links
area/code -- The team behind Big Games like Sharkrunners and Crossroads Cheapass Games -- Makers of minimalist board games like Kill Doctor Lucky Game Politics -- Where politics and video games collide. Gamelab -- Independent game developer responsible for the highly addictive Diner Dash GameSpite -- Jeremy Parish rants on various videogame-related topics. Enjoyable, with just the right amount of angst. Heroine Sheik -- Bonnie Ruberg’s blog on gender and sexuality issues in gaming. Joystiq -- Gaming news blog; less focused on oddities than Kotaku, and therefore better for digging into relevant news. Zynga -- Developing social games for all major social networks. I work there now. ^_^more links...
1UP -- A terrific gaming site; always has great feature articles. 4 color rebellion -- good source for Nintendo news. Applied Game Design -- Brenda Brathwaite’s new blog on game design; great focus on working non-digitally, and industry jobs for designers. Away From Keyboard -- Covering the ever-expanding field of Big Games Come Out & Play Festival -- September 22-24, in NYC; the reclamation of urban space as playground. Fun Motion -- Physics Games and Physics-Based Game Downloads Games are Art! -- They are! At least, they have the potential to be. Games Design Art Culture -- Greg Costikyan’s blog. GameSetWatch -- Simon Carless’s blog, part of the CMP group. gewgaw -- a splendid plaything; blog of Robin Hunicke I am the economy -- Blog of Greg Trefry, gameLab employee and ruleset fanatic. Kotaku -- Video game newsblog with a hint of otaku flavor. Lifehacker -- “Don’t live to geek; geek to live.” Molleindustria -- “political video games against the dictatorship of entertainment” Penny Arcade -- Come on; it’s Penny Arcade… Reality Panic -- blog of Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the IGDA The Escapist -- Everyone’s favorite games-based publication The Ludologist -- blog of Jesper Juul, video game theorist The Work of Ben Fry -- An archive of work developed by Ben Fry at the MIT Media Laboratory VG Cats -- The other video game webcomic I read. Wonderland -- They play games…
games worth playing
Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) -- Spectacular sprite-based gameplay with a tightly woven story and amazing 8-bit music. Just play it. Chain Factor -- area/code’s casual game ARG; the ARG portion has ended, but the casual game is still very much playable and very much addictive. Dicewars -- Incredibly addictive browser-based dice-based stategy game. Don’t play if you don’t have hours to waste. Diner Dash -- Highly addictive, highly entertaining waitressing game from gameLab. Avoid Diner Dash 2, which wasn’t developed by gameLab. Dolphin Olympics -- Do tricks with Dolphins; addictive and embarassing when you’re caught playing. flOw -- An amazing game developed by Jenova Chen, demonstrating flow in games. Grow RPG -- A fun pseudo-RPG, but sadly, very short; there’s only one way to win, and it can be figured out in under a half-hour. McDonald’s Video Game -- “You’ll discover all the dirty secrets that made us one of the biggest company of the world.” N -- “Puzzle platformer with physics and style;” a must play. Parking Wars -- area/code’s first Facebook game, developed for a new A&E reality show; definitely designed for Facebook, instead of simply wedged into the format like a lot of other games. Princess: The Music Video Game -- a cute rhythm game for the song “Princess” by techno band Rektor. Snakes on a Plane: The Roleplaying Game -- “The snake presents you with a logic puzzle, such as Sudoku or a rubik’s cube. Lose 1 point of Wits.” Super Mini-Games -- six tiny mini-games designed by Pop for Cartoon Network; the simplistic mechanics of each match the overall aesthetic so well. The ESP Game -- Two-player cooperative psychic word guessing with pictures.
posts worth reading
Brian Reynolds interview Call & Response Game design for Facebook is a very different beast Game/Art Problem: The Intruder How to write rules (without confusing people) On the theoretical “PokéMMO” Slide to unlock Why casual games are addictive