Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Yes! the Homestar Runner RPG for the Atari 2600 is almost there! Too bad you can't play with Strong Bad! (oh and Strong Bad... congratz with your hundredth email).
flickr
Wired News: Passport Safety, Privacy Face Off
Kind of disturbing: Wired News: Passport Safety, Privacy Face Off
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Nice: a mood detector and communicator (via Nechbi):
the Digimood PED 'acts as a communication enhancer, a device that senses the mood and feelings of the wearer and communicates this to another similar device using standard communication medias' and 'it helps for a more efficient mutual understanding'. (it kinda makes me think of the Empath power of Phoebe in Charmed...)
the device raises interesting questions...
it probably won't be a good idea to communicate my emotions/mood right now. makes me curious though if it can really help the mutual understanding or make people (more) annoyed. Having your feelings exposed... isn't that something we try to avoid most of the time? at least when it's a negative feeling? Also wonder how it can measure gradual differences....love and hate are worlds apart but still so close, so when is a heartbeat acceleration out of anger or excitement? We still depend on the face to face communication for the appropriate mind - set and mood so that's probably why it's supposed to be an enhancer.
Which reminds me... I should go deepen my understanding of biofeedback.
Times Square Billboard videogame
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
wow the coolest thing now in New York...playing videogames on big screen! and not just any screen...You can play a Yahoo ad racing game on a billboard in Times Square! All you need is a (working) cellphone.
Maybe I would like Pong better *grin*. Hope that the game won't cause traffic jams or any accidents with people playing on the streets, staring at a billboard....
Thx J for the link.
See also Slashdot
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Having a blog is not as easy as it seems, it asks a lot of input and time and you constantly wonder if it's enough among other things. Most of the time a week on vacation means also a week away from blogging, and I thought blogging was fun! Anyway it seems an issue with most bloggers. The 'blogging-ennui' has been put in a nice cartoon at the site of Grumpygirl.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
The Video Game Ombudsman along with The International Game Journalists Association (IGJA) have set up a Style Guide for videogames. The purpose is to compile a 'standard, industry-wide style guide'. All members of the forum of IGJA can post a new entry so it's a collaborative piece of work. It can be quite useful to have a standardized way of keywords, although many are up for debate (like video game or videogame, I much prefer the one-word spelling: videogame). Therefore it's a good thing the style guide is on a messageboard where everyone can discuss an entry. Hopefully for them it won't be discussions without an end.
Now all we need is an academic vocabulary put into a styleguide. It should be a database of how to write words but more importantly it should be a dictionary of some sort with terms commonly used by academic game researchers. The field should probably be a bit more evolved than it is now to come up with such a style guide and dictionary although there are already some early steps to be seen around. A good example is the dictionary on game-research.com.
They also have a 'Game Research reference database' which is 'an attempt to create a comprehensive collection of references to game related literature'. So far they have 529 entries. Another bibliography can be found on Ren Reynolds' website
A hot topic on the Gamesnetwork list a while ago was a reference database for citations and bibliography in academic writings. We know (although I do find it quite difficult still, and takes me ages to make a bibliography *grumble* when writing something so hail the blog ;)) how to quote something and refer to the appropriate book or website but how to refer to a videogame? Does the reference have to contain the publisher, developer, designer etc.? A more elaborate notion on this subject you can find at Stanislav Roudavski's site where he has put up a log of the discussion on the Gamesnetwork List and a reference guide draft.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
So tell me what's so difficult about using a printer? Apparently women need one especially made by and for them: "a printer easy for women to use": Epson's female printer. And it's ugly too... I'm in state of shock...
Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan have a new book out called First Person (now also in cloth edition). Subtitle: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. The collection is organized as a series of discussions among creators and theorists. It has contributors like Aarseth, Eskelinen, Flanagan, Hayles, Jenkins, Murray, well, actually all the big players in the game theory field and narrative field :).
On grandtextauto Noah has a posting on First Person.
I have a copy of Wardrip-Fruin's The New Media Reader, and I think he/they did quite a good job on that (still flipping through the pages) so I'm curious to see how the First Person book will turn out to be.
Monday, March 15, 2004
A nice blogpost on blogs, creativity, audiences, and academics. It talks about the demands and the pro's and cons of having a blog and being an academic (more like the stress and the rewards of academic blogging).
what's the story behind the non-blogger? Do they still exist? Apparently they do! And here you can read how one non-blogger perceives a world that's invaded by 'tha blogger': Blogging Off (via Klastrup's Cataclysms)
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Wow! talk about being a fan of a videogame! Paul Hantschel, a huge Zelda fan, got a blacksmith to make a real- life replica of the Master Sword, famous from the Legend of Zelda series. So watch out you Aragorn wannabe's here comes the Master Sword!!
So i finally decided to post something again. Was in a blog depression, read others but didn't have the urge to write down something myself. Maybe because of the writing I was supposed to do for the University. Will this be the beginning of the end? probably not, it was a temporary writer's block...i hope.
Anyway I am writing now because of the joyful republishing of a blog of a friend of mine. He certainly has interesting thoughts although I don't get half of what he is writing ;-), it's definitely an interesting read. Hope he decides to make it a permanent thing cos I really think it's worth it. Anyway...enjoy Jeroen's Vortex of Reflexivity
Update: He decided not to go through with it, only private.... so unfortunately we can no longer enjoy his mind dazzling and insightful musings... hope he'll decide to start a new public blog in the future!
Monday, March 01, 2004
Looks like there are more pixel flash animations of videogames on the web! The site Video Game Director's Cut has a whole bunch of them! woohoo! The author has called those Pixeled Parodies. If you liked "the downfall of Mario" you will sure like the "Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom" and "Rise of the MK: Part 2". This time it's Luigi's revenge time! and of course that of the Mushroom Kingdom. Warning: violence and blood & gore!
oh and you have to watch the Mack Daddies on that site! Those are way too funny ^_^ shake that booty! Go Go Go! (it will make sense when you watch Mack Daddy Mario 3 ;))