Most of the history of games has been an evolution from hard-to-use interfaces to better interfaces. This makes old games painful to play – I don’t mind that the graphics look dated, but having to struggle with old interfaces is too much for me. It’s interesting that some current games have made their interfaces intentionally bad or hard to use. Struggling with the interface is part of playing the game. Two such examples are Her Story and Papers, Please. ...
Frans Mäyrä’s An Introduction to Game Studies delivers what it promises. It’s probably the best introduction to game studies available. It discusses the central concepts in game studies, from the magic circle to game cultures, thoughtfully and clearly. In order to make things more understandable, it simplifies some issues. Mostly, it does this successfully, but there is one thing I think it simplifies too much. It happens to be a thing that appears close to the beginning of the book and is clearly presented in a diagram, making it easy to learn and remember. Because it’s so clearly presented, it’s one of the few things all students pick up from the book. ...
Hybrid games may not yet be a household name like VR and AR, but they seem to be getting similar attention at least from developers and researchers. The hype around VR and AR is undeniable. Pictures of people with funny contraptions on their heads and expressions of rapture on their faces pop up on news feeds almost as often as articles expressing bewilderment about Pokémon Go. Both share with hybrid games the general lack knowledge and the accompanying large expectations that usually come with new technology, despite the fact that research on these topics goes back decades. Slowly, it is turning from apocalyptic promises of revolution (90’s virtual reality research is particularly adept at this) to practical approaches. ...
Counterplay was an odd experience for somebody like me, who mostly goes to academic conferences. Some of the program was very much like you would experience in an academic conference, with proper citations and all. But most of it wasn’t. The range of presentations and workshops was huge, with everything from folk games to using playful tools in business. The general mood of the conference was easily grasped: play is empowering, can tear down walls, and inspire. There were many examples of this, from clowning to comfort refugees to building camaderie in a library through an IRC bot. ...
The next Deus Ex is a few months away, and there are already hints at what the next Mass Effect will be about. I think now is a good time to reflect on how the previous games in the series ended. Deus Ex: Human Revolution starts with a jolt, throwing the player as the protagonist in a change that evokes interesting questions of embodiment. It charges through a convoluted science-fiction conspiracy of cybernetics-based social change before running face-first into an ending. In the end, you are presented with a choice of four options that determines the future of the human race. ...
I presented some preliminary observations on playful politics at the Sharing the Play -seminar. Here’s what I talked about. In 1938, Boston Curtis won a post of Republican committeeman for Milton. He had no election campaign, but neither did he have any opponents. The voters did not seem to be dissuaded by the fact that Boston was in fact a long-eared brown mule. Putting Boston up as a candidate was the idea of Milton’s mayor Simmons, who saw the prank as a playful critique of the primary system – he proved that people really did not know who they were voting for. But Boston is not alone in his victory over the humankind. ...