"Where is all the good writing about games?"
Welcome to Episode 1 of the Critical Distance Confab. The CDC podcast is a weekly discussion with a cast drawn from an irregular pool of videogame bloggers and contributors to the Critical Distance website. We discuss issues of design, culture, art, and…
Since Braid was recently released on PC, now is a wonderful time to organize the discussion that took place last fall following the game’s initial release on XBLA. Organizing the dispersed conversation and criticism that surrounded Braid will allow those experiencing it for the first time to catch up and add their own thoughts, as well as encourage others to take a second look at the game with the added benefit that, ahem, a bit of critical distance affords.
Rob Hale’s discussion of a Damnation making-of video raises a very interesting point. The top down diagram that most levels emerge from does not lend itself particularly well to creating rich vertical spaces. It’s possible to create verticality after the fact, but rarely…
Daniel Rehn, an artist and designer in Southern California, is collaborating with Jeremy Douglass, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSD, on a research project they call the Video Gameplay Database. Noting influences from people like Ben Fry and John Maeda (among others), the…
A post over at Bot Junkie points out a Popular Mechanics piece detailing the Defense Department’s development of the Vigilante unmanned helicopter, an unmanned device that carries an on-board shotgun and is controlled with a familiar input device: The rifle currently mounted…
In his ‘Ragdoll Metaphysics’ column for Offworld, Jim Rossignol mulls over the tradition of science-fiction to predict the next great technical/social revolution. The Cloud-sourced service that OnLive is offering has been speculated upon in the past. We’re even seeing the first few…
Welcome to the first week of This Week in Videogame Blogging for Critical Distance – for the week to 19th April, 2009. Let’s get into it. This week the gents from Eegra wrote a critique of the body of work of a…
Leigh Alexander, News Director at Gamasutra, has an opinion piece which attempts to mellow out the masses. As the influence of video games continues to grow, so does the desire for cultural acceptance. She quotes Ian Bogost’s thoughts on the topic, who…
Matthew Gallant wrote to me the other day and said, “Argh! Exams! I’m freaking out, no time, so hard, need sleep! HALP!” and apologised for not being able to do a proper summary himself up for this link-out. Actually, he didn’t say…
I was searching my long list of bookmarked webpages earlier today and came across this entry from Corvus Elrod’s Man Bytes Blog. In ‘Amnesia Alternatives’ Corvus outlines two ways that a storyteller (read: anyone setting up their game) can overcome the initial…