Games

Kentucky Route Zero (Acts 1 – 3)

Part of me wanted to wait for the entirety of Kentucky Route Zero to be released before writing about it, but ultimately I felt...

ACM Hypertext 2016: Juried Hypertext Exhibition

This year, the ACM Hypertext Conference is offering a Creative Track in an effort to bring in more artists, which I have graciously been asked to Chair. This year's conference theme is "missing link," which is perfect for how we see this exhbition.

This Has to Stop

I had planned to post a cute little post today about AI as a design problem. But honestly in the wake of the announcement that...

Beyond the Velvet Ropes

Finally, by my third GDC, I have reconciled my past experiences of being an outsider with the my current privileges. This year was a big step.

Little Rag Dolls: The Evolution of Smash

I’ve been a fan of the Super Smash Bros series since the first installment on Nintendo 64 in 1999. Back then, I loved the game’s framing metaphor of the characters of Nintendo's most popular games as inanimate toys brought to life by the Master Hand’s omnipotent selection.

Agar.io

Agario is a game about consumption: both the aggressive, taking kind and the supportive, giving kind. Consumption is the power fantasy underlying the game's appeal...and I find it more satisfying than I'd like to admit. Moreover, I love the dynamics that have emerged around giving and sacrifice as communication.

Allusive Games

When games reference other games, it’s almost always done in a flippant, shallow way, but allusions represent a greater possibility for ambiguity, multivalence, and expressive depth. Games deserve—and are increasingly ready to harness—that depth.

Lenses, Not Boxes

I wanted to be an engineer. But not if it meant giving up writing or design. But I was looking at it the wrong way: labels should be lenses, not boxes.