Games

Itchy. Tasty.

More than two months in, Gamergate is still, at its worst, unbridled misogyny; and at its best, a farcical conspiracy theory.

Circus journalism is overrun by “advocates” for better treatment of lions. We must protect the big top from corrosive LJW lies. #tamergate

Seinfeld STILL isn’t on Netflix. We as consumers demand the entertainment industry cater exclusively to our 20th century tastes. #kramergate

The Constitution was written by white men for white men. We mustn’t let others fraudulently claim rights by it. #framergate

If we’re forced to give women a voice in the Boy’s Club, then who’s next? The gays? We must stand against this tyranny. #flamergate

With all due respect to my gamer friends fighting the good fight, I’m glad I quit video games. The inmates are running the asylum.

A car alarm has been going off for an hour. I called in a noise complaint. In my head, the cops said I could do this: youtu.be/M_hT5_vChDE

Walk into the waterfall.

Lest 2013 be the year I actually gave up video games, here is a nifty app that is basically an iTunes for ROMs: openemu.org

Downloaded @badlandgame this morning. Very creative, elegant, and intuitive use of a simple physics engine. itun.es/us/nBI5F.i

Parents who can get bent: 1. Allow games/movies on mobile devices in public sans headphones. 2. Allow firearms before literacy.

This thing Bioshock Infinite does to keep me from playing more than 20 minutes at a time by making me nauseous is damned clever.

It’s the end of an era. @RockBand was a truly beautiful thing, and I’m proud to have been a small part of it. polygon.com/2013/3/21/4134…

“In the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team – they are the ball.” youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZ…

Happy to see some of my @Harmonix pals get their due in this article about adapting “Gangnam Style” for Dance Central 3 polygon.com/2012/11/26/365…

How is it that video game advertisers have come to decide that “addictive” is an alluring adjective?

Starting the week off right.

Somehow I never noticed how much of a tramp Ms. Pac-Man is. @ The 1up instagr.am/p/NWz8X1BMxv/

A public supplement to a private conversation. /cc @jennlukas @jsm @mattsutter

The new @youdontknowjack on Facebook is exactly the daily fix I’ve been missing since the last web version died a few years ago. Crazy good.

Now atop all friend leaderboards in Spelltower. Resuming life.

Anymore, if I get addicted to an iOS game, I look forward to it being bought by Zynga so I’ll be forced to never play it again.

Editors, take note. Please.

Outstanding piece by @shamblanderson, examining a phenomenon that has long troubled me, which he calls “stupid games”. nytimes.com/2012/04/08/magazi…

Just caught myself reading comments on a @Kotaku post. ⌘W.

Words with Friends is fun, but its growing pile of Zynga bullshit baggage has me just about ready to move on.

Eight of the top ten results for an App Store search of “Words With Friends” are five-star apps that help you cheat at said game. Great.

Ladies and gents, the reason I left the game industry: youtube.com/watch?v=4RLAE3… (Not a knock on Harmonix, just an impossible design challenge.)

I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile. July!

Are there actually people that have been eagerly anticipating Duke Nukem Forever all these years? If so, how can I help them?

The teen me would be perplexed to learn that I would one day prefer typesetting scientific journals to designing rock and roll video games.

Angel Witch on the Barcade speakers. I win.

Going into college, I thought graphic design was mostly about drawing with a mouse. Lots of MS Paint and Mario Paint in my portfolio.

Sending all my good vibes to my @HarmonixMusic friends on this sad day.

I’m really looking forward to this. I played the hell out of YDKJ in the late ’90s and it’s only improved with age. I do wish they could have kept doing the web version with weekly episodes and daily Dis or Dats, and I’m surprised the new version won’t be available on iOS. But whatever, I’m glad it’s back. Oh, and see if you can beat my $19,889 score on the sample game. :)

Game designers: What responsibility do you feel to the player when weighing replay value vs. rewarding OCD behavior? Example: Angry Birds.

This Rock Band 3 ad is abysmal: youtu.be/_Ri-S1Yrzyw I honestly don’t understand how stuff like this gets made. RB3 deserves better.

Ouch.

The biggest project I ever worked on is publicly available today. It is called Rock Band 3. I recommend you buy it. amzn.to/99DwrB

Opening and closing paragraphs are gold.

Forgot to share this before. The attention to detail here is astonishing, right down to replicating each character’s every costume change. It pretty much recreates the entire movie, attempts to fill plot holes, and provides hours of gameplay (thanks to numerous Easter eggs, achievements (medals), and other secret goodies), all while staying true to what makes The Room such a wonderfully inept phenomenon. Of course, that means it’s also essentially mundane and boring, but, perhaps… See more →

Pleased as punch that Dio and The Smiths are coming to @RockBand next week. rockband.com/zine/singles-dio-hat…

Of all the stuff I worked on at Harmonix, this is easily the thing I spent the most time on.

Dreamed @urbancrunchy developed a time machine for Xbox 360, which I used to replicate a behind-the-scenes photo from Diff’rent Strokes.

Yep.

“Video games are like opium is for… people who like opium.” — @bearskinrug

This game can’t come soon enough.

Scratch that Facebook chess complaint. Chess.com is now integrated with the FB app, and the frame I saw was a transition hiccup.

Oh, cute, now the Chess app on Facebook just loads Chess.com in a scrolltastic frame. What an excellent idea.