Abstract A business game is a participatory communication activity in which businesses use play to achieve a meaningful workplace purpose, including knowledge/skill development and teambuilding. This article assesses how tabletop business games in professional contexts communicate in ableist ways. These games promote the idea that the ideal skills of an […]
game design
12 posts
Vampires do not appear to hold the same appeal in media as they once did, but why? Portraying and playing with our deepest fears, not least of which is death—or worse, becoming the monster ourselves—some of these creatures spent the ‘90s, the aughts, and the first half of the 20-teens struggling with what they are, striving to reconcile their monstrosity with the human they long to still be, and, typically, falling in love with human women.
Since I’ve been writing about game design and the amateur mafia community I’ve been playing with, I’ve noticed more and more how little information there is, in an academic sense, on the processes of game design. A colleague recently came to me for suggestions on behalf of one of her students […]
When I first wrote about the online social deception game community I joined, I mentioned my failed attempts to get my hands on game development documents for pedagogical purposes. When I began to play mafia with this group, and to learn more about how the community functioned, my project was […]
One thing that critics like myself don’t do nearly enough is nod to just how difficult it is to be a game creator. Every game is flawed. Every game designer is flawed. It is easy to pick something out after a game is released and say you would have done […]
I get it. I know. You just “don’t really see a problem” with objectification of female characters. You don’t really think racial representation is an issue. You think people are just taking it all too personally. I want to talk to you about this, though, because you’re part of our […]
I have decided that I am no longer going to solely be a consumer of games, and I’m going to start making them. I have made one game in the past, called Aquaville Adventures, made in Kodu Games Lab, which is a free program by Microsoft. I loved it. I […]
When I tell people I teach game design, they often immediately assume I do programming. And yes, I do some of that, but as anyone that teaches game design will tell you, it’s much more than that. Increasingly I think of my job as advocating for a compositional approach to […]
In Game of Thrones the character Varys poses a riddle. Three men each command a swordsman to kill the other two. One man is a king, one is a rich man, one is a priest. The question, then, is who among the three has the most power, and therefore the […]
Sometimes you just have to go old school with your gaming and I’m not talking Pac Man, I’m talking analog. Lately as I have been teaching more games courses I find myself drawn to playing more analog games. Not that I didn’t already, but the pull is strong of these […]
In the last few days I’ve crafted about nine badges, I’ve leveled up four times, and I’ve helped my team to victory once. I’ve earned some cosmetic enhancements for my profile, and I’ve done a lot of trading. If you play games on your PC, you probably already know what […]
I have a confession: sometimes I like to experience games without necessarily ever playing them. In other words, I dabble in vicarious play. Whether it’s because of a lack of money or other demands for my time, I occasionally find myself turning to the internet to watch playthroughs. I pick […]