Games * Design * Art * CultureSerious gamoid drivel, ranging from the scholarly to the snide. Sercon, if you know the term, but not devoid of humor.The Mobile Platform Wars, Part Deux- August 12, 2004 ...talking about server-side platforms here, not platform in the sense of hardware.When I founded Unplugged Games back in 2000, J2ME was future tech and BREW had not been announced. We had faith that we'd get phones that could run apps in a bit, but at the time, what you had to work with was SMS and WAP. To do any kind of games with those technologies, you needed to have a server in the mix. And my expectation was that mobile would be like online: you've got networked devices, people are going..http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_08_01_blogchive.html#109233785782773886 New York Waterway Censors RPGs- August 11, 2004 This has me rather annoyed.... Apparently a fellow carrying a White Wolf book (Exalted: The Abyssals) was hassled by security while boarding a New York Waterway ferry from Jersey to the city. Because of the Republican convention, there's heightened security in the financial district, and the guy was travelling to one of the ferry terminals down here, presumably because he works downtown. So they're searching for bombs and such as people enter the ferry. Moron security guard decided the book was.http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_08_01_blogchive.html#109225023324039022 German Boardgames as Fraud- August 10, 2004 Greg Aleknevicus at The Games Journal has a long piece entitled "German Boardgames Are Fraudulent," a title he acknowledges is purposefully inflammatory, in which he argues, in essence, that German boardgames (or Eurogames, to use a broader term) are bad because they graft an arbitrary set of game mechanics onto a theme.He says:The point to be made is simplethe wholesale grafting of a theme onto a set of mechanics is dishonest if those mechanics have no real world connection to that theme. Can..http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_08_01_blogchive.html#109217452587191819 Amazon Recommendations- August 9, 2004 I used to think this was somewhat useful, and cool technology. I am now having my doubts.<br ><br >Over the last several years, I have bought from Amazon:<br > 1. Many books on game design and development.<br > 2. A fair bit of science fiction--mostly either technologically edgy or British.<br > 3. Quite a lot of books about the circus (don't ask).<br > 4. A great deal of YA fiction intended for female readers. (Gifts for the kinder, obviously.)<br...http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_08_01_blogchive.html#109209311062928722 Internet Archive to Preserve Games- August 7, 2004 Now this is tres cool: the Internet Archive has established a program called the Classic Software Preservation project to preserve older software, focussing on computer games.In essence, they will take older games, get the data off the floppies or whatever, and preserve the code. This is something I've been talking about for years; magnetic media has a lifetime of only a few years, and we run the risk of losing a lot of older software, just as we've lost a lot of early movies because film...http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_08_01_blogchive.html#1091888624182030 PARANOIA XP GOES GOLD- August 5, 2004 PARANOIA XP GOES GOLDInternet Technologies Revolutionize Roleplaying Game DevelopmentNew YorkAustinSwindon -- Aug 5, 2004FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMongoose Publishing Ltd. and the creators of Paranoia XP announced today that the new version of the classic tabletop roleplaying game had "gone gold," and would be released in time for GenCon 2004.To a large degree, the game was developed online, in public. Fans of the game contributed enthusiastically via blog, wiki, and online forum. They wrote text,...http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_08_01_blogchive.html#109173202462615135 Sabotaged by Spam- August 5, 2004 I suppose I shouldn't complain overmuch, given that I purposefully chose about the cheapest hosting place I could find.Nonetheless:1. As you may recall, some weeks ago I had a problem; I was getting 10,000 bounced emails a day to my main email address, and repeated calls to my service provider got me no where. I specifically asked them to disable the SMTP server, as I never actually send mail from it (I use my local cable provider's SMTP server)--I only use the POP server. They refused,...http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_08_01_blogchive.html#109172557824205767 |