Hey all! Before I start, I wanted to thank everyone who came out last Wednesday to good old Knight Library 41 for a night of thinking and playing. I am very happy with the the way the night unfolded. Much was said about good game design, and a surprising amount was discussed about game development […]

Gaijin Games’ superb Bit.Trip series of games has established itself as a pixelated chip-tuned pillar of the indie universe. Splitting time between the PC and Wii platforms, Bit.Trip reminds us that good design makes good games with or without photorealistic graphics, complex artificial intelligence, complicated control schemes, and many other of the systems that we […]

Michael O’Reilly (often known by the handle Kayin) has released the source code of his seminal masocore masterpiece I Wanna Be The Guy. Check this post in which he explains the poor state of the code, gives a few guidelines for use, and provides a link to the download. Requirements for use are based in […]

OK, here’s the thing: I’m WAY behind deadline on TWO (!) posts. I’m working on write-ups to go along with our two most recent events: War Games and Sports Culture (from 10/19), and Manufacturing Horror (which was on 10/25). I led the discussion for the former, so that’s pretty straightforward; and Anthony Hayt, who presented […]

There is a great article over at Gamasutra regarding the development and production of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong arcade cabinets. The concept of uncredited “ghost” developers isn’t new, but it’s rare for it to invade the history of such a thoroughly-canonized game as Donkey Kong. Lots of food for thought across disciplines: it cuts right into […]