Do you want to know what the best part of a GDC party is? You are not there. If you were there then you’d just be standing around, talking to the three or four people you might know. You’d be getting drunk because you don’t have much else to do. And you’d be trying...
Read more →Any culture that gives you hard candy to listen to someone tell you about software has lost track of something. What, I’m not sure. But wandering the stiff wonderland that is the GDC Expo, you pretty much expect that if you want a bite-sized Snickers or a free t-shirt, you’re going to have to...
Read more →I’m an individual, just like everyone else. Not so long ago, the appellation “gamer” meant you were a part of something special. The blessed. The ones that got it. Being a gamer was more about not being one of the zillions of people that were not gamers. And as a part of the zealotry...
Read more →I can’t blame the girl who swiped the rich and earthy Beaujolais blend from my hand. She was just doing her job. Then again so was I. She was arcing into a powerful backswing in the latest iteration in the Tiger Woods Wii game, I was doing the journalist thing which was prowling a...
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Today etc press released Steffen Walz’s “Toward a Ludic Archtiecture” You can download the text or leap straight into purchasing a printed copy here: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/toward-ludic-architecture As I continue to work through my dissertation on “What makes a place fun?’, I am excited to see Steffen’s work in print. Not only does it help push forward...
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Below is the full text of a conference proposal I submitted to the upcoming DiGRA conference . Unfortunately, the proposal was rejected, at least in part for being confusing. Fair enough. But I am posting it here is the interest of gaining additional comments and feedback, either public or private. I think the epistemological underpinnings...
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London now sports what it's owners have described as the world's first walk-in cocktail. Don the sort of coverall you see in science labs and walk into a misty room. The room is the "bar" and the mist is gin and tonic. Presumably, chilling in this cocktail and breathing deeply long enough is equivalent...
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As a part of my, "What makes a place fun?" research, I have postulated the idea of the "fun house" as an actual home anchored in fun as much as much as some homes are designed to be beautiful. The question always is, "What is a fun house?" And while I am still working out...
Read more →(This is an excerpt from a longer argument building a description of fun and linking it to the much more explored subject of play.) On face value the question rings true. Some places do seem more fun than others and wondering "What makes a place fun?" is equivalent to asking: "Where is a fun place we...
Read more →Some recent links sifted from the great shifting data mass of the Interwebs: Electronic Playgrounds http://www.physorg.com/news109517949.html What happens when an international playground equipment maker decides to go digital? i.play is supposed to blend together the fun of videogames with the physical activity of a playground. To my mind, what this really does is drastically...
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