Went in sceptical, but this is a very good/solid presentation: the emphasis on going beyond chucking around the adjective "playful" and actually considering what makes (different kinds of) games work, and what they may/may not be applicable to, is spot-on. And a reminder that I'm behind on my reading, as usual.

"As Hecker suggested, though, that crucial consideration of the "why" of game development -- along with related questions like "What are you trying to say to people?" or "What influenced this?" or "Are you trying to say anything at all?" -- seems to be less important in this medium than it is elsewhere. That's understandable, since "fun" can be pursued for its own benefit, and to great and impressive effect. Surely we've got that covered by this point, though, and there's bandwidth for more." Chris Remo thinks out loud for a bit.

"And that is the best definition of casual that I can come up with: Casual players cannot be rated better or worse than other players." Torres finds a nice overlap with the Hicks/Hudson duality; I like his suggestion that casual players don't have metrics for comparison, because their primary goal is fun, and you cannot compare types of fun.

Takahashi being wonderfully perceptive and making some interesting observations. Also, describing some lovely design decisions in the beautiful, soothing, and bonkers Noby Noby Boy. I still need a soundtrack CD for that game.

"The aim, then, is to explore what makes a good children's game, to consider how this oft-maligned market can sometimes reveal bad game design habits that we've been conditioned to tolerate, and to offer a guide to the best games for kids available now by looking at the four design areas that I believe are key to making a successful game for children." Dan Whitehead's roundup of games for children is really very good: some strong thinking, good comparative analysis, and best of all, parental insight. More like this, please, EG.

"On Tuesday we shipped an update that added a bunch of features / bugfixes / balancing tweaks that came out of the community's feedback. In particular, it made some changes to the underlying TF damage system, and as part of that, it modified the way critical hits are determined. We thought it might be interesting to dig a little into the change, and hopefully give you some insight into our thinking." Another cracking example of explaining game mechanics clearly and directly, to an engaged community.

"You've got to get shit happening – you can talk about it, you can write it down, it means nothing until you actually make it and think f**k that's nothing like what I thought it was going to be! That happens most of the time." Gary Penn on prototyping, getting real, and how they do stuff at Denki. More good stuff.

"We always start with the idea of toys," says Ralfe. "They're the quickest way into finding fun. Rules aren't fun, so we never begin with them." Great feature from Keith Stuart on a visit to Denki; lots of good stuff in here.

"...Nintendo understands that while play does involve competition, territoriality and rehearsal for war, it also involves silliness, laughter and fun." Oh, god, can I just marry Stephen Fry now? Oh, there's a queue. Never mind.

You're a little robot. You're also indestructible. Use bombs to bounce yourself around the level, but don't run out. Lovely little flash game.

Awesome. Server set up to play karaoke; players mix appalling singing with a bit of the old ultraviolence. I miss PC gamers.

An outdoor games console, with lots of fun locative play elements. And it's *real*.

Lots of hex codes for Crayola crayons. Lovely.

"CommandShift3 is like Hot or Not. Except, instead of clicking on hot babes, you click on hot websites."

"If you want someone to fail, you want them to fail fast, before they spend a lot of money... [Miyamoto] would just say, 'Find the fun, and I'll be back in three months to take a look at what you have.'" Good advice.

"Much of the past 4 weeks has been spent determining which has the most sensitive built-in accelerometer: an iPhone, a Nintendo Wiimote, or our newborn son."

All the slides from Raph's ETech Keynote

Been looking for this for a while - as a classicist, it fills me with a silly delight if nothing else.

Scripty postcards: chunks of Ruby you can run just by evaluating them. They do useful things, and are hilariously insecure - but the concept is delightful. Not sure what I'd use it for... but it all hangs together very nicely.

Voice-controlled blender. Lovely.

gingerbread motherboard