It’s been a while since I did a straight-up design topic, and both Sara Jensen (at her new blog!) and Brian Green jumped in to reply to Ryan Shwayder’s original post on the subject, so why not perpetuate it?

Basically, the issue is this: when you kill some dude standing around in pink tights, a floppy hat, and elfin chain mail, do you get the pink tights, floppy hat, and chain mail? Or do you get something else, if anything?

Read More “WYSIWYG loot”

Here’s a nice way for games to poke a hornet’s nest! MyBrainTrainer is a web-based version of the popular “brain training” style games that have crossed from Japan, notably on the Nintendo DS. The web version offers a wide array of tests, ongoing tracking, age bracketing and other benefits that come from having a large database to make comparisons against.

Now, in the election season, it’s comparing the cognitive function of Republicans and Democrats.

Read More “GAmes and politics — in a different way”

I was feeling guilty about not having posted much lately (and what I have been posting is mostly reblogs!) and I realized that I probably had stuff lingering on the hard drive that I’d been meaning to upload to the site. One of the first things I stumbled across was the slides from the PARC Forum I gave (PDF). I previously posted links to the audio download (MP3) and video stream as well as a liveblogged summary, but somehow forgot to post the slides themselves. Oops.

This is a good chance to point to Nick Yee’s PARC Forum from earlier this year, too, entitled “The Blurring Boundaries of Play: Labor, Genocide, and Addiction.” Worth checking out.

Yep, written by Danielle Crittenden.