Half-Real: The Book is Here!

From Jesper Juul’s website:

I am happy to announce that my book, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds has now been published by MIT Press.

Half-Real is an attempt at creating a basic theory of video games: In the book I discuss what video games are and how they relate to non-digital games, how players learn to use a game, how players imagine the world of a game, and why video games are fun.

Half-real is a book on video game theory, but it is generally readable. As for method, the book is an eclectic mix of theories on games, film and literary theory, computer science, and psychology.

The book?s companion website is up at http://www.half-real.net.

The website also contains A dictionary of video game theory, an expanding dictionary of video game theory terms.

Though Half-Real shares its title with my PhD work, this book is brand new, all together nicer, more readable, more fun, and just better.

A lot of work went into this book, so I hope you like it!

We sure will…

Pong is 34 years old today! Happy Birthday Pong!

It wasn’t first videogame (that was arguably SpaceWar) but it was the first commercially successful videogame and started the videogame revolution. How far we’ve come!

read more | digg story

Blue sky in games

The “Blue Sky in Games” campaign has just launched.

They want… no… demand;

Games need BLUE SKIES! Games need BRIGHT YELLOW SUNS! Games need RED AND BLUE THINGS in them! We want to play in a HAPPY PRETEND LAND, not a shit version of an American slum full of mixed-race gangsters wearing licensed sportswear!

We want to COLLECT BANANAS FROM MAGIC CASTLES not earn respect from fictional gang leaders! We want to stun enemies with BOUNCE ATTACKS, not shoot them in unrealistic and shoddy drive-bys!

We want to restore our health by COLLECTING ROAST CHICKEN, not by syringing drugs into the only vein we can still find! Games have gone SHIT and DARK and RUBBISH and WE WANT THEM BACK!

We want music that goes PLINKY-PLINK AND DOOPY-DOO not “motherfucking west coast mother fucker, y’all”! We want to fight WEIRD MONSTERS not drug-dealing criminals!

Impending Doom

This photo is just plain funny on so many levels.

Have a nice weekend.

Google Print set to change the world?

Lawrence Lessig has written very interesting article in Wired defending Google Print. Here’s is short quote:

Google must decide how it will handle the battle over its latest great idea: Google Print. Last December? the com?pany announced it would Googlize 15 million books. For works under copyright, a search would produce snippets around the search term used. But for books in the public domain, a search would also yield access to the full text of the works. Almost 90 percent of the books Google might scan are out of print. The project promises to ?radi?cally enhance our access to the past – to remind us of forgotten information. It is the great?est gift to knowledge since, well, Google

Read the entire article over at Wired.

Save King’s Quest IX

I’ve just received word from Matt Compton that some fans of the King’s Quest IX fan-made sequel is trying to save the game from the evil claws of Vivendi Universal Games

Our goal here is simple: to show Vivendi that there are enough interested people across the globe to warrant the release of King’s Quest IX as either a fan game (as originally intended), or as an official release under the Vivendi banner.

Visit their website and read all about their noble cause.

Hi,

I’m writing to ask you to support an effort to save a fan-made computer game.

Ever play any the King’s Quest games from Sierra? They were quite popular in the 80′s & 90′s, but were discontinued in 2000. In 2002, a group of fans got together to make a King’s Quest fan game. Their intention was to make their game available to fans worldwide, via the internet, at no charge. These fans really loved this series of games, and just wanted to keep the spirit of King’s Quest alive. They’ve spent their free time working on the game over the past three years, and were about to release it.

However, in late September, Vivendi Universal Games (which now owns Sierra) issued a cease and desist letter to these fans, instructing them to shut down the project.

Many of the fans who were looking forward to the game have joined together to try to save it. They’ve launched a website, www.savekqix.org, in the hopes of convincing Vivendi to allow the game to be released. If you’d like to support this effort, there is simple way to email Vivendi. Just go here:

http://www.savekqix.org/help.htm

Thanks!