Worried you won’t know where to go–and where not to go–during the Zombie Apocalypse? Map of the Dead is filled with useful information! (And, Canadians, though it doesn’t say “postal code,” it does cover Canada).
Off Book goes in depth on video games with interesting discussions of interactivity, story telling, creativity, world-building and how video games help people understand and manipulate complex systems.
Take This Lollipop is a creepy little Facebook app featuring Bill Oberst, Jr.
An interactive map of fiber-optic cables running beneath the world’s oceans (and seas). (via etsy)
This month, Gutter Guest Stars John Crye and Todd Sharp continue their discussion of transmedia entertainment and The Unnameable Future. Part I is here. Brooke Thompson, “experience designer” and blogger at GiantMice.com, recently posted a follow-up to her article, “Transmedia Will Kill Hollywood Is Killing Transmedia,” which we referenced in last month’s guest spot here [...]
…or, Why We Are Confused About The Defining Terms Angrily Dismissed By Those Trying to Trademark Them Recently on her site GiantMice.com, “experience designer” Brooke Thompson posted an article entitled, “Transmedia Is Killing Hollywood Will Kill Transmedia.” In it, Thompson decries the fact that the new storytelling form known as “transmedia” (previously called “cross-platform storytelling,” [...]
Incredibox: Play the hipsters! In English or Francais!
Solve the mystery of the cursed Mercy Booth in the clickable picture/text adventure, “Der Teufelspakt.” You don’t need to speak German to play, but it helps. (via The Horror?!)
Jim Munroe’s been working on a new movie, Ghosts with Shit Jobs. It’s not even out and he has a spin-off game–“Roofed!”
National Geographic’s infinite photograph. Click and click and click.
“City of Heroes: Golden Age is about Paragon City in the 80s.” Check out the screen captures and cross your fingers that your 386 has enough power.
The Illuminated Lantern has tentacled interactive fiction with the H.P. Lovecraft Commonplace Book project and whiskered diamond thievery in “1893: A World’s Fair Mystery.” (via 4DK)
Don’t bother guessing the verb, just click here to play Former Games Editor Jim Munroe’s Everybody Dies which just took 3rd place at the 2008 Interactive Fiction Competition. You can also learn more about the process of writing interactive fiction and see Michael Cho’s sweet illustrations.
The Artful Gamer ponders interactivity, engagement and narrative in videogames: “Instead of beating our collective heads against the wall as we try to design games that let players live out their wildest desires, we should be developing worlds that encourage players to explore them as living, breathing, places.”
Just how many times do I have to kill this guy? It’s a question I’ve certainly asked myself while playing various games, along with Why aren’t you dead yet? and How many damn heads does it have anyway? Everybody’s version of tedium is different, but endlessly dodging around waiting for some gargantuan horror to blink [...]
I recently had a conversation with my ten year-old son that I had been longing to have since before he was born, since before I was even sure I really wanted to have kids. We were well into the eleventh hour of a game of Risk that had seen the empires of my wife and [...]
Based on the reaction to the November launch of the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii through sales and media attention, it’s clear that gaming as a cultural phenomenon has cemented itself into the collective consciousness. Local news media observed in awe as the faithful lined up outside their local electronics retailer at midnight in order [...]
I hated studying history in high school. It was as if the curriculum had been designed to leave out everything that impressionable minds could possibly associate with, while making no provisions to seem like it was anything but handed down from an institution. However, in recent years it’s a totally different story. I won’t read [...]
I’m fairly suspicious of nostalgia, and I hate how advertisers leverage our emotions to sell us the same products twice. So while I’m happy that people are rediscovering videogames from their youth, and that the games and their blocky aesthetic are mushrooming up all over the culture, I wonder about the retro-gaming phenomenon. Are these [...]
Games are often criticised for not having any plot. What isn’t given much consideration is whether it’s possible for there to be too much story. The Longest Journey (Funcom, 2000) made me think about this a lot.
What, it’s June already? I’m sure a I had a whole year here a minute ago. In any case, summer means humidity, allergies, and a sad lack of home AC. This year, it also means squirrels in the roof (don’t ask. No, really).
