According to Locus Online,

L.A.con IV, the 64th World Science Fiction Convention to be held next August in Anaheim, California, has published its Hugo Awards nomination ballot, which includes a special one-time category for Best Interactive Video Game. See Progress Report #3 (PDF files), page 26, for details.

Read the rest of this entry »

raphkoster_rss - Syndicated Account is the way to get to it, I think.

Though I must admit I have no idea how to do anything with LiveJournal.

Current readers: two. Whee! I have a ways to go to catch up to Neil Gaiman.

Since the Admiral [Columbus] perceived that daily the people of the land were taking up arms, ridiculous weapons in reality…. he hastened to proceed to the country and disperse and subdue, by force of arms, the people of the entire island… For this he chose 200 foot soldiers and 20 cavalry, with many crossbows and small cannon, lances, and swords, and a still more terrible weapon against the Indians, in addition to the horses: this was 20 hunting dogs, who were turned loose and immediately tore the Indians apart.

- Bartolomé de las Casas, writing on the Spanish genocide of the Arawak on Haiti in 1495

Why are most MMOs about genocide?

Read the rest of this entry »

In the last few days, I’ve had occasion to catch up on a lot of games. Given that I haven’t posted too much over the last few days (been busy playing instead!) I figured I might as well share my favorites off of the list so that you can go out and seek out these play experiences yourself, and think about how MMOs might develop with more attention to features other than the leveling…

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t have any Christmas poems.

But since my brother and his wife are expecting a baby boy in June, and my friends Todd & Heather just had a baby girl, and my friends John and Michelle expect a baby any second now, here is a little thing about that moment when you first get the news.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have here three reviews of A Theory of Fun written in Korean, and I don’t know what they say. I’d very much like to know, and also to post the reviews on the book’s website.

If there’s anyone out there willing to translate them, I’d very much appreciate it. The blog readers map doesn’t show anyone in Korea, but after all, we know most of the readers haven’t put their markers on that yet.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 7th Annual Independent Games Festival has just announced a retail compilation of past IGF entrants, including games like Gish and Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the first post, I outlined my reasons for having disliked levels for about ten years now, and then marched through a discussion of how levels were distorted as they were adapted from pen and paper games into CRPGs and then MUDs. It seemed like a fairly damning case against levels, but it wasn’t the whole picture even of the bad parts. It was also far from a picture of the good parts, which present a compelling case for having levels anyway.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s sad to see veteran game designers turn bitter and cynical over the fate of the industry.

On the other hand, if we keep getting comics like this one then, Ron can stay bitter.

I told myself I wouldn’t reblog, but… here’s some links that have recently caught my eye that I meant to write whole posts about but haven’t found the time.

Read the rest of this entry »