others on rules

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman is certainly something to look forward to. And, as a researcher working on similar issues, it makes you worry that you are just re-inventing the wheel...

Single Player Academic Game

Reading about genre and different forms of fun can be a bit daunting. Therefore I've taken a short timeout and began writing the introduction to my thesis on an autobiographical note. I'm trying to document the changes in my ludological thinking from the first papers in 1998 to this day.

In this 'Single player academic game', as I've chosen to call it, I'm also treading through the different research literature that I've read and referenced during this time. Fittingly, I've promised to submit the intro to scrutiny in my post-graduate seminar on December 18th, a day before my 1st draft deadline.

winning eleven!

WE7, WE7, WE7... resilience is starting to pay off. I've started to win with FC Porto due to some successful transfers and trades. Now I'll just have to buy the player that has impressed me most lately and who plays for the team: Deco.

Back to normal

Workshop done, back to work with the thesis. I hope to put some new stuff (on mechanics) up before my trip - business and pleasure - to Japan at the beginning of October :D

september outline

Just a quick update: visited a World Lottery Association seminar at Visby, Sweden last week and now I have my hands full with preparing a workshop (see entry below). After September 16th I'll return to work on my thesis and intend to upgrade the site with new functionalities as well. Take care, folks!

losing eleven

After my work-related trip to Visby (that's in Sweden) I had some time to recover by playing games. Well, a game, to be exact. As my Love had to work, I pretty much played Winning Eleven 7 throughout the two days...and it was a two-day struggle. Losing Eleven it should be called. Somehow I just can't get grips with the game, they've somehow changed it so that most of my old skills just don't cut it. Every time I think I start to learn it I end up on a losing streak... My Master league history is tragic :(

And there just is not a suitable difficulty level for me in the game (especially playing the ML): level 2 is ridiculously easy, and then, all of a sudden, on level 3 I begin to struggle. Level 4 seemed ok for a while, but then I started losing, again, bad. It's on the verge of not being fun anymore. I will give it one more try. With FC Porto, perhaps!

Well, on a more positive note, yesterday I returned to Viewtiful Joe, as I had to finish my review for it. I still think it is brilliant. Hard, relentless, but brilliant. Somehow it should be, too, and WE7 shouldn't quite be. Weird :/