I Went Left Instead Of Right In Pitfall And Kept On Tickin' And Now I Believe In Miracles: An absurdist play.
posted by NoraReed on Jul 9, 2009 - 8 comments

Wolfenstein 3D, the animated graphic novel.
posted by Artw on Jul 8, 2009 - 42 comments

bonus level is a new flash gaming portal. Games include Captain Dan V Zombie Plan, reminiscent of Berzerk, Push, an unusual platformer that combines level manipulation with quick-reflex timing and jumping, Jump Gear, an acrobatic timed racer and a ton more I haven't even tried yet. What sets bonus level apart from other gaming portals is that it's headed by three great names in game development, Wouter Visser (Wouter), Tõnu Paldra (tonypa) and Jean-Philippe Sarda (JP). Part of their philosophy is allowing anyone who registers to make and share levels for their games, as well as giving budding designers access to the flash APIs used to create all of bonus level's games.
posted by boo_radley on Jul 8, 2009 - 7 comments

45 pictures of Mario & Luigi!
posted by EatTheWeak on Jun 22, 2009 - 22 comments

In the wake of the Resident 5 racism flap (previously), and with the final game released, one of it's chief detractors, N'Gai Croal, talks to its producer, Jun Takeuchi (Part 1, Part 2). Meanwhile industry magazine MVC takes a look at Africa as a games market.
posted by Artw on Jun 12, 2009 - 137 comments

No reset button here, kiddo. What happens when you decide to drop a novice into the middle of the 24-hour race in your Nissan 350Z race car...? Gran Turismo game designer Kazunori Yamauchi decided to find out.
posted by lonefrontranger on May 26, 2009 - 42 comments

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved" .... and mad enough to play fantasy baseball. In the new book Kerouac at Bat: Fantasy Sports and the King of the Beats, a NY Public Library archivist considers documents revealing the author's detailed obsession with the imaginary exploits of players like Pictorial Review Jackson and teams like the "Pontiacs, Nashes, and cellar-dwelling LaSalles" in his finely grained, fictional Summer League.
posted by Miko on May 21, 2009 - 22 comments

Game developers are unconstrained in their designs for the enemy. Such designers will be punished with poor sales, not death in the gulag, if their designs for the overlord are unpopular. They could go anywhere with the homes of evildoers: halls of electric fluorescence, palaces carved from corduroy, suburban back yards. And yet, in spite of this freedom, most videogame designers choose to make a definite connection to familiar – or real-world – architecture ...
posted by jim in austin on May 15, 2009 - 11 comments

There's something in the sea... and it has a big drill for an arm.
posted by Artw on Apr 20, 2009 - 74 comments

At GDC this year, Heather Chaplin to game developers: "You're a bunch of f***ing adolescents." Chaplin, co-author of the book Smartbomb, spoke at the Game Developers Conference during a panel called the Rant Session. [more inside]
posted by shmegegge on Apr 8, 2009 - 249 comments

Monopoly killer - how The Settlers of Catan redefined board games.
posted by Artw on Mar 29, 2009 - 160 comments

"Since I attacked my opponent in the past and the time waves have not yet propagated the results of this battle to the present, my units are still here in the present" Got that? Meta-Time Strategy Gaming [more inside]
posted by doobiedoo on Mar 28, 2009 - 55 comments

A Life Well Wasted is a new podcast about video games and the people who love them, created by freelance writer Robert Ashley. [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave on Mar 18, 2009 - 20 comments

The niftiest thing at Coin Op World? The mp3 files of Classic Arcade Sounds. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Mar 13, 2009 - 27 comments

Want to play a swashbuckling pirate, space opera hero, or monster-fighting Victorian dandy? How about a supervillain fighting against alien invaders? Or a mutant snack cake? Welcome to Savage Worlds. [more inside]
posted by MrVisible on Feb 25, 2009 - 56 comments

Friday 3MB-Mac-and-PC-download fun: Jumpman. [more inside]
posted by Rinku on Feb 20, 2009 - 29 comments

Cinemaware produced games with one goal: a "strong commitment to movie-like quality." A laudable goal, and their tools were measured in bytes rather than megabytes. They made these games in the 80s. This one intro used an entire 880KB floppy disk! A number of Cinemaware's games are available for download as ROMs, and there's even a flash version of Defender of the Crown. Some of the original artists behind the games are still creating art and music. [more inside]
posted by sleslie on Feb 19, 2009 - 17 comments

Street Fighter II. It basically created the 2d-beat-em-up, and invented the combo, the special move, a wide roster of diverse, playable characters who people grew to love, and all the other things that gamers have taken for granted for years. It spawned a whole series, none of which ever quite captured the original's charm or had the same influence. This was a game that people obsessed over - bands were named after its special moves, rappers cited it in their lyrics, and even Premier League footballers weren't immune to its charms. Poor Raul Julia's final film was this masterpiece, and a new version's headed straight to DVD very soon. Now, 17 years later, Street Fighter 4 is about to be released in Europe and the nostalgia machine is going into overdrive. The game's producer's been talking about its links to Street Fighter II, reviewers are getting misty-eyed , and even musicians are getting in on the act with Akira the Don making his very own Street Fighter-themed track. Apparently it's pretty good. Hadouken!
posted by muggsy1079 on Feb 19, 2009 - 79 comments

The Socially Conscious Gamer is just the most recent example of growing discussions about how gamer culture and problems with silencing and pushing women out, wallowing in racist stereotypes, self-fulfilling cycles of exclusion, and why these conversations are hard, if not impossible to have. Still, if rational discussions can be had about games dealing with slavery, perhaps there is still hope. Personally, I can't wait for escapism to be for all of us, and not about escaping FROM us.
posted by yeloson on Feb 16, 2009 - 159 comments

Trump Entertainment is about to run out of the third extension of its debt payments. Station Casinos is offering its investors as little as 10 cents on the dollar in a pre-packaged bankruptcy. Wynn Resorts is cutting staff hours and bonuses to avoid layoffs. MGM Mirage may see a default rate of 30% on its City Center condominiums. Harrah's long-term debt has doubled. There are no more traffic jams on the Strip. Oh... and the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City had to settle a $70 million sexual harassment lawsuit brought by its beverage servers. In short: times are tough.
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 9, 2009 - 61 comments

"For the first time in history a wireless motion-sensing wig is used as game controller." SLYT via Kotaku
posted by Rinku on Feb 8, 2009 - 20 comments

Interview with Jon Schindehette, senior art director at Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons and Dragons. See more fantasy art at his blog, ArtOrder.
posted by Artw on Jan 29, 2009 - 24 comments

Despite the oft-declared death of the Adventure Game, Nintendo's success has raised the genre's mainstream profile and quality to a level unseen since the 90s. The DS in particular has been an ideal platform for AGs, leading to the release of a number of popular Japanese titles in the American market. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is only the most recent to receive praise from western game rags - but it is the most consistently well-reviewed - making many short-lists of the best DS games of 2008. Featuring beautiful illustration, engrossing puzzles, and a charming story, Professor Layton topped Japanese software charts on its release (as did its sequel, Professor Layton and the Devil's Box, still unreleased in the US), though all indications are that its American sales have been underwhelming. [more inside]
posted by macross city flaneur on Jan 21, 2009 - 62 comments

Most video games are easy to learn, but hard to master. For those focused on single player, there are always speed runs. However, multiplayer competition can often be much more interesting to perfect. Of course, there are those who make gaming a career with games like Halo and other FPSes. There's Street Fighter II (as well as other editions and variations), which can lead to some incredible matches. There are some very intense StarCraft tournaments, as well as similar tournaments for a variety of other RTSes. Often, games can last so long beyond their shelf lives simply because of the fan base and multiplayer aspect.
posted by cardern on Jan 13, 2009 - 41 comments

Friday Flash Fun: Evacuation is a puzzle game about explosive decompression. Save the crew! Eject the aliens into space by opening the spaceship's doors! The catch: doors of the same color all open together. [more inside]
posted by Rinku on Jan 9, 2009 - 17 comments

RIP 1UP & EGM. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal on Jan 7, 2009 - 63 comments

So you've spent the holidays playing games, but now you have to be back at work. How to get your gaming fix during commutes and lunch-hours, whilst keeping up with that resolution to Learn Something New this year? Well, you could make a Sack-Boy. You can keep your portable games device warm with a Zelda cosy. You can knit up a Pacman scarf or a Space Invaders bag or socks if you're feeling retro. Or you can make a pocket ninja, an invincibility star to get you through the afternoon, a maqgnetic Katamari ball to spring-clean that desk, or a friendly companion cube. (and if you're too cack-handed to knit, you can sew a friendly cube with the pattern here and tutorial here!)
posted by mippy on Jan 4, 2009 - 13 comments

In 1986, most gamers who were lucky enough to own a new video game system at home were playing the original Nintendo. It's launch in 1985, a year before the Sega Master System was launched in the states, allowed it plenty of time become the most popular console in the market, and the game Super Mario Bros. quickly became the best-selling video game of all time (a title it continues to hold, having sold over 40 million copies to date). However, even though Nintendo commanded 95% of the North American video game market at the time and the CEO of Sega made little effort to promote and market it, some people still bought and gave the Sega Master System a chance. Perhaps it was the 3-D glasses or it's unique ability to read multiple media inputs... or perhaps that the original version of the system had a secret game built right into it (and it was unbeatable!). [more inside]
posted by Bageena on Dec 22, 2008 - 52 comments

In a must-see interview for tabletop gamers everywhere, Colonel Louis Zocchi talks about modern mass produced plastic dice and why they utterly fail at being random: Part 1 - Part 2
posted by loquacious on Nov 26, 2008 - 84 comments

Do you have a yearning to be online? Do you suffer from difficulty concentrating or sleeping, irritation, or mental or physical distress? According to doctors in China, you might have an internet addiction. [more inside]
posted by DiscourseMarker on Nov 10, 2008 - 25 comments

Obama Advertising in Video Games Obama campaigning in XBox 360's Burnout Paradise. Although Mark Warner did it first with his video appearance in Second Life, Senator Obama has gone one step further and is advertising on Xbox 360. [more inside]
posted by Ironmouth on Oct 14, 2008 - 58 comments

What can one learn from the design choices of past games? John Harris discusses different game aspects, 20 games at a time, at Game Design Essentials. You can read on 20 Open World Games (where generally the player is left to his own devices to explore a large world), see your destroyed controllers in a new light with 20 Difficult Games or check out 20 Mysterious Games (that rely on algorithmically-generated content or emphasize secret-hunting), 20 Unusual Control Schemes and 20 Atari Games. What about roguelikes, you say? [more inside]
posted by ersatz on Sep 30, 2008 - 51 comments

"A Solitaire Civization game that's compact enough to play on a plane ... Using only a pad of paper, a pencil, and a specialized deck of cards, lead your civilization through the ages to become ... civilized." A free "print-and-play" board game. [more inside]
posted by jbickers on Sep 25, 2008 - 20 comments

Games auteur Messhof has been mentioned once before on metafilter but his latest (windows only) game, Randy Balma Municipal Abortionist, hasn't. It's trippy, frustrating, disturbing, short, and totally free. You might like to play some Punishment first to get an idea of this guy's sensibility before heading straight for the ubercrazy.
posted by Cantdosleepy on Sep 17, 2008 - 16 comments

Ken Levine, creator of Bioshock, gives a funny and inspiring speech about growing up geek before the internet and the era of 'geek chic'. (SLGV, and annoying age check)
posted by mattholomew on Sep 11, 2008 - 22 comments

Will Wright's PC game Spore was released yesterday. The 'Sim Everything' game from the creator of Sim City and The Sims takes the player from cellular growth to space colonization with several stages in between. Reviews are in, and the consensus is that it's good but not as legendary as its scope (and multi-year development cycle) would suggest. The game's 'draconian' DRM has sparked controversy, causing Amazon users to bomb it with one-star reviews.
posted by mattholomew on Sep 8, 2008 - 144 comments

Most gamers have never heard of Braunstein. Sad but true. In the hierarchy of self-awareness you’ll find the circle of gamers who know what D&D is (a very, very large circle), then inside of that is the circle of gamers who know what Greyhawk is (large but smaller), and inside that the circle who knows what Blackmoor is (smaller still). And then in the very center, vanishingly small, are the people who’ve heard of Braunstein. Which is a pity, because Braunstein is the granddaddy of them all.

According to a new report, children in Sweden are becoming increasingly concerned by their parents' internet habits. "This summer she has been sitting up all day and all night and she forgets what's important to me. And when she's not at the computer she's like a lost soul. She just looks straight ahead and says nothing. I'm not doing so well." Dr Jerald Block from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland is pushing for internet addiction (and its three subtypes: excessive gaming, sexual preoccupations and e-mail/text messaging) to be included as a common disorder in the next update of the DSM (DSM-V). "The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer... It's much more acceptable for kids to talk about game use, whereas adults keep it a secret. Rather than having sex, or arguing with their wife or husband, or feeding their children, these adults are playing games..."
posted by chuckdarwin on Jun 26, 2008 - 66 comments

Tetris has changed over the years. The latest game mechanics are well-documented and allow for techniques more complicated than those of us used to earlier iterations could possibly imagine. And of course, you can have it any way you want it. [via]
posted by silby on Jun 12, 2008 - 40 comments

At last, a study on video games that is grounded in common sense. Two scientists say their results can best be summed up in one word: relax. It's okay for kids to play videogames. What's more, parents can enjoy gaming with their kids. The relationship between videogames and violence is anything but causal. One interesting finding: those middle school boys most likely to bully others are the ones who play no videogames at all.
posted by misha on Jun 9, 2008 - 52 comments

Delta Green - be part of the conspiracy. The latest sourcebook for Delta Green, the cult modern day Call of Cthulhu setting, is being financed via fundable. If the target for funding is not met it’s release will be delayed... if it is released at all. A niche setting within a niche system in a hobby in decline, Delta Green is still intensely well loved by those who know about it, making them a good target for the ransom model. Will thinking outside the usual publishing business models save pen and paper RPGs?
posted by Artw on May 11, 2008 - 63 comments

In this way, Lu Yang became one of the "RMB gamers" she disdains. More than 10,000 RMB was quickly and nearly imperceptibly spent. In the game, the "queen" possessed fearsome power. She carried out vengeance for herself and her friends, she accepted entreaties, and she protected the caravans of the kingdom. At the same time, she went out with the heroes to invade other kingdoms. Her reputation spread far and wide. [...] "Long live the Queen!" People bowed to her in submission. That was the high point for Lu Yang on ZT Online, and for that one fleeting moment, she felt that the time and money she had spent was worth it.

Los Angeles libraries offer video games to kids - Yes, they play Guitar Hero in the library these days. Over half of the LA public libraries are offering video game nights to encourage kids to visit libraries. Also, this Friday is 'gaming @ the library day', part of the effort to get children more comfortable at the library.
posted by Argyle on Apr 17, 2008 - 69 comments

Everything you need to know about playing Nintendo.
posted by dhammond on Apr 10, 2008 - 64 comments

Super Epic Video Game News. Several Channel 101 alumni are bringing their own distinctive style to game and tech journalism. Perfect for those who love video games, but hate the people that play them. The YouTube comments are an even split between impotent rage and people who get the joke. [more inside]
posted by BartFargo on Apr 3, 2008 - 14 comments

Female educator & writer comments on male culture - describing video gaming males in their 20s as 'child-men', delaying traditional responsibility by decades compared to previous generations (NPR interview). Inevitable response by gaming community and others in their 20s. Further example on the change in societal isolation that leads to bowling alone, or a new social community structure being born? [more inside]
posted by Argyle on Jan 30, 2008 - 171 comments

Looking for something unique to bring to your next gaming session? Star-spawn will cringe in fear when they see you have shown up to battle bearing these long-lost relics of R'lyeh. The dwarves have toiled long in the mines and quarries of Khaz Modan, and even crafted the bones and teeth of great ancient beasts to create deadly weapons for your gaming arsenal. Perhaps most impressive and prized of all these unique equipages is this rare trophy of the cold and frozen north. [more inside]
posted by Demogorgon on Jan 26, 2008 - 34 comments

Lie, bitch, flirt your way to the top of the high school ladder
"Coolest Girl In School has been touted as Grand Theft Auto for girls"
Interview with the Ladies who made it.
The ways of Mean Girls in a game.
posted by celerystick on Jan 3, 2008 - 25 comments

Are You Not DEVO? You Are Mutato! LA Weekly goes behind the scenes of Mutato Muzika, the commercial music studio owned by Mark Mothersbaugh. Mark is a visual artist, composer, oh, and front man for a little band called DEVO who is "spending December at Mutato trying to create an album’s worth of new material and contemplating a method of dispersal in the post-record-company world."
posted by SansPoint on Dec 6, 2007 - 17 comments

Arden: The World of William Shakespeare is a Neverwinter Nights mod created by the Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University. You can play it, but it's kinda boring.
posted by BitterOldPunk on Dec 1, 2007 - 9 comments