"The goal of this book is to help develop and define a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at specific video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to clearly show how games are well played." Looks fantastic – great selection of writers, great selection of titles, and what the games canon needs. More Like This, please!

"Mastery is not a prerequisite to improvisational play. The only prerequisite is confidence, and the only prerequisite in making the game is that we do not discourage the player from improvisation by "humiliating" the player." This talk really does sound like it confirms what I already know: Hocking is bang on a lot of money, very self-aware, and I want to give him consensual manhugs. Also, I want him to make more games. Lots more games. Curses at not getting to GDC.

John Carmack writes about porting Wolfenstein 3D to the iPhone – there's a lot in here that's very interesting, and some smart notes on design and interface choices; there's also some Carmack Being Carmack. Still, he's an impressive developer, and it's nie to see someone being so open at development, especially for the iPhone

"Tattoos from books, poetry, music, and other sources." As with all tattoos: some are misspelt, some are a bit blah, some are beautiful.

Arcade Fire + looking like it's on 16mm + looking like somebody loved it, rather than they just loved CGI = oh wow, this could be quite exciting, even if it ends up being a bit weird.

"Her mind is a marvel and her future is going to be extraordinary. I will strive to be her Cape Canaveral, and let her carve a streak of light across the world. She will leave me far behind, and I will love her even more for it. For that, and for an infinity of other reasons, and for the wonders she will see and the fearlessness with which she will deal with them, she is my heroine." A beautiful piece from James about his daughter. I failed to do anything for ALD, and not because I wasn't thinking hard on it. I should probably explain why at some point.

This is very beautiful, especially the 4-colour CGA cave, although Brandon's commentary makes me realise there's a generation of kids who don't know what "CGA" is, or why you'd care about graphics modes.

"With this unique book, programmers, administrators, and others who handle data can learn by example from the best data practitioners in the history of the field. Modeled after O'Reilly's highly-acclaimed book, Beautiful Code, Beautiful Data lets readers look over the shoulders of prominent data designers, managers, and handlers for a glimpse into some of the most interesting projects involving data. In an engaging narrative format, the authors think aloud as they explain their work, highlighting the simple and elegant solutions to problems they encountered along the way." Oh. This could be lovely.

This is both good and bad in places; I'm not totally convinced by the "What would players rather shoot — a wall, or a Nazi?" argument, but I'm very interested (as per my previous writing on Far Cry 2) in notions of non-player characters as protagonist; the player as lens through which story emerges, rather than hero of said story. Stuff to think on, for sure, but I'm still working out how to respond to this; I'm not sure it fulfils its goal of discussing "how writers and designers can collaborate smoothly and successfully"; it just shows me some examples.

"We are defined by what we build. It’s not just the engineering ambition that designed these structures, nor the 20 people who died building the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s that we believe we can and decide to act." This is good.

Chemically, this makes sense, but I'd never thought this might be possible.

"Here's a handy, step-by-step guide to using the sniper rifle in the smash-hit PlayStation 3 shooter, Killzone 2." Mitch Krpata has four hands.

"I hate the deep breath I have to take before asking if anyone remembers Jumping Flash or Rescue On Fractalus. I hate being the geeky bore who’s more interested in talking about games from twenty years ago than about BioShock 2 or GTA 5. But even more I hate the waste of modern game development, of watching talented teams burn time and energy reinventing wheels previously perfected by men now in their 60s."

"When I'm using the USB, I just leave my finger inside the slot and pick it up after I'm ready." Well, quite.

"pc_user is a lightweight authentication library for CodeIgniter. It focuses on simplicity and security." Indeed it does.

"Metalosis Maligna is a fictitious documentary about a spectacular yet chronically disabling disease which affects patients who have been fitted with medical implants. Sourcing from such implants a wild metal growth ultimately transforms human patients into mechanical looking constructions." If you're squeamish, particularly when it comes to surgery or prosthetics, this is NOT for you. Otherwise, it's a remarkably good piece of animation/effects work, wrapped in a remarkably straight documentary wrapper, that perhaps makes the effects-work even more effective.

"It’s totally fantastic. It’s like someone’s got totally shitfaced on logistics-booze and then sat down and written an email." I think it all depends on your definition of "best", but Iain gets bonus points for "shitfaced on logistics booze".

"It’s an incredible precedent to set: making a game a success almost 18 months after a poor launch. It’s something that could only have happened now, and with a system like Steam." Well, of course. Well done, Epic.

"Today I gave a two week's notice of my intent to resign. The letter was written in frosting on a full sheet size cake. The cake was delicious and it was well received."

"I would be very interested in seeing a BSD game that introduced some moral ambiguity, or unexpected and painful consequences. I'd love to see a game where you start off with balls in full swing, then slowly start to realize that–mother*ucker–you're on the wrong side." Bill Harris gave up on Killzone 2. I'm mainly linking to this just because of the coinage of "BSD" as a genre, which is perfect.

"Sometimes, it’s worth joining the dots between a few things you find." If in doubt, make a story out of nice things you saw. In this case: a quick exploration of the fantastical in design. With lots of pictures!

Probably the most comprehensive page on Pob I've found, with, most importantly, pictures of Rod Campbell both drawing mechanisms and opening boxes. Which is the bit I always want to refer to, but never can find pics of. Until now!

"The web is about sharing … and people will share with the tools they’re given. If username and password are front and centre, then they’re the tools people will use. There’s so much usability dogma about reducing the sign-up process and throwing people into use that important details – such as explaining what all the cogs and levers do – are forgotten, or assumed as knowledge." This is excellent, and all true, and I do not know how to solve this. But Chris' comments – that this is not stupid, this is how people are – are all spot on.

"Today, I made a little application using the Spore API." Specifically, rendering the skeletons of creatures in Processing. Nice.

"LSL is a 2-D arena shooter featuring a robot that falls in love with several lovely female robots each with her own unique abilities and atmosphere… The longer our heroes stay together, the more their relationship will evolve, making them stronger; but this increases the difficulty of the game, too. When they "break up," the enemies are cleared, but so is the score multiplier. Throughout the game, the robot recalls memories of a love before…" This sounds – and looks – delightful.

"For use on days with uninteresting skies." I should like one of those very much.

"Majini have gone through a small part of London, leaving behind a trail of remnant body parts from their victims. Find the bodies on the morning of Thursday March 12th and win a vacation to Africa." Um. Really not sure this is the best kind of live event, chaps.

Seriously, the UI customisation that some players go through amazes me. And yet: the level of customisation possible also amazes me. There's some good stuff in here not just on customising your UI, but also making it look functional and useful; UI design is still possible in the sea of plugins.

"Just because a line is functional doesn’t mean it can’t be clever, funny, insightful, or dramatic. The real art of videogame writing is being aware of the context: understanding how, when and where the line is going to be used, and how to compensate for the times you have no control over when the line is played." A nice piece on writing for games, and brevity (or a lack of it).

Touché.

"MOBY is a spout cover that brightens up the bath while keeping baby’s head safe from bumps." As swissmiss pointed out: adorable.

"One of board gaming's most prolific and revered designers, Reiner Knizia, is actively searching for iPhone devs to help bring his games to the iPhone, says industry site boardgamenews." Oooooooooh. That is all.

Rails plugin for intelligently searching within your application. Not a bad idea; will probably end up using this at some point.

"I would love to see more games that use Flower as a model, not in the copycat sense of being "flying games" or "games where you're the wind," but in the high-level approach that the production implies. Smaller, shorter, higher-fidelity, more focused, more sensate experiences that are affordable, accessible, and digestible. The primary obstacle to one designing a game with these principles in mind seem to be finding an engaging core sensation that fits the constraints. I can't wait to see the results that this challenge brings." Some sensible, and lucid, thoughts on Flower from Steve.

Jones has now seen "The President's Analyst" which is, by anyone's standards, a remarkable movie. Especially the bit in the cornfield. And the ending. Anyhow, he's screengrabbed loads of it on Flickr because it's just beautiful.

"…the Wii’s software stack is designed with little to no future proofing. There are basically zero provisions for any future updates; even obvious things like new storage devices or game patches. What’s worse is that this will affect the compatibility mode of any future Wii successor." Interesting analysis of what's going on inside a Wii, even if the architecture is a little limited.

"I smile. I didn't fool him in the slightest. But it doesn't matter. I didn't fall. Wax on the arm." Lovely.

"An image a day and an MP3 to go with it, for no obvious reason." And no RSS, so you'll just have to turn up every day. Lovely concept.

Wonderful, delightful, charming writing from Duncan Fyfe; this, and the eight chapters that follow it, are pretty essential, and they're nice and brief. Speculative fiction about games, culture, and the future. And fandom.

Gosh, that looks lovely – and bonus points for a preview video that films the iPhone, showing the way fingers work on its surface, rather than just showing the results of interactions.

"for a while now we’ve been meaning to post some early childhood snapshots of world of goo, to dig deep into our code repository and remember the good ol’ days. the early part of a game’s development is often very enjoyable because things evolve rapidly and there’s a great sense of accomplishment. it’s also a lot of fun to look back at those early days and laugh at what the game use to look and feel like." First in a seven part series, in which 2D Boy walk us through the – playable – origins of World of Goo. Game devs: more like this, please.