it's the holidays

I guess nobody is even checking back to the site, but the promised papers and presentations have been run over by some serious holidaying... and it goes on for a while, as I'm about to spend the New Year over at Oxford, UK, visiting friends. I'll be back, papers and all, in 2004!

2003 in review

The holidays are ideal for gaming, of course :) On the digital front, I've been playing mostly Prince of Persia. It is excellent, even though the combat is a bit tedious. But the atmospheric locations, nice puzzles and platforming galore more than make up for it!

Another note, on board gaming: We've played a couple of rounds of Starship Catan with Satu. It's quite nice, with the space exploration theme especially to my taste :)

Finally, I thought I'd post my digital favourites of 2003. It's always difficult to make these lists, but what the hell, here goes:

1. Winning Eleven 7 (Pro Evolution Soccer 3)
2. Animal Crossing
3. Metroid Prime
4. Viewtiful Joe
5. Silent Hill 3
6. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
7. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
8. SSX 3
9. ESPN NHL Hockey
10. EyeToy: Play

bubbling under:
- Wario Ware
- Soul Calibur 2
- Burnout 2
- Tenchu III: Wrath of Heaven
- GTA: Vice City (wasn't this 2002, technically?)

I guess the list reflects my taste pretty accurately... No strategy games, for instance - if AC is not understood as one ;) Seven sequels, oh my oh my. No PC games, by the way! In, say, 1998, there wouldn't have been any console games. My personal gaming practices and media have changed indeed.

party gaming

Even though I was travelling for the weekend, my man Jesper guaranteed that it would not go without gaming. On Saturday, I was playing Bomberman, Chu-chu Rocket, Burnout 2, Mario Party 4, and some Frequency with Jesper and his friend - Jesper! Even though I ended up losing quite a bit, it was fun :) I did not remember how good Burnout 2 was - should give it a couple of rounds over the holiday. Nothing's better than creating some artificial traffic chaos!

back home

Back from Copenhagen, with x number of deadlines on my shoulders... Anyway, warm thanks for the discussions and partying, guys! It was good fun, and I felt that the discussion my lecture inspired was very worthwhile to all parties concerned. I'll be back there in May at the latest, co-organising a symposium on game design research - expect to find more information about that on the site, the gamesnetwork list, etc., in a few days!

game mechanics (& genres)

I've prepared my presentation for Copenhagen, but the truth is that I have material enough for two presentations. I'm afraid I won't have time to go to the genre issue properly... Oh well, I'm just happy to have the opportunity to visit and meet folks studying games. Lift-off!

genrification

FInally, I'm getting somewhere with the genre chapter. It is basically about genre definitions and their elusiveness, yet I'll present a thematic/dynamic approach to game genres, which is influenced by Rick Altman's theories on film genres.

I'm supposed to submit it for my post-graduate seminar next week - it'll end up there a bit half-baked but the stuff that I've had the time to write is quite ok, I think. Expect to see a PDF draft up some time in January, perhaps...

ssxed

My weekend was a bit of downer, coming down with a flu, but SSX3 helped a bit. The game is quite good fun, even though some irritating stuff - like, what do you mean I'm 'off limits'! - becomes apparent once you've played it a bit more. Still, the courses, the speed and generally the audio and visuals are impressive as hell.

Yesterday, we had some great duels with Satu, twice racing to dead even result on the finish line - great gamer-relationship moments! We simply had to record the replay for our grandchildren ;)

Copenhagen calling

Falling down with a flu has made my calendar even more packed. In a couple of days, I'm off to give a visiting lecture in Copenhagen, hosted by the fine folks over there... I'll post some impressions next week!

Adios to the rule paper

I'll be pulling the rule paper off the site in the coming weeks. It is becoming dated as my theories evolve, and also because a compact version has been published in the LEVEL UP proceedings. However, as a Christmas present to my readers, there will be the long-awaited paper on game mechanics up before xmas.