Category: Links

Reach the 16th floor by cooperating with previous incarnations of your own cursor. Fun little game concept.

I’m impressed with this awesome effort to catalogue Thomas Jefferson’s library on LibraryThing. Not so much because I’m into Jefferson, but because of the potential of similar efforts for people I do find interesting. Time to revamp my LT account.

“The web’s greatest strength, I believe, is often seen as a limitation, as a defect. It is the nature of the web to be flexible, and it should be our role as designers and developers to embrace this flexibility”

Well-written, accessible article by Greg Costikyan seeking to define games. Over 10 years old but reads like it was written yesterday. “I have to believe that the solitary nature of most computer games is a temporary aberration…”

Wired’s special on snack culture from a while back. Reference material for my GDC Mobile 2008 talk.

Fun fact considering that I’ve been spending some time in Estonia lately: “Every Estonian eID holder (around 80% of Estonian population) has an unique OpenID with the format open.id.ee/[firstname].[lastname](.number)”

“When working with games, it is helpful to consider both the designer and player perspectives. It helps us observe how even small changes in one layer can cascade into others. In addition, thinking about the player encourages experience-driven (as opposed to feature-driven) design.”

“Flickr is playful, and it is structured to bend the trajectory of users back into it. […] With Flickr you get the feeling that you are playing in partnership with the developers, both of you playing together […] You have different abilities, that’s all”

“If you thought that you could never reach enlightenment by playing a computer game.. well… you’re probably right. You can, however, fry your brain by trying to solve seemingly impossible puzzles that take place in a relaxing zen garden.”

For all their talk about sociality, it’s strange to see Boyd and MacLeod advocate the life of a hermit as a prerequisite for a successful creative career.

Thomas has posted a huge entry on his blog about the elements that make up any social software offering.

Reading the latest Acme Novelty Library at the moment and can’t help but agree. Comics can definitely move.

“GTD doesn’t need to be complicated; for me it’s mostly about eliminating distractions, focusing when appropriate, taking care of the small stuff before it can pile up and capturing everything.”

Huge deck of slides that look very shiny. Haven’t gone through all of them but looks like a lot of fun regardless. Would love to read a transcript or hear audio of Stephen delivering this.

Fun little video showing several toy hacks.

“Audiosurf allows you to experience the intensity and emotion of your songs in real time, in full color, and in 3D. Songs that give you an adrenaline rush are converted into wild roller coaster rides full of color and motion.” Will check this out at IGF.

Samir — one of Playyoo’s most prolific game submitters — gives the Game Creator a go and seems to like it: “Really nice job done by the Playyoo team to promote the mobile games ecosystem using Flash Lite.”

“We don’t want to work on the stuff that talks about the thing — we want to work on the thing itself.” Same here.

Impressive reading list for one year. I’ve been keeping track of stuff I read on All Consuming for a while now. Might summarize that somewhere as well.

A list of helpful IxD blogs. Am tracking a few already some have now gone into the reader.

It’s lovely to see how more and more people find Playyoo and start adding fun content.

I’m not doing a GDC keynote, but am presenting there this year. Will take care not to be guilty of any of these cliché statements.

OK Spool, it’s been fun, sad to see you go. *Clicks unsubscribe.*