Published by Charles Joseph July 14th, 2008
in Current Events.
Mark Essen, also known as messhof, is one of the only true rockstars of game design. Not in the sense that he is incredibly famous, but in the sense that he turns out brief but blazing examples of creativity that seemingly fly in the face of tradition. If that weren’t enough, he has successfully gotten his games acknowledged as art. Not by seducing Roger Ebert, but by getting his games shown in an actual museum.
This coming Tuesday, July 15th, the Brooklyn-based museum Light Industry will have a talk by Mark Essen as well as showcasing five of his games, including two new ones. You can also check out Essen’s work at his website. Hope to see you all there!
Published by Charles Berkeley July 11th, 2008
in Current Events and Opinion.
Here at the Games-Learning-Society Conference in Madison, Wisconsin there has been a lot of discussion and presentations related to how games and education should mix. We’ve got your standard games and education evangelists (like Jim Gee, Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman, etc…), a plethora of academics presenting research, and a few folks like me who mainly design games. The conference seems to be part pep rally, part best practices, part mingle fest, with not enough attention given to “how to talk to school administration about putting games into the classroom” and “when and when not games should be used in the classroom.” The conference center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (and it shows, truly special architecture) and so I’m worried he’s rolling in his grave as I never heard a single person mention form has to meet function in game design (especially for education). That’s really my only criticism at the moment, on the whole the conference was a joy to attend. I’ll post more in the coming days about specific lectures and the conference highlights.
Published by Charles Joseph May 7th, 2008
in Current Events.
Yesterday two of our own, Charles Berkeley Miller and Bob Clark, presented their thesis projects to the Interactive Telecommunications Program of NYU.
Charles B presented on the educational board game he’s been working on called Political Capital and Bob talked about his project to fix dialogue in games. You can read their abstracts here and here.
Hopefully they’ll post video soon, for those of us that couldn’t make it!
Moments after a horse named Big Brown accomplished a feat in the Kentucky Derby that only a great horse could accomplish (win from the 20th and last gate), the runner-up Eight Belles — a competitive filly — fell to the ground as she was ridden out long past the finish line. Two broken ankles. Within moments, she was euthanized before Big Brown had even reached the winner’s circle.
I was at the betting window when I had heard the news. I had just watched the race in person and screamed for joy as I saw the filly cross the finish line to complete my exacta. Trying to beat the rush of fans collecting their winnings, I stood in line and watched a monitor for the results to become official. The man behind me seemed frustrated and disappointed about something — and those are very rare feelings for anyone standing in line to receive their winnings. He then told me that the filly had just been put down. I told him it couldn’t be, that she finished 2nd. I was sure of it. The gutsy little horse that I had promised all of my betting friends that “she’s so competitive, she’ll die trying to win this race” had just ended her short life. Suddenly I too was a little less giddy about my winning ticket.
Continue reading ‘What Happens When the Magic Circle is Pulled From Beneath Your Feet’
Published by Charles Joseph April 11th, 2008
in Current Events.
We previously posted that Jason Rohrer would be coming to speak at NYU tomorrow, Friday, April 11th. However, we have been informed that due to illness that talk has been postponed until a later date. When we find out when this later date is we’ll be sure to let you all know!
So I’m in a bit of an interesting quagmire: remember my post a few weeks back about the NCAA tourney pools? Well, low and behold, I’m in 4th place in a 250 person pool with quite a bit of *cough* pride on the line (enough for the IRS to be interested, let’s say). It’s an interesting dilemma that might be best phrased in this way: if someone walked up to you on the street and offered you a month’s rent but you had to flip of a coin to get it, would you risk that OR take half of a month’s rent guaranteed without having to flip the coin? This is basically what hedging a bet is all about, because only fools would flip the coin.
Continue reading ‘Frontlines of the Non-digital: Hedging Our Bets’
Published by Oren April 3rd, 2008
in Current Events.
I know I have been MIA for the past couple of months, but I have been extremely busy.
Anyways, I thought I would let everyone know about the upcoming Gaming Seminar, tomorrow April 4th. This time I will be speaking, which I hope will be as interesting as Charles. I plan on talking about Games at NYU, along with my first attempt at the definition of games. I am not done making the presentation, so things may change in the next 20 hours, but for the most part, it looks like it will be lots of fun.
For more information, check out the blog @ http://itp.nyu.edu/gaming/ I should be going on first at 1.
I hope to see everyone there.
Published by Charles Joseph March 12th, 2008
in Current Events.
I failed to look closely at the date posted for the lecture and it turns out that Jason Rohrer will not be coming until April 11th, not this Friday, March 14th. The ITP gaming site usually posts about its speakers right before the Friday that they visit, that was not the case this time and I hadn’t noticed. My mistake and I apologize for jumping the gun. I will post another reminder when the date gets a little closer!
Thanks to Jason for pointing this out!
Published by Charles Joseph March 11th, 2008
in Current Events.
Jason Rohrer, creator of Passage, will be talking at NYU on Friday, March 11th at 1pm in the lobby of the 9th floor of Tisch (where NYU welcomes all it’s most distinguished guests from the games industry). He will be talking about ‘art games’ and “game mechanics as metaphor”.
Hope to see you all there!
Published by Charles Joseph February 4th, 2008
in Current Events.
So I’ll be speaking at the next Gaming Seminar hosted by NYU this coming Friday, and the topic will be ‘Independent Game Designers’. I’ve been thinking about what I want to talk about and it occurred to me that it would be really useful to know you all want to hear. I feel like the folks that read this blog represent a great cross-section of different perspectives on games and game design and your input is as valuable as any I could get. Here are a few ideas for topics that I’ve been tossing around:
- Independent vs. Indie.
- Innovation and independence.
- The history of independent game design.
- Designing games for specific audiences.
- The process of building an independent game (i.e. Casablanca).
- The experience of building your first game.
- My education as a game designer and the reality of starting a career in game design.
Is there anything that catches any interest in any of you all? Is there something that I’m not thinking of? I’ll be working on the presentation throughout the week and any feedback you guys have on these initials thoughts or otherwise would be greatly appreciated. Of course, I hope to see you all there!
Author’s Note: How about them Giants?
COMMENTS