The Art of Interaction
I m honored to be part of the editorial collective for the first issue of Game Poems, an interactive magazine founded by Jordan Magnuson, who literally wrote the book on game poetry. The first issue collects 13 short, poetic video games that can all be played in your browser. My contribution1 is The Ur Game, a Continue reading The Ur Game Released In Game Poems #1: First Moves
My talk is titled, Dada, Animal Crossing, and ChatGPT: Can We Ever Write Our Own Stories With the Master s Tools? If all goes well, I ll be teaching an audience of mostly educators how ChatGPT works at a high level (it s a fancy Markov generator) and why they shouldn t use it (it serves hegemony). If you Continue reading I m presenting at the Charlotte Writing Project Fall 2024 Conference on Sep.…
Content Warning: Colonialism, Misogyny, Racism, Childhood sexual assault I used to diligently keep up with interactive fiction , a game category that used to mean the same thing as text adventure but has broadened over time. At one point, it mostly included parser games (where you type things like TAKE DEVICE and EXAMINE VISTA) but is Continue reading IF Retrospective: The 2006 XYZZY Awards
Theatre is a live-action roleplaying game for any number of players, limited only by your available space and resources. Together, like in most roleplaying games, you'll enact a story. One difference in this game is that you aren't all in control of the events in the story: they proceed in the sequence established by the adventure you're playing. What you can control is how those events are…
I ve put out a new game! It s a GM-less tabletop roleplaying game where the players are a team of people with special powers defending their home. When their interpersonal clashes grow strong enough, an opponent attacks, and the players will have to Fuse in order to fight back and protect their home. Fusion Time by Continue reading Fusion Time Released!
Over at Tabletop Garden, we ve just started airing a new campaign! It s called The Great Molasses Flood , it uses the Rosette Diceless system I helped design at Future Proof Games, and it s a great place to start listening if you haven t yet checked out my actual-play podcast of short campaigns about interesting characters with a Continue reading Tabletop Garden: The Great Molasses Flood
(This article contains a discussion of the storyline of Warframe. It contains many things that some people may consider spoilers. Trust me. Read it.) Warframe is a free-to-play online third-person sci-fi shooter by Ontario developer Digital Extremes where you control a cool, acrobatic robo-warrior in a grindy co-op game where the PR tagline is ninjas Continue reading Warframe Has the Best…
We ve finally completed the most recent campaign of my actual play podcast, Tabletop Garden. In Ego Driver , a group of misfit killers participate in a postcolonial road war in a postapocalyptic world. It draws from Mad Max: Fury Road, Trigun, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, and Wacky Races. I m super proud Continue reading Tabletop Garden: Ego Driver
I ve released all my Flash games as locally-playable SWFs and Windows projectors on itch.io! That means that they should remain playable even after browsers and Adobe stop supporting Flash. These represent three years of my career, and they were pretty prolific ones! Get all my Flash games on itch.io here! If you re interested in seeing Continue reading All My Flash Games Now Downloadable With…
An emerging form of games, born out of Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress, has occupied my thoughts lately. It doesn t seem to have a name yet; it grew out of some Minecraft mods and had its seminal work in Factorio. It s a cousin, or even sibling, to the idle/incremental game, but usually looks more like a Continue reading Toward a Sustainable Resource Escalation Game
Complicity is the most important distinguishing feature of games. Other media still requires your interaction. You choose the order in which to experience a series (broadcast or DVD order of Firefly? publication or chronological order of Narnia?), the way in which you experience a painting or sculpture (from a distance? different angles? different lighting?), or Continue reading Your Only True…
Actual play podcasts are not what the name suggests. They're a form of podcast that purportedly serializes a recording of a group playing a tabletop roleplaying game. The listener hears the dice rolls, the out-of-character discussions, and the social interaction that surrounds the in-character story being told at the table. The apparent appeal is the fun of hearing the "actual play" occurring when…
What does Stardew Valley say about the world with the rules of its simulation, and how does it compare to another Transcendentalist game, Walden, a game? Transcript: Transcript for this episode If you like this episode, check out the other podcasts I m involved in: Audacious Compassion, The Future Proof Podcast, and Tabletop Garden. The Ludus Novus Continue reading Ludus Novus 030…
I ve started a new podcast! It s called Tabletop Garden, and it s an actual play show where a rotating cast plays tabletop roleplaying games and talks about them. Tabletop Garden is an actual-play podcast where we collaborate on short, self-contained stories about interesting characters, and we do it with an agenda. Throughout each campaign we discuss Continue reading Tabletop Garden: New RPG…
What do people actually mean when they say walking simulator? Bernband by Tom van den Boogaart doesn t even seem to have a goal. But then why do you keep playing it? Bernband: https://gamejolt.com/games/bernband/34864 Bernband Remake Twitter: https://twitter.com/bernband Youtube (MP3 below): Transcript: Transcript for this episode If you like this episode, check out the other podcasts Continue…
What is a game? It only matters in context. When we examine things as games to learn from them, what does that mean? Any useful definition of game used as a critical lens must encompass Soccer, Candy Land, Sim City, Doom, and Gone Home. But Candy Land doesn t have any player choice. Is it just Continue reading Ludus Novus 028: Candyland: Game as Critical Lens
I love the work that Kate Compton and others have done with generative/procedural art. One thing I ve missed, though, is the ability to just link to a quickly-made thing. Specifically, I ve done things like specify the naming structure of alien species for a roleplaying game using Kate s tool Tracery, but there s no easy way I ve Continue reading Tracery Live Released
At Future Proof Games, we just released a tabletop/live-action roleplaying game called Rosette Diceless. For those who have followed me for a while, this is a distant descendant of my 2009 beta release, LORE. We ve been playtesting it for a year or two, and we re looking forward to hearing what other folks use it for. Continue reading Rosette Diceless Released
In 2008, I made a game called (I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors. It got played millions of times, won awards, and is still recognized by many people I run across randomly. In 2016, in part as a response to the impending death of Adobe Flash, we at Future Proof Games announced Continue reading The Majesty of Colors Remastered and Released
In this episode of the Ludus Novus podcast: Prey 2017. The lie of a power fantasy is that power over others is something you deserve. Prey is a consequence fantasy: to take agency, you must incur risk. To escape a cage of lies, you have to open the door onto a world of new danger. Continue reading Ludus Novus 027: Imposition of Order Results in Escalation of Disorder
Richard Spencer a known racist and genocide advocate got punched on video and publicly humiliated and it was funny and satisfying to watch. It was an effective way to weaken his public platform, both in an immediate sense (it silenced him mid-sentence) and in a long-term sense (he will always be the person Continue reading Punching Nazis Is a Sacred Act
Headless Swarm has landed. It s the first season of paid story for Exploit: Zero Day, our cyberthriller puzzle game about social justice hacktivism. The game s still in alpha1 but buying Headless Swarm will get you immediate access to the game, the free season of story Black Echoes, and the first couple of jobs in the Continue reading Headless Swarm Released
For years I ve been working at Future Proof Games with my partner Melissa on Exploit: Zero Day, a cyberthriller with living story where you roleplay as a hacktivist by making and solving puzzles that represent computer systems. It s been in closed alpha testing for a while, but on December 1, 2016 we ll be releasing our Continue reading Exploit: Zero Day Headless Swarm Landing December 1
In this episode of the Ludus Novus podcast, I discuss the election and GamerGate and how we can make a difference with games. I start with an excerpt from Austin Walker s recent, amazing piece A Note on Trump, Waypoint, and Why We Play. I move on to discuss mirror neurons, Gone Home, my presumptuous racial Continue reading Ludus Novus 026: Reflection
It s the sign of a good conference if you re affected emotionally, but I generally prefer not to end up in tears. I recently attended Sex Down South, a sex and sexuality conference in Atlanta. It s a great event featuring sex educators and layfolk discussing sex, advocacy, and relationships in an array of lectures, panels, and Continue reading Breaking Down at Sex Down South
Why is no one talking about Picross 3D: Round 2? To put it another way, what can I say about Picross 3D: Round 2? It is an ideal game. It s not perfect; I could list flaws like the error-prone controls if I were ever inclined to write a review. But as someone who likes to Continue reading Invisible Design in Picross 3D: Round 2
Big news! As part of Future Proof Games, I m remastering my classic Flash art game The Majesty of Colors for modern technologies. Instead of Flash, the game will be available natively for Windows, OSX, Linux, iOS, and Android. We re polishing some rough edges but otherwise staying true to the original. This feels very odd! (I Continue reading The Majesty of Colors Remastered
Symmetra is the most strangely-designed character in Blizzard s Overwatch. In a game where most heroes roles can be summed up in a few words ( fast flanker, mobile area-denial tank, AOE healer, slowing defender ) and their story concepts naturally arise from their roles ( time-traveling jet pilot, leaping electric gorilla, portable DJ, cute ice Satan 1), Symmetra makes Continue reading Strange…
My partner Melissa and I have started a new project: a monthly podcast called Audacious Compassion about how to demonstrate empathy in difficult everyday situations. The first episode, Go Buy a Caddy, is up and you can subscribe via RSS or iTunes. You can even rate us five stars on iTunes if you like! Audacious Continue reading Audacious Compassion Podcast
I ve read one too many git gud posts arguing that challenge is essential to games and that including an easy mode on, say, Dark Souls would ruin it; if you don t want a hard game, don t play Dark Souls. They re wrong. Firstly, challenge isn t an inherent aspect of games: it s just one way of evoking Continue reading Challenge is a Calibration
Wolfenstein: The New Order, developed by MachineGames and published by Bethesda, should have been awful. If you d asked me before release, I d have predicted that the ninth game in a franchise, an alternate-history game set in the 1960s where the Nazis won World War II, featuring B.J. Blazkowicz as a recovered locked-in veteran, would only Continue reading The Transformative Power of Good Writing…
Our 2013 game Ossuary is currently on sale for $7.49 on Steam! I wrote all of Ossuary and released it with my partner as the first project of Future Proof Games. It s a little game that s pixelly and funny and strange. You re a newcomer to a macabre philosophical underworld, and to escape you have to Continue reading Ossuary in Steam Summer Sale 2016
Hyper Light Drifter, from Heart Machine1, is an inscrutable game: one which presents you with various mysteries and challenges, inviting you to overcome them, but doesn t bother guiding you along that path. It s part of a new trend in so-called retro-inspired games that recontextualizes the challenge and low fidelity of console game from the 1980s Continue reading A Stillness of Mind, Skill Honed…
I m polyamorous, and for the past four years I ve attended Atlanta Poly Weekend, a great education and activism conference all about ethical nonmonogamy. I ve seen an interesting transition in my relationship to the conference over the years, one that I think is completely natural. In earlier years, I found the most value in the things Continue reading Family and Communication Atlanta Poly Weekend…
In this episode of the Ludus Novus podcast, I discuss incremental games, also known as idle games or clickers. How did a formula that started as satirical jokes from people like Ian Bogost yield things like A Dark Room? Games discussed: Cow Clicker, Progress Quest, Candy Box, Cookie Clicker, A Dark Room. The Ludus Novus Continue reading Ludus Novus 025: Idle, Incremental
I love it when games wear their math on their sleeves. I also like when games are based on real-life systems, even when those systems are twisted or simplified for the purposes of smoother design. Pandemic is a good example of the former: the way the Infection deck is constructed and manipulated makes it clear Continue reading Hopping Numbers in Pocket Frogs
Over at the Future Proof Games dev blog, my partner Melissa has done a summary of how we spent 2015. Our game Ossuary hit Steam, our new game Exploit: Zero Day is in open alpha, and we ve learned a bit more about how to run a tiny indie game company. Check out the post on Continue reading Future Proof in 2016
Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist is a weird little free game that s a whole lot like the demo to The Stanley Parable, which was designed by the same person. No, not Davey Wreden, the creator of the original mod; his followup game is The Beginner s Guide, a first-person Continue reading A Whirlwind Heist
One of my patrons posed this question: If be cautious! is the dominant strategy of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, why is the game still interesting? This is a complicated question, in part because it makes several assumptions I disagree with. The short answer is because being cautious in XCOM is hard. But let s tease apart the Continue reading Degeneracy and Competing Goals in XCOM
There s a rich tradition in video games of villainous protagonists. One of the most interesting things about this trend is how it encourages you to understand and assign personhood to characters that you might otherwise demonize. At Future Proof Games we re motivated by a concept we call audacious compassion: exercising players everyday empathy skills by Continue reading It s So Easy When You re:…
PixelJunk s Nom Nom Galaxy is a hard game. It s a well-crafted resource-gathering and automation game in the vein of Terraria or Minecraft, but with a focus on factory production and automation. It s hard because it s far too complicated. One of the classic problems of game design is the dominant strategy. A dominant strategy occurs when Continue reading Overcomplexity in Nom Nom Galaxy
A big secret of tabletop RPG design is that roleplaying games play themselves. Get the right group of people together and they ll have fun telling a good story, regardless of which edition of which game they re playing. The hard parts of RPGs are things the designer can t control: social dynamics. What good are rules at Continue reading Helping RPGs Play Themselves
Mind: Path to Thalamus is a staggeringly beautiful game. Let s set aside its silly name and its wince-inducing narration. We ll pretend the game was made as it should have been, as a series of evocative vignettes that trust the player to put together the pieces without forced explanation. The waves scene is a great example Continue reading Beauty of Frozen Waves Mind: Path to Thalamus
Years ago I wrote a piece on the original mod version of The Stanley Parable.1 It s since been remade and released as a for-sale title with very high production values, which I got just after release. I ve played a few remakes of old games or overhauls of mods, and it s always an uncomfortable experience. Everything Continue reading Unsettling Uncertainty in the Stanley Parable
Skyrim made me want to murder. I m usually a kind video game player. I choose non-lethal options when available, act morally, and generally roleplay as a responsible (if sometimes abrupt) character when given the option. The character I played in Skyrim was an ambitious but magnanimous barbarian-mage, seeking the power to rule and protect. I Continue reading Theft, Murder, and Morals in Skyrim
Sparky s Den, in the Memorial Union at Arizona State University, is a bowling alley and arcade where I spent many of my summer late afternoons as a young teenager. I can t find any photos of their arcade online, so I don t know if they still have the old Dungeons and Dragons or Alien vs. Predator Continue reading Character Select: Marvel vs. Capcom 3
There is evil in this world. Some is systemic, titanic, nigh-insurmountable. And some is petty, banal, all the more troubling for its triviality. Farm Story 2 is the lesser evil. It s the whispering, cloying, harrying serpent at the heel of gamers. Farm Story 2 is evil in a way that inspires not rebellion, but pity. Continue reading The Evil of Farm Story 2
When Odin Sphere was released, it was a game from a parallel dimension where 3D technology never caught on. Now, though, it sits among Rayman Origins, Dust: an Elysian Tale, Ori And The Blind Forest, and many others in presenting gorgeous living, breathing, hand-crafted art and a strong visual aesthetic. Looking back, then, there s one Continue reading Odin Sphere: Muggle Escabeche à la Erion
Games are as much about what they don t let you do as what they do. Figure and ground. The tools they withhold from you are often more important than the tools they provide. Constraint guides cleverness and creativity. Supercell s Clash of Clans is a fairly typical free-to-play mobile game on its surface. You build a Continue reading You Can t Control Clash of Clans
Neko Atsume is a game with feline sensibilities. It doesn t beg for your attention. It s often inscrutable. Sometimes you re not sure why you keep it around. More games should be like this. Neko Atsume is a gently brilliant deconstruction of mobile games and how we approach Pokemon-style collecting. Through its passive and cryptic approach, it Continue reading The Feline Grace of Neko Atsume