One of Nineteen “greatest game scholars”

I’m not a huge fan of “greatest” lists, but I’m still somewhat tickled to have made this list of game scholars – even though I am not really a scholar. There are some oversights, such as Brian Sutton-Smith, certainly the greatest living scholar of games and play, and many great deceased scholars, like Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois But regardless I’m certainly in good company – from Constance Steinkhuler and Kurt Squire to Jesper Juul and Janet Murry. You can read the entire list of game scholars here.

Filed under: Academic, Media Mentions, Uncategorized

Armada d6 review in PlayThisThing

One of my favorite game review blogs, Greg Costilkyan’s PlayThisThing, has posted a review of the Armada d6 prototype. Perhaps because tabletop gamers can so analytical, boardgame reviews are notoriously picky. So I’m especially pleased with this extremely positive write-up about the game, which calls it an “incredibly balanced and smooth game — near perfection.”

Thanks, Sebastian Sohn! Now I just need to find a publisher.

Filed under: Armada d6, Games, Media Mentions

Armada d6 in the Huffington Post

 

As a lead-up to the IndieCade festival of Independent Games in Los Angeles, Robert Brown of Turnstyle News interviewed me about the unusual backstory of Armada d6, a boardgame that was accepted to the festival as a Finalist Nominee. The article, which focuses on the found artifacts on which I based the game, touching the connection between games, divination, and spirituality, was picked up by The Huffington Post. Read the entire article here.

Filed under: Armada d6, Festivals & Exhibitions, Media Mentions

Kill Screen: Players getting older

The latest issue of Kill Screen Magazine is out – that brainy journal about game culture – and there’s a small piece with my mug in it. The article is about what will happen to games as players become older, and a few game designers, including Randy Smith, Manveer Heir, and myself, are asked for our opinions on the subject.

Kill Screen frames the article as old age potentially being the “kiss of death” for gamers because of the frailties that accompany older age. The other designers mostly mention things like screens for the vision-impaired and hand-eye coordination issues, but I have a different take on the subject. For me, many real-world games enjoyed by older players, such as Bocce Ball, are already as physically intense as a videogame and I see the issue as more about culture than biology.

Here’s a bit from my response. You can read the rest of my answer in Kill Screen, issue 6.

Videogames do not need to be redesigned for older players. Even the most intense controller-based videogame has fewer physical demands than Shuffleboard. And while videogames don’t offer the same kind of physical exertion, they do offer problem-solving, hand-eye coordination, and social interaction – activities with incredibly valuable cognitive benefits.

 

But ultimately, people don’t play videogames because they are good for you. People play games because of pleasure and culture. They will play games if they are enjoyable, and if they are a part of the culture in which they live. Today we scoff at “old people’s games” like Bridge and Mah Jong – when we’re all senior citizens, the kids will laugh at our old-fashioned games like Starcraft and Angry Birds.

Filed under: Media Mentions, Writings

Discussing the Glass Bead Game on BBC

This year is the 50th anniversary of the death of German novelist Herman Hesse, and to mark the occasion, the BBC created a half-hour radio program about his work. I was interviewed about his book the Glass Bead Game, a story set in a future where a priestly class plays a mysterious game that lets them explore the relationships among disciplines like mathematics, music, and astronomy.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of Hesse’s Glass Bead Game, in part because he keeps the actual rules of the game frustratingly ambiguous in his book. As a game that potentially crossed every other cultural domain, the Glass Bead Game was a big influence on the Metagame, a card game I created with Local No. 12 in which players compare and contrast different forms of art, design, media, and entertainment.

You can listen to the entire BBC program here. I come in about halfway through, around minute 18:00. Among other topics, I discuss how our geek-centric, information-dominated age was presaged in the Glass Bead Game’s society of intellectual scholar-monks. Thanks to producer Alan Hall for tracking me down in Berlin this summer for our very enjoyable interview.

Filed under: Audio, Media Mentions