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Wikipedia -- The Landlord's Game

'The Landlord's Game is a board game patented in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie as U.S. Patent 748,626. It is a realty and taxation game, which is considered to be a direct inspiration for the board game Monopoly. Though many similar home-made games were played at the beginning of the 20th century and some predate The Landlord's Game, it is the first of its kind to have an attested patent. Magie designed the game to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate. Magie also hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood.'

games boardgames economics simulation landlordism georgism geoism
9 weeks ago by adamcrowe

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Listverse -- Top 12 Most Controversial Games
games gaming violence trauma reenactment simulation from delicious
january 2011 by adamcrowe

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Mssv -- Democracy Games

'The various systems of government used in the ISDG masks a deeper conflict about whether teams are playing just to have fun, or to establish their supremacy of the game. Each team realises that the reputation of their entire website – in some cases, numbering in the tens of thousands – rests on their quality of playing, which requires a certain discipline that precludes any messing about. ‘Diplomacy on crack’ is one way to describe the ISDG... The combination of a highly complex strategy game with hundreds of players defies normal categorization into the normal genres of MMORPGs or simulation games like Everquest or SimCity. Even experienced Civilization players find the concept of the ISDG alien, since the delay between turns adds such a bewildering array of negotiation, debate and power politics that aren’t seen in normal games. To win the ISDG, a team will have to perfectly balance conflict and co-operation, not only with other teams but between its own members.'

* civ games gaming collectiveintelligence cooperation governance metagaming WTF from delicious
august 2010 by adamcrowe

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Mssv -- Democracy Games

'A democracy game is just like a normal single player game of Civilization, except with over a hundred people sitting beside you arguing about what to do. The Intersite Democracy Game takes the concept one step further by involving eight website teams scattered across the globe. Over three hundred players are spread among the teams, many of whom have played Civilization for over ten years and possess an enormous ... amount of knowledge about the game. Each team represents one civilization within the game. The ISDG revolves around savegames. It’s when a savegame arrives that teams can get down to the serious business of actually moving units around and issuing orders instead of just talking about it. Teams wait for savegames in the same way that children wait for Christmas ... Any delay in their arrival, usually caused by email problems, or (as is suspected occasionally) nefarious behind the scenes diplomacy, is a source of immense distress and rampant speculation for players.'

* civ games gaming collectiveintelligence cooperation governance metagaming WTF from delicious
august 2010 by adamcrowe

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Mssv -- One More Turn

'...it’s clear why Civilization is so compelling; every single turn of the game is a mini-compulsion loop. In every single turn, like clockwork, you move units, you achieve tangible goals, and you get new content. The game keeps you playing until you’ve have seen everything and done everything that the world has to offer.' -- Great Wall > Liberalism > The Kremlin. And I'm happy.

civ games gaming gamemechanics turnbased rewards from delicious
august 2010 by adamcrowe

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Gamepocalypse Now -- Sunday Scavenger Hunt

This is going to sound dumb. But you know when you get the Sunday paper, and you want to find the Parade Magazine, or the coupons, or the comics, and you have to hunt through all those ad inserts to find what you want? That's really a game -- a kind of crummy game, but a game nonetheless. And I mention it because I think it is very much a good analogy for many of the future advergames we are going to see -- "hey, we have something you want -- just dig through these ads to get it!"'

gaming games foraging
july 2010 by adamcrowe

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3-SIDED FOOTBALL RULES

'The key to the game is that it does not foster aggression or competitiveness. ...it is no psycho-sexual drama of the fuckers and fucked - the possibilities are greatly expanded! ...penetration of the defence by two opposing teams imposes upon the defence the task of counterbalancing their disadvantage through sowing the seeds of discord in an alliance which can only be temporary. This will be achieved through exhortation, body language, and an ability to manoeuvre the ball and players into such a position that one opposing team will realise that its interests are better served by breaking off the attack and allying themselves with the defending team. Bearing in mind that such a decision will not necessarily be immediate, a team may well find itself split between two alliances. Such a situation opens them up to the possibility of their enemies uniting, making maximum use of this confusion. 3-sided football is a game of skill, persuasion and psychogeography.'

* gaming gameplay games design seriousgames situationist panarchy anarchism voluntaryism
june 2010 by adamcrowe

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YouTube -- Ghostwire DSi - Teaser Trailer (official)

'Your portable device is used as a portal to the astral plane, and helps you find and collect ghosts that exist all around you. In your quest you use real tools, such as the built-in camera and microphone, as well as abstract ones like an "EMF tuner" for tracking down the ghosts. Once you find the spirits, you document them and find out why they haunt our world. They also give you riddles to solve. Ultimately, you will help them find peace.' -- "There is no Dana, there is only Zuul!"

games gaming ds augmentedreality treasurehunt collecting wardriving electromagnetism ghosts liminality liminalobjects objects
september 2009 by adamcrowe

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Kongregate -- UPGRADE COMPLETE

"This game has crummy graphics… UNTIL YOU UPGRADE THE GRAPHICS ENGINE! And no sound? UNTIL YOU BUY IT IN THE SHOP! And no mute button!? You guessed it, this game requires you to buy that as well! In fact, nearly everything in this game requires you to buy and upgrade it first. Sound confusing? Give it a go and see!"

meta games gaming diegesis extradiegesis gamemechanics achievements upgrading tidying virtualgoods virtualservices lulz
september 2009 by adamcrowe

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Smokescreen

'"You don't know me, but I know you..." Smokescreen is a cutting-edge game about life online. We all use Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and MSN to keep up with our mates - and we've all heard the stories about parties on Facebook being mobbed, or people getting stalked on MSN. The question is, what would you do if it happened to you? -- Smokescreen is a game about online identity, trust, and privacy. Launching in September, Smokescreen is from Channel 4 and Six to Start.'

sixtostart channel4 transmedia storytelling games seriousgames privacy security identity identitytheft stalking paranoia trust
august 2009 by adamcrowe

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Booyah Society

"The first social game based on real-life achievements. #Follow Booyah Moments all over the world #Post to Facebook and Twitter in an entertaining new way #Celebrate you and your friends' achievements #Learn surprising things about friends, family and yourself #Be rewarded for activities you already do #Get challenged to explore new passions #Enjoy gameplay activities that help you level up in your real life #Preserve the moments that make you want to shout "Booyah!" #Gain insight into how you live your life #Collect your social updates into an easily-accessible life history. Booyah Society blends social networking, entertainment and gameplay in a way that we hope will foster personal growth and generate positive social change. It's ambitious, but we can't think of anything more worth trying. We hope you'll join us: It's going to be a heckuva ride." -- Ludotopianism. Achieving ourselves to death.

games achievements incentives rewards dopamine puppetry thegamingofeverydaylife technoutopianism ludotopianism
august 2009 by adamcrowe

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SlideShare -- Chris Thorpe: Hiding data, content and technology in real world games

Nice little SMS treasure hunt game, 'And I Saw...' which produces crowd flow analytics for event organisers, and a 'Bond' reconnaissance twitter game that plays out in secret DM exchanges with M. Also mentions the Guardian's crowdsourced 'MP's Expenses Muckracking Game'. There's a common theme here ;^)

games gaming ambientgaming pervasive location geotagging collecting foraging reconnaissance narrativeobjects twitter mobile secrecy simonsays puppetry
july 2009 by adamcrowe

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Miniclip -- Stackopolis
miniclip tidying games
june 2009 by adamcrowe

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thatgamecompany -- Flower

"The game exploits the tension between urban bustle and natural serenity. Players accumulate flower petals as the onscreen world swings between the pastoral and the chaotic. Like in the real world, everything you pick up causes the environment to change. And hopefully by the end of the journey, you change a little as well."

art games flow space JenovaChen
may 2009 by adamcrowe

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Stealourideas.com -- Twitter Stalker
twitter games mimicry
may 2009 by adamcrowe

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Twitter -- #youreit

'I'm trying to figure out a way to play "it" on twitter. Any ideas? #youreit' -- ;^)

twitter games it recursion
may 2009 by adamcrowe

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Spymaster

"Spymaster is a social game based on Twitter, a social messaging service. Each player becomes a master of a spy ring based upon their Twitter followers list. The more people that follow you and are playing characters in Spymaster, the more powerful your network will be. As a spymaster, you can perform tasks or attack other spymasters on Twitter. With each successful attempt, you will gain virtual currency and points that allow you to grow even stronger."

twitter games assassin
may 2009 by adamcrowe

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Wired -- The Complex Universe of Games and Puzzles, Simplified

Awesome! Diagram/Map: "The Emigmatrix: In the universe of puzzles, codes, and games, everything is connected. Here's how." -- Full size map on flickr: http://bit.ly/ePBlF

* ludology gamemechanics gaming games puzzle mystery fantasy magic simulation gametheory mathematics algorithms cryptography patternrecognition tropes storytelling narrativeacts maps visualization
may 2009 by adamcrowe

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Wired -- How Game Design Can Revolutionize Everyday Life

'Turn the world into a game, they argue, and it works better. Give people a competition, and it can transform a dull-but-important task into something exciting. "Games create drama and excitement," as Jane McGonigal, one of the leading thinkers in the field, told the crowd at this year's O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. "We've done that for years with videogames, and now we can apply that thinking to the rest of life." Games can change behavior by taking bad behaviors and making them visible, so we can no longer ignore them.' -- Numbers numb.

gaming games design gamemechanics work simulation numbers thegamingofeverydaylife CliveThompson
may 2009 by adamcrowe

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New Statesman -- Screen test

'What can’t games do? ... there are certain limitations inherent in the very fabric of an interactive medium, perhaps the most important of which is also the most basic: its lack of inevitability. As the tech-savvy critic and author Steven Poole has argued, “great stories depend for their effect on irreversibility – and this is because life, too, is irreversible. The pity and terror that Aristotle says we feel as spectators to a tragedy are clearly dependent on our apprehension of circumstances that cannot be undone.” Games have only a limited, and often incidental, ability to convey such feelings.' -- Not quite true for mmorpgs.

storytelling games design narrativeenvironments catharsis consequence
may 2009 by adamcrowe

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Wired -- Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre

'One of the driving factors in Settlers—and one of the secrets to its success—is that nobody has reliable access to all five resources. This means players must swap cards to get what they need, creating a lively and dynamic market, which works like any other: If ore isn't rolled for several turns, it becomes more valuable. "Even in this tiny, tiny microcosm of life, scarcity leads to higher prices, and plenty leads to lower prices," says George Mason University economist Russ Roberts, who uses Settlers to teach his four children how free markets work. Wheeling and dealing turns out to be an elegant solution to one of the big problems plaguing Monopoly—sitting idle while other players take their turns. Since every roll of the dice in Settlers has the potential to reap a new harvest of resource cards, unleash a flurry of negotiations, and change the balance of the board, every turn engages all the players. "The secret of Catan is that you have to bargain and sometimes whine."'

games design gamemechanics resource management
april 2009 by adamcrowe

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collision detection -- Teleportation, the last battle, and the Creator talks: How the world ends inside an online game

On solsastalgia: "the homesickness one feels not when one moves away, but when one’s home environment vanishes before one’s eyes." -- "...now that economic hard times are here, more online worlds are dying, and here’s the interesting thing: They’re realizing that they owe it to their long-time players to make it into a sort of event. Game designers are realizing that ending their world in a dramatically satisfying way is actually a very interesting logistical, ludogical, and emotional trick. In essence, we’re slowly seeing the emergence of eschatology as a design challenge."

psychology behaviours games design virtualworlds mmorpg narrativeenvironments eschatology apocalypse emotion emotionalintelligence solsastalgia nostalgia loss death
march 2009 by adamcrowe

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Marginal Utility -- Outsourced motivation

On services that... 'attempt to transform everyday life tasks into games by assign values to them and keeping score. ...a world in which collective experience is systematically abrogated, a world in which only competition can “unite” us and corporations reap the profits from our combat. We end up sharing only the ideal of measured achievement: how many more points we can score, how many people are reading our updates, how many more things we can own or add to our list of experiences. Services [that] meet the need we now have to have our social experiences more rigidly structured by an outside party, a referee, some sort of mediator. We seem to have worked ourselves into a corner where we must outsource our ability to be motivated. We need outside parties to generate motivational schemes and point systems to drive us through life activities that were once rewarding enough in and of themselves. ...nullifying the quality of experience and reducing it to a point value.'

criticism experience service games design gamemechanics control measurement experiencepoints points numbers rewards status hierarchy simulation motivation feedback existentialism solipsism self selfservers quantifiedself thegamingofeverydaylife #bandwidth #complexity
march 2009 by adamcrowe

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Marginal Utility -- Unplayable Tetris

"Formal limitations are generative; unbounded free play, not so much."

play constraints games design tetris
march 2009 by adamcrowe

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Jenova Chen -- Flow in Games (PDF)

"Video games do not read what player thinks yet. Up until today, the most common connections between players and video games are still going through game controllers. With limited inputs, the possibility to sense player's Flow state directly is very low. Although there are biofeedback devices on the market, people still lack the knowledge for imaging data into Flow and emotions. Most of the measurements are still based on assumptions and incomplete statistics."

psychology flow immersion gaming games gamemechanics biometrics interface interaction experience design JenovaChen pdf
march 2009 by adamcrowe

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YouTube -- The Making of Little Big Planet

Alex Evans, Co-Founder of developer Media Molecule: "It's fun, you can make stuff, and you can share it with your friends."

littlebigplanet content games design gamemechanics creativity play experimentation peerproduction tools fun
january 2009 by adamcrowe

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Jason Rohrer
design games JasonRohrer
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Passage: a Gamma256 video game by Jason Rohrer

Win/Mac/Linux

games Passage JasonRohrer
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Esquire -- The Video-Game Programmer Saving Our 21st-Century Souls

"You meet a girl. Your fat-pixeled soul mate. Link up with her and a heart explodes. You're in love. Now she sticks to you as you move through the forest, less easily than before. It's a trade-off: You can get more treasure by staying single, but bond with your "wife" and you earn double the points for every step you take. If you're like most people, you'll choose the comforts of companionship. Only, as you trudge across the stripe, something happens. Your pixels begin to fade, gray out. Your hair recedes by degrees. Your wife slurs into a matronly shape. It hits you: This is going to happen to me. Age, decrepitude, ugliness. At least I won't be alone. Somebody loves me. Ha-ha-ha... Then -- thwack -- she dies."

* games design gaming empathy emotion emotionalintelligence relationalaesthetics criticaldesign creativity solitude introspection transformation art JasonRohrer
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Only a Game -- DGD2: How Do You Play Games?

"The principle of demographic game design is to improve the chances of games... by studying and understanding how and why people play games... this is an attempt to provide descriptive patterns of emotional response and activity: #The Guardian. Logistical Skill Set -- #The Artisan. Tactical Skill Set. Drawn to improvisation, operation, controlling single characters, thinking on the spot. Behaves with impulsiveness, competence. Tolerant of risk, speed, noise -- #The Rational. Strategic Skill Set -- #The Idealist. Diplomatic Skill Set: Drawn to harmonising, imagining, co-operation. Behaves with empathy, morality. Tolerant of impressionism" -- Comment: Hub: "We can safely assume that each player will be able to enjoyably use different skill sets in response to the needs of gameplay, and that the majority of games will allow different skill sets to be used. The task may therefore be to isolate the skill sets encouraged by a particular game for a particular player."

psychology psychographics games archetypes behaviours motivation learning skills engagement experience design
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gamasutra -- The Megatrends of Game Design, Part 4

"#Player-created content: ...It is natural for an individual to wish to share the fruit of his creativity, thereby rising from obscurity. Once tasted, the reward of creation often becomes an irresistible need... give power to the players, and they will take over your game... creation becomes the game. #The aging of players: Older gamers will increasingly hold a greater interest in themes that are presently uncommon or poorly developed, such as economic or political simulations. They will assign a greater importance to game-generated emotions and moral dilemmas... [they] will have a harder time becoming immersed in less believable plots or universes. #The emergence of emotions: ...powerful emotions, such as compassion or love are very rarely touched upon. Older players will likely be the first to fully appreciate this emotional dimension of gaming, since it connects with their own life experience; we are, after all, far more sensitive to emotions we have felt before."

gaming games design gamemechanics content trackmania littlebigplanet simulation seriousgames politics participation engagement narrative storytelling emotion emotionalintelligence nostalgia virtualworlds
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gamasutra -- The Megatrends of Game Design, Part 3

"#Gaming on mobile platforms: ...specialized game mechanisms will surely appear. The use of the accelerometers in the iPhone is a smart way to circumvent the control issue... new forms of games will emerge that circumvent the weaknesses of mobile phones: role-playing or strategy games that do not require complex graphics and can work with limited interfaces. Mobile games are probably the next horizon of multiplayer gaming as it is the only platform that, in the medium term, can open multiplayer gaming to the true mass market. #The challenge of gamer behavior: If multiplayer gaming is to become a mode of play accepted by all, it will have to become more civilized in the process. Innovative solutions for dealing with the gap between newcomers and veteran players will need to be explored. #Multiplayer gaming: a public health issue?: ...a question arises, which affects both game design and publishing strategy: is it ethical to conceive such powerfully addictive games?"

gaming games gamemechanics controllers interface design haptics psychology behaviours mmorpg addiction ethics
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gamasutra -- The Megatrends of Game Design, Part 2

"#Gaming as a Teaching Tool: ...pedagogic multimedia products targeted at high school and college students, or even adults, will no doubt be part of a future development path for our industry. This type of media has the advantage of being at the heart of teenage leisure, and its nature is well-adapted to the best of mankind's teaching mechanisms: experimentation." -- Example mechanics provided.

gaming games design gamemechanics attention feedback teaching education learning tools
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gamasutra -- The Megatrends of Game Design, Part 1

"#Micropayments / #Downloadable content: ...designed to entice the players to deepen their experience of the game by purchasing affordable additional components... I have great faith in the emergence of micropayments (purchase of a map, game mode, character accessories or equipment, episodes, etc.) as a new economic model for our industry. #Merchandising: Today's games feature rich and popular universes, which may yield products taking many forms: action figures, manga and comics, ornaments, school supplies, ringtones, animated series or even novels, theatrical screenplays, or the much wider broadcast of video game tournaments. #Fast gaming: ...the [need] for immediate gaming, without forethought. If the games do not bring sufficient immediate gratification, their users will quickly abandon them. We may thus see games interacting with current sporting events, or even cultural, political, and economic trends. We might even witness the apparition of games centered on socialization."

gaming casualgaming games design gamemechanics transmedia merchandising businessmodels virtualgoods functionalitems decorativeitems micropayments contextawaregaming youwho
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird -- On happiness, “better” and the ludic

"What I’m looking for from designers is tactful acceptance that I intend to use their product to serve my own (now ludic, now serious) ends, rather than a positive assertion that they’ve a priori understood what makes something fun. But the latter seems to be what were getting at the moment, and will be getting more of for the foreseeable future. And I think this is a shame, because fun - in my book, anyway - is much, much too important to be left to the designers." -- Check the comments

play fun learning games design thegamingofeverydaylife ludology freedom context culture suffering philosophy angst vanguardism criticism
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Maschmeyer -- Is Transformation Design a Form of Game Design?

Jane McGonigal: “Gameplay is about immersion. It’s not about immersing yourself in a story, in graphics, or in fantasy. It’s about immersing yourself in an interactive system and interacting with other people in that system.”

transformationdesign transformation gaming play literacy criticaldesign games design gamemechanics seriousrealitygaming SRG seriousgames thegamingofeverydaylife activism JaneMcGonigal
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Dan Hon -- Everything you know about ARGs is WRONG

"WE SUCK: #Don't have enough players #The people who play are weird #The people who play have no money #The people who play aren't mainstream #We make games for the hardcore #We're too expensive #We don't scale (Ouch!) #We lie" -- Hehe. Seriously: "we make games... and we tell stories [that] encourage people to do things" -- Yup. (via Toby Barnes. Thanks.)

DanHon sixtostart alternativerealitygaming alternatereality gaming games design gamemechanics ludology narratology storytelling fun engagement transmedia transformation rant via:tobybarnes
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Sock and Awe!

OBJECTIVE: Hit President Bush in the face with your shoes! -- With top shoeing countries...

games criticaldesign
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Lose The Game

"Training yourself not to think about The Game is nearly impossible, and often counter-productive. The best strategies involve causing others to lose more than yourself. The best way to do this is to always announce your loss to as many people as possible. This reminds current players about The Game and initiates new ones." -- You lose!

games alternativerealitygaming memes doublethink recursion
december 2008 by adamcrowe

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Lulu -- MSG™ Promotional Edition by Howard Ingham (Book) in Games

"You live in a perfect world. You live in the free world. Every new day brings you new challenges. Every new job brings new opportunities. You’re the master of your destiny, your own boss. The future is bright. You just have to keep your soul. And your salary options. MSG™ is a slightly satirical game of negotiation and conscience, for three to six adults."

theadvertisedlife work immateriallabour branding gaming roleplay games rpg parody satire boredom sciencefiction alternativereality pdf
november 2008 by adamcrowe

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io9 -- Kill Mickey Mouse in a Strange Game of Corporate Brand Slavery

"[MSG] Players play the roles of company Reps who all work for the soul-crushing Company in service of the Brand. The point is really to make a mockery of soulless corporations and their often ruthless strategies, not to mention the soulless drones who do their bidding. At the same time, it mocks our own willingness to worship these brands and submit to the will of these companies, all while creating ludicrous scenarios that are maddeningly interconnected with the stories created in the previous round. Maybe this excerpt from the rule book explains it best: Brainstorm for a couple of minutes until you come up with a name for the Brand [that all the players work for]. If some of you hate it — or, better, all of you hate it — that’s brilliant, because it means you’ll understand a little of what it is to work for an organization that makes you cringe every time you look in the mirror and see the Brand logo they tattooed on your forehead." -- Haha

theadvertisedlife work immateriallabour branding gaming roleplay games rpg parody satire boredom sciencefiction alternativereality
november 2008 by adamcrowe

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YouTube -- (Little Big Planet）リトルビッグプラネットでゼビウス？

Xevious remake inside Little Big Planet

littlebigplanet xevious retro games remake content
november 2008 by adamcrowe

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YouTube -- (Little Big Planet）リトルビッグプラネットでグラディウス１面

Gradius remake inside Little Big Planet

littlebigplanet gradius retro games remake content
november 2008 by adamcrowe

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YouTube -- (Little Big Planet）リトルビッグプラネットでテトリス？

Tetris remake inside Little Big Planet

littlebigplanet tetris retro games remake content
november 2008 by adamcrowe

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Media Molecule -- Bubblegum for your eyes

Little Big Planet Ads made with Little Big Planet!!! -- "All the ads (excluding the intros and outros, natch) were made using the game tools that come in the box. It was an interesting experience, because each level had to played through and acted, rather than animated. It feels like we did a thousand takes. At some point in the next few days we will try to get the actual levels online so you can play them yourselves."

advertising productnarratives machinima littlebigplanet games
november 2008 by adamcrowe

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Wikipedia -- Tetris

"A pseudorandom sequence of tetrominoes (sometimes called "tetrads" in older versions) - shapes composed of four square blocks each - fall down the playing field. The object of the game is to manipulate these tetrominoes, by moving each one sideways and rotating it by 90 degree units, with the aim of creating a horizontal line of blocks without gaps. When such a line is created, it disappears, and any block above the deleted line will fall. As the game progresses, the tetrominoes fall faster, and the game ends when the stack of tetrominoes reaches the top of the playing field and no new tetrominoes are able to enter."

tetris games gamemechanics archetypes tidying
october 2008 by adamcrowe

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Wired -- LittleBigPlanet Transforms Players Into DIY Gods

'Unlike the abstruse 3-D design and physics programming that most game development requires, this experience is meant to be as simple, intuitive, and addictive as the gameplay. "We're all really into music," says Alex Evans, cofounder of the game's developer, Media Molecule, "and we see this as a form of jamming."' -- "User-generated gaming"

gaming games gamemechanics tools narrativeenvironments storytelling objects narrativeobjects littlebigplanet
september 2008 by adamcrowe

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bobblebrook -- coign of vantage

"Put your spatial perception into perspective with this 3d puzzle game. Assemble as many images from an abstract cloud as you can before time runs out." -- Fun!

games 3d space synaptics via:iaintait
september 2008 by adamcrowe

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YouTube -- Wario Ware Inc: Doc Brown's Microgames

Wario vs Back To The Future

wario backtothefuture mashups games gamemechanics fandom narrativeactivism storytelling productnarratives parody intertextuality via:waxy
september 2008 by adamcrowe

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Cambridge News -- War On Terror board game seized by police

"A War On Terror board game designed in Cambridge has been seized by police who claim the balaclava in the set could be used in a criminal act." -- You, Sir, are an terrorist.

terrorism games simulation surveillance crime precrime crimethink
september 2008 by adamcrowe

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The Superstruct Game

"Play the game. Invent the future."

games roleplay storytelling seriousgames seriousrealitygaming alternativerealitygaming alternativereality reality JaneMcGonigal collectiveintelligence crowdsourcing transformation design future scenarioplanning
september 2008 by adamcrowe

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Aleks Krotoski -- Ludic spray

"The longevity of a media property is elongated by the desires of the community to keep it going. I wonder if it's possible for game designers to create products with the intention of ludic activity spraying beyond the boundaries of the games they create."

performance gameplay games design transmedia mediaclouds propagation spread gaming narrativeactivism narrativeenvironments storytelling fanon fandom fanfiction AlexKrotoski
september 2008 by adamcrowe

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Joystiq -- The Last Guy gets found on PSN tomorrow

'The Last Guy, a mash-up of Google maps and “follow the leader” (or Snake, if we can talk super old-school)… The 15 stages of zombie-dodging gameplay takes place in several cities across the globe, which use aerial photography as “levels”.'

playstation games gamemechanics mapping maps
september 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gamasutra -- Persuasive Games: Performative Play

"Performativity in discourse produces action. Performativity in video games couple gameplay to real-world action. Performative gameplay describes mechanics that change the state of the world through play actions themselves, rather than by inspiring possible future actions through coersion or reflection." -- Great examples: The Grocery Game and Bankquest

performance play seriousgames seriousrealitygaming gaming gameplay games design gamemechanics endogenous exogenous diegesis narrativeacts storygraph relationalaesthetics worldwithoutoil thegamingofeverydaylife youwho age0+
august 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gamasutra -- Designing a Gameless Game: Sulka Haro On Habbo Hotel

Sulka Haro: "I guess I really don't look so much at the definition of "game" as much as I look at the definition of "play." If you look at Habbo, nobody can say that people aren't playing in there. People really do play in all of these environments, so I would use that as the unifying metaphor for discussing the different environments and products you can use to play. It's more clear."

play gameplay gamemechanics games performance design socialdesign virtualworlds habbohotel
august 2008 by adamcrowe

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DEFENDER of the favicon

"DEFENDER of the favicon is a JavaScript remake of Eugene Jarvis' brilliant arcade game Defender written by Mathieu 'p01' Henri and inspired by Scott Schiller's experiment with generated favicons VU meter. The idea was to push the concept of generated favicons further and pack a thrilling retro shooter in 16×16 pixels using JavaScript, canvas and data: URIs."

via:andybennett defender retro games favicon javascript browser
august 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gamasutra -- The Pursuit of Games: Designing Happiness

"Designers who want happy gamers should [make] their work conducive to appreciation...games [can] do wonderful jobs of appreciating themselves first, and drawing players in with that enthusiasm. It's great to play something that effuses self-celebration."

* gaming experience games design gamemechanics happiness pleasure psychology behaviours fourthwall storytelling transmedia fandom play context trust
july 2008 by adamcrowe

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bit-tech.net -- Spore: Hands-on Preview

Sporecasted 'pollentated content' from Sporepedia to your procedurally-generated universe with built-in storytelling/machinima tools that post to YouTube - And there's a game in there in case you get bored! Spore = Your very own Pixar 'game' studio.

spore WillWright games review gaming creativity content machinima mediaclouds storytelling transmedia virtualworlds
june 2008 by adamcrowe

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Level Up -- Exclusive: Will Wright Gives Level Up the Scoop On Why Spore Is Taking So Long to Get Right, Part I

"We are seeing people have their you favorite level... I mean, it's their game. They bought it. I don't feel right as a designer locking them out and forcing them to watch my cutscenes, and play this level before they get to that level." -- Game/play.

spore toys play games gameplay simulation design WillWright
june 2008 by adamcrowe

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The New Yorker -- Game Master (Will Wright)

'“In Will’s games, the objects themselves are encoded to interact with the environment around them. All you have to do is drop the object into the environment and it will make other stuff happen. The objects create ‘verbs,’ as we say.”'

* WillWright spore games gaming programming learning education simulation failure algorithms cellularautomata emergence complexity symbiosis evolution life objects narrativeobjects storytelling narrativeenvironments narrativeacts performance design code
june 2008 by adamcrowe

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Los Angeles Times -- Sci Fi Channel is game to join the virtual world

"Sci Fi is entering a brave new world by teaming television writers with video-game designers to create a franchise that is both a television series and a massive multiplayer game on the Internet." -- Interesting...

virtualworlds mmorpg games gaming tv entertainment transmedia storytelling narrativeactivism chaoticfiction sciencefiction television
june 2008 by adamcrowe

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Wired -- Killer Gamer Asks, 'Where Have All the Bodies Gone?'

"Something quite interesting happens in the first few minutes of Ninja Gaiden II: The dead people don't vanish."

games design gamemechanics death realism morality
june 2008 by adamcrowe

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Wired -- Sandra Day O'Connor: Game Designer

'O'Connor detailed a project she is spearheading called Our Courts, which she described as an "online, interactive civic education project for seventh- and eighth-graders" that familiarizes students with the legal system.'

games seriousgames law government citizenship
june 2008 by adamcrowe

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GamesIndustry.biz -- Will Wright: Games are not stories

Play/Games = Agency (Interactions, Simulations) #Expanding Possibility Space --- Storytelling = Empathy (Emotions, Understandings) #Exploring Probability Space

WillWright storytelling games play gameplay possibilityspace probabilityspace simulation toys tools technology performance design
june 2008 by adamcrowe

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Virtual Goods Insider -- Zen and the Art of Curated Experiences

"... curated experiences are a way to suggest goals to a user and guide that user to achieving those goals. When a virtual world’s users don’t have goals, wanderlust sets in and that world risks losing its hard won audience."

virtualworlds virtualgoods virtualservices games gamemechanics gameplay goals motivation sharedexperience experience design experiencepoints
may 2008 by adamcrowe

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Gameology -- Product Placement and Virtual Branding in Video Games

'... three different modes of in-game product placement as it relates to game genre: “instrumental” [using simulated branded product], “diegetic” [branded game environment for realism], and “archetypal” [branded game features/mechanics/acts].'

* gaming branding productplacement avatars virtualworlds virtualgoods virtualservices games gamemechanics functionalitems decorativeitems objects narrativeobjects storytelling narrativeenvironments narrativeacts performance design diegesis endogenous exogenous vernacular simulation realism verisimilitude eastereggs hacking rewards
may 2008 by adamcrowe

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The Daedalus Project -- The Blurring of Work and Play

"Given that MMORPGs are creating environments where complex work is becoming seductively fun, how difficult would it be for MMORPG developers to embed real work into these environments?" -- Renting out capitalism at $25 per month. Grim.

* hackersvsvectoralists immateriallabour thegamingofeverydaylife theadvertisedlife work time play production ludocapitalism virtualworlds mmorpg seriousgames gaming deepgame experiencepoints competition levels flow games gamemechanics economics markets serviceecologies design psychology "capitalism"
april 2008 by adamcrowe

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Extenuating Circumstances – SXSW 2008: Jane McGonigal Keynote

"ten superhero abilities: #Mobbability #Cooperation radar #Ping quotient #Influency #Multi Capitalism #Protovation #Open Authorship #Signal/Noise Management #Longbroading #Emergensight"

thegamingofeverydaylife storytelling realityprogramming happiness gaming games gamemechanics seriousgames performance transformation design transformationdesign JaneMcGonigal
march 2008 by adamcrowe

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Jedi Trainer Light Saber Flash Game

Fun

starwars flash games
march 2008 by adamcrowe

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Campus Turf

Turn-based turf war game. "There is a 45% chance the attacker wins and a 55% chance the defender wins" -- Surely you should be able to buy weapons to help attack and defend. Virtual items business? Come on, get on it! $$$

biggaming mixedreality gamemechanics games design gametheory turnbased strategy tactics space virtualgoods
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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Avant Game - "Reality is Broken" - My GDC Rant

"... reality is fundamentally broken, and we have a responsibility as game designers to fix it, with better algorithms and better missions and better feedback and better stories and better community and everything else we know how to make." -- :)

alternativerealitygaming seriousgames gaming gameplay games play performance design objects narrativeobjects narrativeenvironments storytelling narrativeactivism goals motivation life work reality happiness inspiration JaneMcGonigal
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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UNITY

"Unity is a multiplatform game development tool, designed from the start to ease creation. A fully integrated professional application that just happens to contain the most powerful engine this side of a million dollars." -- Wow!

Unity games development engine framework graphics physics platform tools browser virtualworlds web 3D director
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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collision detection - Study: Gamers actually enjoy dying in first-person-shooters

"The instant you die [in Halo], the game shifts to a third-person camera perspective. This sudden switch in camera angle [...] is, in essence, a classic out-of-body experience, of exactly the sort people describe in near-death experiences."

halo gamemechanics games design gaming psychology play emotion perspective engagement death
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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Dani Bunten Berry - Imaginary Playmates in Real-time or Why Online Games Suck (1997)

"Good Multi-player Design Elements" -- Wow! Written in 1997. Wow!

* socialdesign gameplay games design gamemechanics virtualworlds virtualgoods mmorpg motivation engagement people
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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Terra Nova - The Lifetime to Master

'The deep game of "find the unintended aspects of play and arbitrage the living hell out of them" ... forces a convergence of play styles and limits the social variety of players ... the debate stops being about rules and starts being about morality.'

deepgame deepplay virtualworlds mmorpg gamemechanics games gameplay emergence design cheating ethics tactics strategy endogenous exogenous equilibrium
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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Spore -- Spore Release September 7 2008

"Maxis today announced that Spore™ will be available at retailers worldwide the weekend of September 7. Spore will be available for the PC, Macintosh, Nintendo DS™, and mobile phones." -- Oh man. Just tell me where to start queuing.

spore games mobile ds content virtualworlds universe simulation evolution
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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..::: Mogi :::..

"A game where players move outside, pick-up virtual items through their mobile phone interface then trade with other players to complete collections. The goal is to get the maximum points completing collections."

pervasive games gaming casualgaming location mobile collecting trade augmentedrealitygaming navigation gps collaboration japan mogi
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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Wikipedia - Progress Quest

"Progress Quest parodies the stat-gathering aspect of computer role-playing games, whereby the player advances his character by accumulating arbitrary statistic points. Progress Quest also pokes fun at traditional RPG races, classes, stories, quests," etc

gaming virtualworlds mmorpg parody criticaldesign gamemechanics games design class experiencepoints questing storytelling
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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Wikipedia - Catassing

"Catassing is the process of sequestering oneself at a computer and avoiding other day-to-day activity in favor of 'leveling up' in a massively multiplayer online game whose game design makes heavy use of level treadmills or their functional equivalents."

gaming gameplay games design gamemechanics virtualworld mmorpg behaviours levels experiencepoints motivation addiction immersion
february 2008 by adamcrowe

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