Games

A simple, clever, and stressful game that rewards quick typing skills.

come on

I just came here to say my hat is off to anyone who still has a Wordle streak going after today, but seeing Dan solve it in four has proven me a sore loser. twitter.com/danmall/status…

come on

Looks like it resets the streak after 50 💅🏻

Time, material, initiative.

So this is my day. Tune in to see if some of my old @Harmonix buddies and I are still any good at Beatles Rock Band after 10 years! twitter.com/alex_navarro/s…

Can’t wait to participate in this! Can’t believe Beatles Rock Band came out 10 years ago. Hopefully my skillz are still intact. twitter.com/alex_navarro/s…

If this game had existed when I was still in school, I wouldn’t have even come close to doing anything with my life. youtu.be/lU3YdqFo1QU

This game puts you in the unenviable shoes of an Amazon warehouse worker. abc.net.au/news/2019-02-2…

Hello, dear reader!

September is gone, but its links remain.

It was a big month for me, as I finally finished the project I was preoccupied with for most of the summer: Incomplete Open Cubes Revisited, inspired by Sol LeWitt. I also wrote about why and how I did it.

This month’s newsletter is a few days late because I wanted to include Robtober 2018, my annual deep dive into horror films which always takes… See more →

I love love love this peek at some of the visual inspiration for @ustwogames’s stunning Monument Valley games. milanote.com/the-work/the-s…

Hello, dear reader!

July is gone, but its links remain.

Apart from brief musings on films I saw recently, my lone post in July was a recap of my vacation in Brighton, from which I was reluctant to return. The ensuing extended brain vacation kept me from doing as much internetting as usual, so the collection of links is a bit thinner this month, but hopefully you can find something below worth scraping across your… See more →

Hello, dear reader!

June is gone, but its links remain.

It was a relatively busy month on my site! I had an unexpected reason to revisit an animated student film I made 20 years ago, wrote about designing better concert listings, chronicled my experience learning about the future of typography at the Ampersand conference, and offered middling reviews of the year’s most celebrated horror films, A Quiet Place and Hereditary.

This month’s links are the sort… See more →

The rich, expansive adventure in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is 1MB. The entire game. Do our 5MB web pages offer 5× that value?

“Does alternative history need to be challenged beyond the merits of its own grotesque imagination?” kotaku.com/the-struggle-o…

The video game speed run explainer genre is not something I would have anticipated drawing me in, yet here we are. youtu.be/Y99Wj-NStok

Hello, dear reader!

May is gone, but its links remain.

The only thing I published on my site this month was a brief, snarky review of a 69-year-old movie (nice), but if all goes well in June, I’ll have a couple of substantial posts about creative projects (new and old) coming your way.

The links below include some meaty reporting on politics and a triptych of opinion pieces on our culture wars’ state of discourse.… See more →

Anyway, it was pretty fun to unearth and share this stuff 25 years later. Thanks for watching!

I was so excited to see what was possible, and I was determined to master it (and apparently to broadcast my @MST3K fan bonafides).

The early 90s’ nascent digital creative tools were still pretty inaccessible, so Mario Paint felt like nearly legit means of production.

All joking aside, Mario Paint was an important stepping stone for me in the world of digital art and design.

When I keynote Mario Paint conferences, I use this seminal work to outline the fundamentals of the form. (Spot the @alyankovic reference?)

This was the beginning of a long and fruitful career making wildly successful video comic books with Mario Paint.

Good news, everyone: It’s Friday, and the VHS tape of the video comic book I made with Mario Paint in 1993 has been digitized.

“It’s like watching a swiss clock maker explain his machine.” kottke.org/18/05/a-world-…

This @business game is a fun way to learn about how and why retail is dying. Try to keep a mall in the black! bloomberg.com/features/ameri…

An excellent visual explanation of how scan lines and color work on analog and digital video screens. youtube.com/watch?v=3BJU2d…

Happy New Year, dear reader!

December is gone, but its links remain.

I did some more film writing this month, most notably on The Disaster Artist and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and I also published a collection of all the shorter film reviews I wrote in 2017.

This month’s links are a good mix of the topical (net neutrality, sexism, the new tax bill), year-end reflections, inspiring art and design, and more. I hope… See more →

I keep forgetting to turn off Do Not Disturb after @hqtrivia. 🙉

Undaunted by the decades that’ve passed since I last heard it, Mario Paint’s composer demo song is in my head today. youtube.com/watch?v=jJ3ckc…

Screenwriters “spent hours discussing the essence of Fruit Ninja. ‘For me, it is the messiness, the immediate release of destroying fruit.’” twitter.com/nytimes/status…

Animated Subway Maps Compared to Their Actual Geography

These are a wonderfully concise look at design thinking.

How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science

Murray Energy — despite its enormous clout with Mr. Trump and his top environmental official — boasts a payroll with only 6,000 employees. The coal industry nationwide is responsible for about 160,000 jobs, with just 65,000 directly in mining, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

By… See more →

So excited to return to MV. No pressure to win, score, achieve, collect, etc. Just a beautiful space with thoughtful mechanics to explore. twitter.com/ustwo/status/8…

I cannot stop laughing at this. twitter.com/lrgmnn/status/…

Blown Away

If you’re suffering from an excess of self-respect, the Corey Haim/Feldman erotic thriller is now available on Hulu.

King Crimson: Starless

RIP John Wetton. Colon cancer. Here’s my favorite King Crimson song, which he co-wrote, sang, and played bass on.

What Can Ivanka Trump Possibly Do for Women Who Work?

Before the election, her main interest in women was getting them to buy her clothing, her handbags, and her shoes. Who can forget… See more →

“Gaming didn’t impact the election, but electing to secede from reality is political, too.” vulture.com/2017/02/video-…

I just revisited this @shauninman post, which gets at part of it: “There’s an unmuddied economy of expression…” shauninman.com/archive/2010/0…

Trying to get my head around why this kind of work is so appealing to me. I want to believe it’s more than just nostalgia. twitter.com/Sir_carma/stat…

u up

Snow piling up outside, day plans canceled, plenty of snacks. Still, my perfect couch day is doomed to incompletion without Resident Evil 2.

I had to delete Super Mario Run. The “do this thing over and over again until it’s perfect” school of game design never ends well for me. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Hey NYC, I’m selling some used video game consoles (Xbox 360, N64, PS2, Nintendo DS). Tell your friends! newyork.craigslist.org/search/sss?use…

I try to limit my indulgence in nostalgia, but all bets are off with @internetarchive’s Nintendo Power collection. archive.org/details/ninten…

GET IT OFF ME KILL IT WITH FIRE twitter.com/stuntbox/statu…

In my diminished cynicism, I hadn’t even thought of Pokémon Go’s obvious reason for being. twitter.com/jenseninman/st…

And then there was the time dozens of @RockBand fanatics scoured my online existence to try to solve this mystery. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Internet turdery is alive and well, and @NintendoAmerica just handed it a trophy. twitter.com/alisonrapp/sta…

Last night I braved the Times Square throngs to pick up a @RockBand guitar for the first time in years, and it put a HUGE smile on my face.

Sad to miss #XOXOFest this year. Following it on Twitter meant enduring the braying of Gamergate’s turd children, but it was worth it.