"’Play gives the appearance of major reality without the major consequences,’ said [Stuart] Brown. Basically, play allows you to simulate and make a game of a serious situation, rehearsing it, pushing it to extremes and finding potential new solutions." (via Wonderland)
So what is your Love Plus girlfriend doing now? "I’m too scared to find out. I’m probably going to get in big trouble if I open it after leaving her alone for several weeks. Maybe she’s dead now. That would be scary." Does that happen? "I don’t think so . But remember Tamagochi? They used to die if you didn’t feed them." (see also)
Third in the Jill of the Jungle trilogy, ‘Jill Saves the Prince’ is a game by Tim Sweeney of Epic (Jazz Jackrabbit; Unreal; Gears of War; Sweeney’s own ZZT). And as DOS-era platformers go, Jill kicks Duke Nukem’s ass.
Nine months after his or her blog’s last update, the author of Why No One Takes Games Writing Seriously reports: "It is true I’m no longer a gaming writer and have therefore lost a certain sense of righteousness and motivation for this blog. But I will tweet on." I feel your pain, anonymous misanthrope! Ergo, I am your first Twitter follower!
After a number of enigmatic tweets (via @the1console) insinuating that they are up to something, Superbrothers confirm that they are, in fact, up to something. P.S. dream machine/seizure warning
Here I am, linking to my own blog entry (dur). Last week I attended a virtual church service in my extracurricular Second Life, which suggests that my First, Actual Life is so much more boring than you could ever imagine.
Jenn Frank ·
November 16, 2009 at 12:14 pm
· Filed under Art
My childhood bedroom’s door is broken, so that if it is shut all the way, it can only be opened from outside my room, in the hallway. “Well, you always wanted a lock on your door, remember?” Mom says. Ha, ha.
Recently I was locked in my own bedroom, and instead of making a racket, I made a phone call. Then I had to twitter about it: “Used cell phone to call people in other part of house to ask them to bust me out of my bedroom, which I was briefly locked inside of.”
Bob Mackey replied, “you just lived through an adventure game puzzle. congrats.”
And I thought that was a very sweet thing to say. I like playing adventure games because maybe if you play enough adventure games, you become this amazing, heroically resourceful person in your everyday life. For instance, last week, my friend Conci daringly escaped a room using olive oil. Honey on the cat hair makes a mustache!
On video games and escapism: What we’re escaping from, Scott Sharkey says pointedly, is unfairness. // I always complained, to his face, that Sharkey was the weirdest kind of person—an angry optimist.
Brandon Boyer catches you up on the Tim Langdell/Edge crap. Then: those irreverent, spunky indie devs fight back the best way they know—litigation-baiting mockery! That’s moxie.
11/14 opening reception for James Kochalka—he of "Monkey vs Robot" fame—at Giant Robot SF. Featuring a live performance of his very own Game Boy music! (Yeah, my satellite Internet connection really dropped the ball on my reposting this.) via docpop tweet
Jenn Frank ·
November 15, 2009 at 10:26 am
· Filed under Ephemera
The 12th annual Independent Games Festival—AKA “GDC? What GDC?”—is nearly upon us, and indie developer Jonatan “Cactus” Söderström is back with more game footage to engage, baffle, and thrill.
"GSW correspondent Simon Parkin sits down with eccentric Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, to learn about his work on children’s playgrounds, and why he’s begun to feel like he’s ‘just not suited to the games industry.’"
Jenn Frank ·
November 9, 2009 at 11:06 am
· Filed under Ephemera
I have been staring at the screen for several minutes, asking it, Now, how did that happen?
Mostly I am wondering how long Renaissance everyman Frank Cifaldi has been contributing to the Retronauts blog without my knowledge. But also I am wondering how, exactly, HOMEY D. CLOWN, the point-and-click adventure game, ever came to pass.
Jenn Frank ·
November 8, 2009 at 8:31 am
· Filed under Ephemera
Vladimir Putin is really sexy in this!
Games journalist Alex Litel writes,
Initially I thought this was a music video for a bizarre Japanese song called “My Boyfriend is the President,” but then I found out it’s the introduction video for a Japanese erotic computer game called “My Boyfriend is the President.” It is surprisingly innocuous given its source.
