Halloween in SecondLife

Today in Qualitative Research Methods class we went looking for Halloween things - pumpkins, scary houses, ghosts. Lots of entries under the Search menu although a lot were stores having special sales.

The students did find some interesting places tho: beds where you could pretend to be dead (Visit Antiqua Paradise (20, 129, 53))

Some Good News About the Videogame Industry

Check out this article on Crispy Gamer (a new news and review portal that looks very well done)

There are over 1000 videogame development professionals in New York State. And overall there are more jobs in the industry.

Of couse the data was collected before the recent (late fall 2008 if you're reading this in the archives) economic unpleasantness, so I'm not sure how totally accurate it is. But the industry was strong and there are some interesting new project being developed at major studios and by independents alike. I think it's a good time to be going into the field

Meeples in Motion

Meeples are the playing pieces from the Carcassone board game. They're little wooden people.

Here are some pictures from our game day - including our attempt at an arty shot of a meeple being placed on the board.

We played board games again in class today

My goal was to play games or watch videos every Friday in the Intro to Games & Society. Out of 9 weeks tho we have only managed 3 play days. We had a movie, a guest speaker, an exam review. Can't figure out where the other weeks went.

Anyway - we started our 2nd round of game play. Each group got assigned a new game to learn. Hopefully as we go thru more games groups will begin to share tips about how to play.

So far Apples to Apples seems to be the game most people know already and so have the most fun playing. Carcassone and Ticket to Ride are totally unknown but the groups pick them up pretty quickly and manage to get almost all the way thru a game the very first day. Race for the Galaxy is kicking our butts - the phases are confusing and the symbols on the cards often undecipherable.

Interesting Videogame Conference in Philadelphia

the Videogame Expo is scheduled for 11/21 - 11/23. there's a career workshop (very worthwhile), games to play, history exhibits. There are game tournaments and competitions. There are even robots and anime for when you want a break from videogames.

Here's the URL for the Expo - http://www.videogame.net/vgxpo/

I hope some of hte students from the Intro to Games & Society class can go. The entrance fee is low. hopefully we can carpool. We have have to find some available hotel rooms that we can afford.

I went a couple of years ago when it was much smaller and in Valley Forge, PA (near the King of Prussia mall). It was well organized conference even then. Here are a couple of pics I took. Check out the guy on the left playing Duck Hunt. I couldn't get near the QBert machine the whole weekend.

Good Gamasutra Article to read - the idea is not hte game

Check out this article from Gamastura about some of the realities of the game industry and the knowledge that beginning game designers need - learn how to create ideas, lots of ideas and learn how to do

Schools/Colleges need to be honest with students - it's a tough biz. Lots of projects get started and then canceled. Need to have more ideas than you could use in a life time. When one gets shot down, you'll have another one ready to go.

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Check out this blog post about making bad games

A Designer's thoughts on making games - and things not to do if you want to make good, fun games

A Few More Games

Image via WikipediaGot some new games for the major - they'll be in ppecs soon. Some I got on multiple platforms so we can compare game control schemes and how well they take advantage features of the different hardware.

For the 360
Ultimate Alliance/Forza Motorsports
Assassin's Creed
Bully
Civilization: Revolution

For the DS
Civilization: Revolution
Assassin's Creed
Meteos
N+
Elite Beat Agents (ok - i'm playing this one now so it won't be in PPECS for a week or so)


For the PSP
Lumines II
Ridge Racer
N+

For the Wii
Red Steel