Game talk

This is the catch-all category for stuff about games and game design. It easily makes up the vast majority of the site’s content. If you are looking for something specific, I highly recommend looking into the tags used on the site instead. They can narrow down the hunt immensely.

  • Omoshiroi-no game design

    Hours Categories Game talk, Writing
    Comments 9 Comments

    My friend Masaya Matsuura, he of Parappa the Rapper fame, tells me

    Yesterday, I got the japanese version of “A Theory of Fun.” It is a “red” book instead of blue, and looks a little different from the original, but I think people from O’reilly Japan has been committed to make good book. Only one thing I told them was about the japanese title. Original title they named was “Omoshiroi game design” This sounds a little like, “fun of game design” So I said was, “Omoshiroi-no game design” sounds like “how game design can make fun?” also this sounds a little like strange japanese, english person speaks.

    So if you are in Japan, this might make a lovely gift. 🙂

    Also, I see that Amazon.com is almost out of the American edition, so if you want one for the holidays, you had better buy it now!

  • Appealing to women

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 37 Comments

    I hesitate to include this link because it demonstrates, in a nutshell, everything that is wrong with how the gaming industry markets in order to garner larger audiences. By the way, the link is Not Safe For Work.

    The irony is that it works. I just linked it, it’s #9 on the viral charts, and I am sure that it connects strongly with a certain demographic.

    An immature demograhic, mind you.
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  • Why Trauma Center rocks

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 5 Comments

    “Daddy, can you hellllp me?” This would be my 8-year old daughter asking.

    “With what?”

    “With this game.”

    “C’mon, Elena, you know you should beat games yourself.”

    “Yeah, but after I used the scalpel to make an incision, I couldn’t locate the tumors on the patient’s esophagus.”

    “Fine, I’ll help you. What do I do again?”

    “It’s just like the operation on the pancreas!”

    “Uh… it’s been a few weeks since I did that. What do I do?”

    “His vital signs are dropping! You need to use the ultrasound, daddy!”

    “Oh right… like this?”

    “Now, look! You killed him.”

    “Sorry.”

    “Now I’m going to have to do the operation over.”

    “Sorry.”

    “I bet you haven’t walked your Nintendog either.”

    At least I didn’t do what Cory Doctorow did: he couldn’t figure it out, so he just slashed the poor patient’s chest to ribbons with the scalpel. I knew that Atkins diet could have side effects…

  • Korean gov’t LFG

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 1 Comment

    Game&Game is apparently a production of KIPA, which falls under the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication. It aggregates a bunch of Korean online games for the US, Japanese, and German markets.

    When governments attack! What does it mean for the game industry when entire countries start evangelizing their products in this way?

    via Kim, again

  • The future of content

    Hours Categories Game talk, Music
    Comments 32 Comments

    Bear with me, this is about more than just music; but you’ll have to suffer through my extended analogy first.

    Once upon a time, musicians had exclusively local followings. They were relatively mobile, so they toured the countryside in their usual routes, spreading news from place to place and singing songs that were aimed at a very particular audience. They’d pick up tunes and lyrics and adapt them via the folk process, changing them for their local tastes, playing a decades-long game of telephone that changed the words around until sometimes they made no sense. Was the guy’s name Tom Dooley or Tom Dula? Did it matter?

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