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"i'm tired of feeling like i'm writing to 17 year olds when i write about games. if we can't accept a base level of validity to the thing we're talking about without having to constantly feel shame and prove and defend its existence, then i'm not interested in participating in discussions surrounding games. it's stupid and boring to have so much of the talk be constantly channeled through that. who cares what Roger Ebert or whoever else who never played a videogame thinks or has thought. games are games and they can do good or bad things depending on how they're used. they're only just one tool." Yes, all of this post, and this in particular. I like games; I also like books and films and art an all manner of things. Culture is culture, and I engage with it all in a pretty similar way. A nice piece of writing expressing that, though, and reminding us of the ways we _can_ engage with our cultures and media.
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"Though I lost the original notebooks, I still have the journal. It stood in a complex relationship with, and served as a feeder for, the actual writing of Climbers, which went on concurrently elsewhere; also as a record of one of happiest and most productive times of my life. The pages were carefully numbered. The photographs, especially polaroids, have become faint and dark-looking at the same time, tinged with purples and greens not present in the lived scene." Beautiful documentation of work in progress.
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"Truth be told, I’m a bit tired of pixel art, but work like this aspired to transcend mere pixels. And I think that’s why it still packs a punch for me today. It’s evidently not content with the paltry colour depth and resolution it’s forced to use. It’s not about celebrating its form, unlike today’s pixel art, which is all about the form and evoking aesthetics of the past without quite nailing their fundamental nature. Instead, these backgrounds are all about what they depict – little scenes, ripe with little stories and humour, and inflected with travel pornography." Great writing from Alex, and a lovely cherrypicking of the selection. I am not a huge SNK fan, systemswise, but I adore their background art – and have a particular fondness for the whole package of Garou: Mark of the Wolves. This post does a lovely job of explaining why.
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This looks lovely: the right balance of editor-as-environment (ie: multiplayer level-building, which people recognise from Minecraft) with scripting, full control, and a learning curve. Really need to poke this.
Nostalgia for the MUD
21 April 2013
In a Belgrade bar, over a dark lager, Joanne interviewed me for Nostalgia for the Net – the oral history of people’s first encounters with the Internet that she and Melissa Gira Grant maintain.
My interview is now online. In it, I talk about my first online encounters before the Internet proper – over Wireplay, BT’s dial-up gaming service that simulated IPX networking for DOS games of the mid-nineties. And, more specifically, my time in MUD2, their recreation of the Essex MUD.
It’s a story I’ve told before, but I don’t think in public, so I don’t feel bad about repeating myself. You might enjoy it.
I have fond memories of the time I spent in the MUD. Reading old transcripts, I see player names I haven’t seen for years but have vivid memories of – as vivid as you can get, when you only have text to go on. The graphics were years ahead of their time, so to speak. It was a small community, but a tight one, and very friendly. It didn’t have the feature of MOOs, but still rewarded creativity in your interactions and encounters. And there was something about it – in the Land, in the writing, in the world, in the interactions – that felt very… British. Our own little corner of the net.
A small community still exists, playing in a Land I can map almost from memory (though I’ve forgotten the route through the mines to the Dwarven realm now).
Happy memories. Nice to share them over a beer.
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"Someone smarter than me once described game development as jumping out of an airplane with nothing but a needle and a silkworm." Brendon makes good games, and this is a good post. But I really liked this quotation.
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'"Screw this,” said Horace, downing his Babycham. “I’m going skiing.”' As niche fiction goes, this is very niche, but it is quite a thing. I am not sure how many people Horace fiction is relevant for, though.
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"She is omnipotent. She can conjure up an army of parkour chimney sweep ninjas! But she also has to come and go with the weather, and where there is technology, if you like, it does not always do what it should. It plays up. The umbrella handle is a bit shitty with her. The toys don't always clean themselves up at her command." I always like Schulze on Mary Poppins, and whilst it's quotable, it's probably not the most representative quote of this marvellous article. The main reason I use it is this article, more than many I've read, explains what being in a room with Jack at work is like. It's also lovely to see all the threads, some of which I saw beginning, come together. Good photos, too, of what work looks like.
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Charming. My favourite thing about this is that it's a picture of home, and, weirdly, it arouses the same emotions in me as it would if it were a poster of a real place.
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"Use PiP to show video from any webcam on your screen, nicely integrated as "Picture in Picture" which makes it ideal for live presentations, screencast recordings and in the educational sector." Or filming your hands…
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"In this post, I want to pay tribute to my favorite “games” of 2012 – specific performances, instances, and events that really meant something to me. The list is admittedly idiosyncratic, subjective, and a little self-indulgent. And that’s the way it should be, I feel (um, unless you’re a journalist or something), because games, at their best, are deeply personal affairs. Games generate memories, and I want to share some of mine with you." Doug is smart.
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"I think it’s valuable to have an understanding of assembly language. Assembly language is the lowest level of abstraction in computers – the point at which the code is still readable. Assembly language translates directly to the bytes that are executed by your computer’s processor. If you understand how it works, you’ve basically become a computer magician." I don't, and this looks like a lovely way to learn. Also: I think I finally get this. Nine-year-old me sure didn't.
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"If you have some control over it, and it affects the player's experience, you should either design it, or think very hard about why you're not going to." This also applies to things that are Not Games, too.
Announcing “Hello, Lamp Post”
21 January 2013
News time! I’m very excited to announce that PAN Studio, in collaboration with myself and Gyorgyi Galik, have been awarded the Playable City Award from Watershed. Full details here.
Hello Lamp Post! invites you to tune in to the secret conversations of the city and communicate through lamp posts, bus stops, post boxes and other street furniture. Part game, part story, anyone will be able to play by texting in a unique code found on the city’s familiar street objects.
…except, of course, there’s a little more going on than that (although not how you might expect it).
It’s a hugely exciting opportunity. I’m particularly keen to see how the initial idea we’ve started from will develop and be honed as we design it, and work with the materials we have – which include both SMS and Bristol itself.
And, of course: it’s worth saying how flattering to be selected from such an excellent shortlist, full of peers and friends.
I’ll save writing any more about the design for the future – and, I hope, in a space with PAN and Gyorgy, where we can share our own insights into the project. Muncaster is go, then. Onwards!