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Jane Austen Choose Your Own Adventure

Lost in Austen is, as far as I can tell, a choose-you-own-adventure book in which you "play" as Elizabeth Bennet, Austen's most beloved heroine. I bring this up because, well, Richard sent it to me - he knows that I am obsessed with the idea of creating a Jane Austen RPG. It would be so successful, I tell you! I just need money, and programmers, and artists, and...

Yeah. Well, maybe some day!

Soon Austin Will Be Invincible

I finished Austin's book, Soon I Will Be Invincible, a little while ago and it is really, really, really good. It feels like a light read at first, but it's so skillfully plotted and the characters are so engaging that it becomes one of those books where, once you are in the world, you don't really ever want to leave it.

Anyway he's giving a talk this Saturday, August 11, in San Francisco at Writers with Drinks. And he's also giving a talk at the Austin GDC, provocatively titled, Literate Gaming: How We Can and Must Do Better at Writing for Games.

Austin's a good speaker - passionate and thoughtful in equal measure, inspiring and funny and needless to say, smart as all get-out. You should try to catch him at least once!

Other events associated with the book's release are noted on the official website, which is, by the way, beautifully designed (if a bit too flash-heavy for my taste.)

I'll admit to a little healthy jealousy as a fellow writer who has two or three novels on blocks right now but that's just part of the admiration I feel for Austin. He's worked hard and he deserves the success! Plus you can't stay jealous at a guy who is so obviously talented - not to mention one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet!

Oh, I'm In This Book

Well, sorta. I did an interview with Rainey Straus and Katherine Isbister about their art gallery project in The Sims Online. And now the book is finally out!

Rainey Straus is an artist based in San Francisco who likes to play with interactivity. Katherine Isbister researches and designs interactive characters, empathy, and social interfaces. They teamed up on the SimGallery Online Project, where they built a virtual version of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and then also had a concurrent art show at the ACTUAL Yerba Buena Center. The virtual museum carried works contributed by players.

I'm glad the book is finally out!

Julian Dibbell's Play Money

When I first met Julian, he was in the process of quitting his freelance writing career to become a full-time trader of virtual goods for one year. The book that resulted has just come out: Play Money. I've ordered it, and I'll post the review here.

Julian's previous book was My Tiny Life, a virtual autobiography. He also wrote the groundbreaking article The Unreal Estate Boom for Wired in 2002. He posts at Terra Nova.

What's Bad is Good

Too often we hear that games are a complete waste of time; all children do is zone out in front of the television, right? While that may be what one sees when spying upon a child wielding a controller, it's obvious enough to anybody who actually plays games that there's more to our hobby than a time kill. A recent episode of the Daily Show w/ J.Stew clued me into the new book by Steven Johnson titled Everything Bad Is Good For You. For more insight, you can check out the interview on this page.

Without going into too much detail, the book does make some very interesting points about the complexity of not only current video games, but also other forms of popular culture. The short story is that the construction of media has grown increasingly sophisticated over the past few decades; non-linear narratives are the norm. Techniques that were suitable for avant-garde audiences are now used in mainstream programming. In reference to videogaming specifically, players are thrust into unknown environments or situations, and are then required to figure out what the hell they're supposed to be doing. Which buttons should I be pressing? What does this switch do? How the heck am I supposed to get up there?

We're not zoning out. We're at constant attention, always making decisions. So we're benefitting from gameplay, yes? That much has been clear for ages. I mean, sit a non-gamer down in front of your Playstation 2 and hand them the controller. The first thing they'll ask you is what they're supposed to do. Johnson puts it perfectly. "You're supposed to figure out what you're supposed to do."

There are cognitive muscles being exercised by our favorite medium; and it's often easy for people to disregard that fact because of the content of what we play. Sure, I wish there were more mature games out there for us to enjoy -- libraries and espionage, not flesh and bullets -- but I am constantly impressed by the increased complexity of the software being released every day. You know there's more to GTA than guns, drive-bys, and hookers, right? Hopefully, one day, our mothers and fathers will understand this, as well. Anyway, if you're looking for something to read, pick up a copy of Everything Bad... When you're through, send it over to your parents and give them a better understanding of why you do what you do.

No Payne, No Gain

So when do we hit the all-time comments record for GGA? My look at Max Payne has generated quite a slew of thoughtful commentary (this is the part where I suck up to everyone before slamming them). Indeed, I'd guess the majority who've commented enjoyed the games' narratives and dialog as they, and this is the important qualification, relate to the overall gameplay. Taking this into consideration, apparently you're all a bunch of dolts. You should go read books.

Poetry for the Gaming Crowd

by Mike Drucker

Portraying video games in art outside of video games themselves is a tricky task.

Many movies made about, based on, or even featuring games have often failed to show the human side of gaming. Games are often either portrayed as violent twitch experiences or all-encompassing virtual reality worlds without boundaries.

The written word has an even greater difficulty. Studies of games in recent history have either strayed in the territory of too technical, creating vast amounts of soulless documentation on how games play, look, and sound, or have been somewhat too human, focusing solely on how the games look and anecdotes behind their creation rather than what makes the games interesting.

Video games, the interactive art of corresponding actions to on screen visuals and audio cues, are inherently difficult to show.

But who'd have thought that it'd be a poet from Las Vegas to finally get the feeling that goes along with video games right?

"Blue Wizard is About to Die" (an obvious reference to Gauntlet 2) is poet, musician and writer Seth "Fingers" Flynn Barkan's third book, and the first about his childhood obsession: video games.

New Book by Sheri Graner Ray

Sheri Graner Ray has a new book out, Gender-Inclusive Game Design. Among other things, she directed product development at Her Interactive. She's currently the co-chair of the Women in Game Development Committee for the IGDA. I saw her speak at GDC last year, and her approach is extremely practical and grounded in research. I get a lot of questions from game designers who want to know what women want in a game. The answers are out there if you look.

A Review of "Digital Game-Based Learning"

Lengthy and thoughtful review of Marc Prensky's Digital Game-Based Learning on /..

Justin and I actually have 2 copies of this book - both as yet unread. Games that teach have, however, been a particular interest of Justin's for a while. The book's initial excessive use of exclamation points and italics turned me off on first glance but the ideas seem very interesting.