- Andrew Berls | Reducing bad signup emails with mailcheck.js
Handy for work, the rest of you can skip it.
- Prototyping without physics – Edge Magazine
This is a hugely important insight into modern (computer) game design, I feel.
Tag: games
Bookmarks for February 20, 2012
- Reading A Book More Than Once Has Mental Health Benefits | The Mary Sue
- Introducing Playfic – Waxy.org
One for the "when I've got some spare time" file. If it really is as easy to generate interactive fiction as the example here makes it look, then I might take a serious stab at it one of these days.
- Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation | Pop Bioethics
So anyone that's spoken to me in the last couple of weeks knows I'm a bit obsessed with Mass Effect. This article does a really good job or articulating a lot of the reasons why. It does contain (generally broad picture) spoilers (with one or two specifics), so if you haven't played them, and think you might yet do so, you should avoid it until you have. But if you have played it, or aren't planning to, and are at all interested in SF, or in issues regarding representation of minorities in media, or in the potential of games as storytelling media, then I recommend reading this.
Bookmarks for September 21, 2011
- Visible Cities – Ludocity
This sounds like it was a brilliant game. I wish I'd been there and been able to play.
- The Transformers at dConstruct 2011 – Hubbub
The City and The City, Baarle-Nassau, the recent riots in London, overlapping worlds, social stratification, and the role of (different aspects of) games. I wish I was this smart. Go and read it.
Bookmarks for August 28, 2011
- Cardboard Children: Heroquest & More.. | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
An extraordinarily fine bit of writing on tabletop gaming.
Links for Tuesday July 12th 2011 through Wednesday July 13th 2011
- Computer reads manual, wins Civ – Edge Magazine
Yes is pretty much exactly what you might think. Scientists at MIT have built a computer that is capable of teaching itself to play (and win) a moderately complex computer game. I know plenty of people who can't do that.
- An Eye-Opening Adventure in Socialized Medicine | NeuroTribes
I don't imagine there's anyone I know reading this who doesn't think that socialised medicine is a basic human right, but just in case I do know anyone who is actually daft enough to believe that the American "system" of health care is better than a British (at least at the moment, before the current pack of jackals have finished chopping it's legs off), then I invite you to read this cheering little narrative. The rest of you should read it just because it'll make you feel good.
Bookmarks for May 9, 2011
- Anonymiss Communications
"Anonymiss is an Anonymous operations group. It’s focused on women’s issues in the emerging economies, amongst other things. Anonymiss is partnering with regional NGOs, bloggers, and human rights organizations to leverage resources and get results. Grab a stick, get in the game. Fellas welcome." Interesting business.
- Above 49: Those Other Indie Games
Have heard brilliant things about Fiasco, and most of the others here sound like top rate stuff as well. Must give them a look.
Bookmarks for April 4, 2011
- Why #StartUpBritain is nothing more than a government backed link farm
I have some interesting in start-ups – I've worked at a couple, and I hope to work at more later in my career. I am dismayed to see that this government, with claims to value entrepreneurship so highly, is essentially devaluing the hard work and enterprise that goes into them by offering a package of "help" that amounts to nothing more that a series of money-off vouchers roughly akin to the usual supermarket "£5 off when you spend £20", and links to sites that frankly, encourage deeply unethical business practices.
- Rogue on the Sofa
One that'll appeal to the old school computer gaming nerds. And probably provide you with a few new games to play.
Bookmarks for March 31, 2011
- Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular: a cognitive teardown of the user experience
Absolutely superb analysis of all the little details that have gone into the hit game. Lessons to be learned for anyone designing any kind of interaction.
Bookmarks for January 7, 2011
- IndieGames.com – The Weblog – The Best Of 2010: Top 10 Indie Games
A ten second play of their game of the year has me wanting to go back for more. One to check out when I'm not at work.
- russell davies: Ted Hughes on thinking
Ted Hughes was a man who knew about thinking. And dead pigs. Well worth a listen. Russell's observation re: YouTube is also trenchant and a pleasing thing to think about.
- How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed — Deer 342 — bmj.com
This needs to do the rounds in a very big way. You know all those vaccine scares that are picked up by the easily swayed, and used as an excuse to endanger the rest of us through lack of vaccination? Well, it's not just the case that (single) study they're based on is a bit fringe – it's an outright, deliberate falsehood perpetrated by a man with malicious intent and a profit motive. If you know *anyone* who has a small child and is contemplating not vaccinating it, you need to make sure they see this.
- 2010 Year Lists – Fimoculous.com
Haven't had time to go through this yet, but want to get around to it.
- Michael Caine's impersonation of Michael Caine
Absolutely superb.
Bookmarks for September 20, 2010
- Make Games – Finishing a Game
Applicable to just about any creative endeavour, and there are a number of things in here I could do with remembering more often.
- Looxcie Wearable Camcorder: Capture Unexpected Moments
Mildly tempted by this, if they produce an iphone version. It's a bit deep geek, but that's never stopped me from doing anything before. (Not so much interested in it from a sharing-with-the-world POV, more as a personal outboard memory tool – the ability to clip the last 30 secs of my life is potentially useful in a number of contexts.)
- How to get search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN) referal keywords using PHP, php, Steven York.com
Reasonably trivial task, but once I'm going to have to do at work soon, I imagine. No sense re-inventing the wheel, and this looks like some decent code snippets to build into what we'll need.
- DarkPatterns.org
A listing of intentionally bad design patterns – tricks websites use to get you to do things that they want, or that cost you money. I'm happy to say that most of our clients don't ask us to do these, and those that do are usually dissuaded by us. But still, this is a good list of tricks to learn, so you can be aware when various sites might be trying to use them on you.
- A working hypothesis – Charlie's Diary
I had been blaming the decade long rise of extremism and authoritarian clampdowns on some kind of post-millennial fallout – the calendar ticks over, and nothing changes, and all that pent up stress has to go somewhere – but the idea that a significant chunk of the population of the planet might actually be suffering from future shock hadn't occurred to me, but it's an idea worth acknowledging, I think. (And playing connect the dots with – qv. Clay Shirky's Gin and Sitcoms ideas about cognitive surplus as an exacerbating factor.)