game selibacy - not!

Dear Gaming Diary,

I'm sorry that I've ignored you for the last 6 months (!!). I have played some, though, which makes the matter all the more serious, I know :(

To make up for it, here's a quick summary...

We've enjoyed Ticket to Ride: Europe tremendeously with Satu. Especially as a two player game, it does not really have conflicting goals, so it's quite laid-back fun.

Ingenious by Reiner Knizia we've only played once. It definitely desevers more of our attention. Caribbean is rather nice and simple fun that we've tackled a number of times. We've also gotten some collectible card games but they still await testing.

On the digital front, I enjoyed Resident Evil 4 quite a lot. Then, as so often happens for me, I just quit, probably 3/4 through it. Just can't fnd time or energy to continue. Partly due to Winning Eleven 8 LE coming out I have to admit.

Oh yeah, we completed Halo 2 on co-op with my buddy Fernando. It was fun but rather unspectacular. We began Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on co-op as well, but got frustrated early on, as our attention span just was not enough for all that stealth. Been thinking of getting my hands on Jade Empire but just haven't gotten around to it.

Haven't purchased neither DS or PSP. I guess I'm becoming old because seeing (and trying) Wipeout on yet another platform does nothing for me. Lumines was pretty ok. Game-wise Ds is lot more interesting but I hate the design of the thing. Once Nintendogs comes out I have to do something, though. Meteos seems interesting as well.

Oh yeah, and I probably will get Killer 7 for my summer holidays in the end of July. I'm a sucker for that style - well actually anything out of the ordinary particle masturbation, really.

Intro to Game Dev out

Btw, the book Introduction to Game Development, edited by Steve Rabin, is out. With my colleague Jussi Holopainen from Nokia we contributed a chapter on ludology, titled 'Ludology for Game Developers: an Academic Perspective'. Rather than defining ludology in opposition to narratology, we defined it as a holistic attitude to game analysis and design.

Check the book out on the publisher's site, or order from Amazon.com:
Introduction to Game Development @ Charles River Media
Introduction to Game Development @ Amazon.com

DiGRA impressions

Yep, back home. The conference was pretty ok. Personally it was a success, with our design & theory symposium drawing probably the biggest crowd outside keynote lectures & other plenary events. My own talk on the Gamegame was also received very well, so I'm quite pleased that people are generally finding it an interesting and inspiring concept. Card & Manual PDF will follow during July.

I did miss out on several papers I would've liked to have heard (e.g., Costikyan) due to my programme engagements...I was a bit depressed about the 'we've finally banished formalism' attitude especially present in the final plenary event, where speaker after speaker everyone implicated that other perspectives imply progress, and therefore formalism is somehow derogatory. Well, is 'formalism' a monolith, and what is it, actually? I for one believe that there exists semi-formalism in game studies at best, and demonizing it only results in unproductive, introvert academic circles. It will be interesting to see come DiGRA 2007 where the so-called progress has lead us. (Yeah I know I should add the comment function.)

Other fragmentary notes: For the first time, I actually found a Janet Murray talk interesting. Everybody was talking about World of Warcraft, which I just don't get but I'm weird that way. Too much MMOG talk anyway me thinks. The international symposium was ok but lacked direction - I felt a bit of an outsider anyway being the only non-academic representative. The multidisciplinary symposium was entertaining but did not seem that multidisciplinary in the end. The IGDA panel with industry representatives was depressing. It was so predictable. One of them tried, at least. Regarding the unofficial conference activities, partying seemed relatively modest. I was a bit tired, though, and not at my best at mingling, but still the company was as good as usual.

Our five day post-digra holiday with Satu was great. Vancouver turned out to be so much more after we left the conference hotel and downtown business district behind. Stanley Park, West End, English Bay, Grouse Mountain, excellent :)

DiGRA bound

Ok, so it's almost time for some international globetrotting. I'm looking forward to the event - a huge amount of interesting work on display - and also a break from work. The 5 days we'll be spending at Vancouver after the event will certainly be something of a relaxation period.

Three sessions for me at DiGRA:

- Fri 17 1.45->: International symposium
- Sat 18 10 am: Bridging Theory & Design symposium
- Sun 19 1:45 pm: Short paper on Gamegame

I'm under pressure to produce a PDF with the Gamegame cards & rule maunal before leaving on Tue 14th, but we'll see if I'm up to it. In any case, I suggest anyone interested in the game & my thesis come and bugger me about them, so maybe the pressure will build up and I will get things done, eventually.

See ya soon, folks :)