Picasa Web Albums - Nate's SotC Gallery - Movies and High-Res Screenshots
    "High-resolution renders of gameplay from Shadow of the Colossus, including earlier versions of the game (where the colossi had differently-shaped eyes, as one example). Most of the screenshots are at or around 2048×1526 resolution - perfect for making wallpapers of any size." Ooooh.
    (tags: sotc shadowofthecolossus games art renders wallpaper )
• • Dubious Quality: Design Brilliance And The Timing Window
    "...what I'm hearing is the actual drum line recorded by the song's drummer, and I'm triggering those sounds by playing notes within the designated timing window. And that timing window, even on Expert, is quite a bit more generous than real life. It's the difference between truly playing a beat and merely invoking a beat. When I play Rock Band, though, that difference is camouflaged so subtlely and so well that I never even notice. That's a beautiful bit of design, isn't it?" Yes, it is. Bill Harris on the magical quantize that you forget exists in Harmonix' games. This, incidentally, is something I'm convinced Neversoft never got right, especially in the horrendous Guitar Hero 3.
    (tags: rhythmaction games guitarhero rockband billharris music quantize timing interaction design )
  • Dice-O-Matic hopper and elevator - GamesByEmail
    "Introducing the Dice-O-Matic mark II, now generating the dice rolls on GamesByEmail.com. It is a 7 foot tall, 104 pound, dice-eating monster, capable of generating 1.3 million rolls a day." They roll real dice. They roll lots, and lots, of real dice.
    (tags: dice games engineering mechanics playbymail ocr )
  • Incredibles - The Chairs
    "This is my dedication to the creative team behind Pixar's movie The Incredibles. I loved the depth of the world, the buildings, the gadgets and most of all I loved the chairs. Enjoy!" Collecting things is important. This is lovely.
    (tags: pixar design animation chairs collecting )
  • BBC iPlayer - Jaguar Skills: 25/05/2009
    "Master of the mix Jaguar Skills provides a special soundtrack to round off Radio 1's Gaming Weekend. " Available until June 2. It's epic. Get it.
    (tags: music bbc jaguarskills mix awesome games )
• • Dubious Quality: Family Matters
    "He's going to like that album, and then he's going to ask you about The Police, and he's going to want to know why they aren't together anymore. How are you going to explain what happened to Sting? You know, when he started singing about turtles and ponies and became an obsessive Beanie Baby collector. What are you going to say?" Bill doesn't want to have to explain Sting to Eli.
    (tags: thepolice music sting billharris writing )
  • The Escapist : Don't Knock the Aztecs
    "To justify such an investment in time, a game would not only have to match the content of the course, but provide a learning experience that couldn't be accomplished through reading, writing and class discussion." Todd Bryant on how he integrated playing games into his teaching programmes; some nice ideas in here, notably using MMOs for language tuition, and some commentary on the suitability of various titles for this sort of thing.
    (tags: games education learning languages history play )
  • the-inbetween.com: [ Conflict-free Competition ]
    "Maybe [games publishers] think there could never be enough competition, excitement, betrayal, surprise, defeat, skull-daggery, and general griefer-worthy assholeishness in a game without direct conflict. But the last year’s worth of news out of Wall Street tells a different story. It’s a tale of a system corrupted from the inside by the scheming, cheating, gaming of a few powerful and greedy individuals. If this is not prime material for a videogame, I don’t know what is."
    (tags: games conflict boardgames design violence strategy economics tone systems )
• • Gamasutra - Features - From The Past To The Future: Tim Sweeney Talks
    Jolly good interview with Tim Sweeney, with lots on ZZT (hurrah!), and, I think most interestingly lots of on building games around editors and tools - from ZZT through Unreal to the present day. I like his acknowledgments of his shortcomings as a progammer - but perhaps also his shrewdness as a manager.
    (tags: gamasutra articles games writing timsweeney epic shareware editors creation )
• • Text Adventure
    Type design from videogames. Add to subscriptions.
    (tags: games type typography design graphics )
  • Infinite Summer
    "You've been meaning to do it for over a decade. Now join endurance bibliophiles from around the web as we tackle and comment upon David Foster Wallace's masterwork, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages1 ÷ 93 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat." Hmn. Maybe. I might want to read something else, though... but could be fun!
    (tags: books reading davidfosterwallace infinitejest )
• • Nick Sweeney · the spoken word, written down
    "They preserve them as best they can, perhaps without even knowing that’s what they’re doing, but in the understanding that no archives may be kept, no histories written, and that what sustains their digital lives is the lived-out, written-down, spoken word." Reminds me of the "what five pages would you print out" conundrum, and the end of Fahrenheit 451; walking the woods, chanting entries from Encyclopedia Dramatica
    (tags: internet history archive writing nicksweeney culture historiography )
• • Well Played 1.0: Video Game, Value and Meaning | ETC-Press (Beta)
    Well Played is now out, and can be read online and purchased from Lulu. It's exactly the sort of thing I've wanted for a while - a reader for videogames, and for the actual experiential side of them - and it's got some great authors contributing pieces on a host of games. Worth your time, for sure.
    (tags: games writing reader stories books publishing analysis criticism )
  • Towards A Grand Unification Of Cutlery
    "I’ve never seen this visualization before. Whoever created it should be publicly applauded." Yes.
    (tags: cutlery visualisation venndiagram spork )
  • Gamasutra - Features - Beyond Pacing: Games Aren't Hollywood
    "Another word for "pacing" is "storytelling". We never really tell stories to players; we just put them in games. Then players tell our stories to themselves." Interesting analysis of pacing in games, and what the demands games make on pace are. And, of course, that quotation.
    (tags: games narrative pace storytelling analysis )
  • Team Fortress 2 - The Sniper vs. Spy Update
    "Jarate is neither affiliated with, nor a substitute for, Karate." The Sniper's new weapon: a jar of piss. The way this update has unfolded has, basically, been totally awesome.
    (tags: teamfortress2 tf2 awesome valve games moreawesome update )
• • Kotaku - Boom Blox Producer Departs EA For Flower Studio - thatgamecompany
    "Video game designer Robin Hunicke, noticeable at any gaming event for having the reddest hair of anyone in attendance, is trading her big-company background for ThatGameCompany, a sign that the small studio behind Flow and Flower is growing its ranks." Oh. That *is* interesting.
    (tags: games business design robinhucke thatgamecompany )
  • optimism.JPG (JPEG Image, 800x600 pixels)
    Someone will come.
    (tags: images illustration optimism system:filetype:jpg system:media:image )
  • PrairieMod: Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO Sets
    "The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation announced today that The LEGO Group is now the exclusive licensed manufacturer of Frank Lloyd Wright Collection® LEGO Architecture sets." Hmn. Not sure what the market for these is, beyond curios; they're not particularly high-resolution, for starters.
    (tags: lego architecture franklloydwright toys construction )
  • Professional Photographic Printing at theprintspace
    "Professional photographic & art printing with great value? theprintspace delivers. At the printspace we understand what professional quality means, and we also offer 48 hour turnaround time & guaranteed satisfaction." As recommended to me by Jon.
    (tags: printing photography hackney print photo online shop )
  • Knave of Diamonds - Treetop
    "I gave a presentation on Treetop last night at lrug - seemed to go down well. There aren’t many examples of treetop grammars I’ve seen, so it might be useful if you find the main site’s documentation a bit impeneterable." Roland drops some Treetop science, and it looks very useful. Good stuff!
    (tags: ruby language parsing processing tree treetop library rolandswingler )
• • scraplab : clarke - an os x fire eagle updater
    "...to prove I could, I made a small desktop application. It’s called Clarke. It’s really not very exciting — don’t get your hopes up. It’s just a toolbar thing that sits there, quietly, using Skyhook’s API to triangulate your location from nearby wifi points, pushing it to Fire Eagle. Yes, it’s YAFEU (Yet Another Fire Eagle Updater)." Tom makes Proper Software. He is smart.
    (tags: osx application fireeagle location )
  • Chris Heathcote: anti-mega: a little bit of future goes a long way
    "Cracking the bus network is really the key to most cities, and we’re nearly at the point of directed bus serendipity. In London, at least."
    (tags: londonbus london buses transport infrastructure internet serendipity future )
  • Welcome, <em>Wired</em>. We call this land "Internet" | Boing Boing Gadgets
    Joel Johnson rounds on Wired for the gulf between their online and printed formats; the comments thread turns into a much more rational, and reasonable, discussion from many Wired staff, past and present.
    (tags: magazines wired blogs online media print criticism )
  • Boxer: The DOS game emulator that’s fit for your Mac.
    "Boxer plays MS-DOS games on your Mac. It’s based on the robust DOSBox emulator, with a lot of magic sprinkled on top. Run DOS programs from Finder. Wrap your games into tidy packages that launch like Mac apps. Painlessly install games from CD—then bundle the CD with your game so you don't even need it in the drive."
    (tags: mac dos emulation emulator dosbox games retro )
  • Everyone At Valve Has Been Fired « Double Buffered
    "The lesson to be learned here is that when something screws with your careful plans, you take control of that thing, warp it to your every demand, and channel it into a concentrated stream of Awesome. That is how you do PR." Pretty much. Valve have handled this brilliantly - the achievement they awarded themselves being the icing on the cake - and not only have they been on-brand for a savvy, internet-enabled company, they've also been spot on-brand for TF2.
    (tags: games marketing leaks valve teamfortress2 senseofhumour pr )
  • auntie pixelante › zzt recommended reading list
    "...this is a good time to consider zzt’s library - not because it’s changing, but because it’s probably complete. the long-running game archive z2 just declared zzt dead, and why not - it’s served its purpose: allowing people who aren’t programmers or digital artists an avenue to game creation before game maker or construct existed. now they do." ZZT must have been one of the first games I played, and I poked around its level editor. This retrospective both fascinates and arouses nostalgia in equal measures.
    (tags: zzt games epic design editors programming modification mods )