Greg Costikyan has worked his way through game design, starting with wargames and pen and paper role-playing, through to mobile phone games and massively multiplayer. He is terrifically articulate, if you can keep up with his brisk diction - his essay, "I Have No Words And I Must Design" is a strong starting framework for modern game analysis.

So I was pleased to get some mail from him announcing that he's started a Games/Design/Art/Culture weblog; tending towards long essays, to be posted once a week or so. The introductory email is pasted here below:

I've just started a blog dealing with games, game design, and game culture. It's at:

http://www.costik.com/weblog

I hope to be posting a fairly extensive essay every week or so, dealing with one or another of my bete noires, some recent development in the field, a particular game, or something of the kind.

I'm starting the blog mainly because I rarely find this kind of material on the Web; consumer-oriented sites offer mainly reviews, while professional sites offer mainly how-to material. I want deeper analysis, and since I don't often find it, I might as well write it myself.