Choose Your Own Adventure — Now on DVD
View the trailer for The Abominable Snowman here. It claims there are 11 storylines, which maybe means there are 11 decision points, I don’t know.
Did I mention it features the vocal talents of William H. Macy?
Ask Me About Semantic Trumps
Go ahead, ask me.
Reading for June, 2006
First I read the first half of Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, which won the 2003 Hugo Award. The writing relies on an alternative worlds premise to keep the reader interested, but the reader has access to characters from both worlds so there isn’t any mystery involved. After that, the characterizations were too weak to keep me interested, and I skimmed through the rest.
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Number 25 on the Modern Library list.
ZeroOne San Jose
+ the 13th International Symposium of Electronic Art will take place August 7-13, 2006.
I thought this image was amusing, and perhaps indicative of the state of affairs in electronic art these days:
Those fuzzy letters! The free-form layout! The blotchy printer icon! I can’t wait!
The Black Rider
The Robert Wilson/Tom Waits/William S. Burroughs musical is about to close in Los Angeles. If you missed it, or are otherwise curious, I present you with this free guide:
How to stage your own production of The Black Rider at home
1. Buy or download the CD, The Black Rider by Tom Waits
2. Rent a copy of Laurie Anderson’s Home of the Brave.
3. Cover a toothpaste carton in black paper and stand it on the television set next to a photo of Alice Cooper.
4 (Optional). Make hand puppets (12) out of old socks or scraps of felt, or buy some authentic Balinese shadow puppets on eBay.
5. Put the CD in the stereo, the tape in the VCR, mute the television, and enjoy!
Chaos on Runescape
For the past few weeks I’ve been playing the free version of Runescape. I had played it previously a number of years ago, and though there have been significant updates most of the core game concepts remain in the game, particularly the geographical features which require players to spend a lot of time walking from place to place.
Last week the Runescape developers released a new feature for pay-to-play members: player owned houses. The feature has proven so popular that Jagex has had to add a number of game servers to keep up with player demand. Within the game itself, however, the new feature — linked to a new construction skill — is sending large waves across the normally bustling in-game market.
Reading for May, 2006
Andrew Glassner’s Interactive Storytelling: techniques for 21st century fiction.
Slowly working through Main Street by Sinclair Lewis.
Glassner’s Interactive Storytelling
Scene 1: An apartment. The walls are covered with Academy Award-winning movie posters. A man slouches on a couch, his hand resting in a giant bowl of popcorn. A pile of DVDs tumbles off of a coffee table. The drone of music and the chatter of voices can be heard from a small television screen.
The phone rings. A hand reaches for the phone.
Man on couch: Hello?
Voice on phone: Glassner! Some maniac has left another package for the mayor in the basement of the Cartwright building. Get your butt over there pronto!
The camera turns to reveal the face of our protagonist, Andrew Glassner. His eyes glint with the excitement of another bomb to be defused.
Glassner puts down the phone. He takes a remote control out of his pocket and pauses the movie on the television. He grabs his keys from a table, and picks up a black bag marked “Bomb Squad” by the front door. Before we can fully comprehend the speed of his actions, we see the front door closing. Glassner is on the job.
Where’s the Manifesto?
Two years ago I wrote some 5000 words discussing rules for creating computer games [An Economy of Rules]. I left off with some statements about the volatile nature of computer games, and a promise to continue the series with something called The New Forms Manifesto.
Clearly I haven’t written it yet.
What Video Games Have to Teach Us
I came across What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee and decided to give it a read.
Straight off the bat, Gee informs us that while he has academic credentials (primarily as a reformed linguist) he has only discovered video games in the past few years. This sets the tone for the book: this is not to be a dry tome full of footnotes and theories, but rather a journal of one man’s experiences with video games.
Only it isn’t just a journal. The more interesting bits are where Gee presents us with his experiences playing games like Pikmin and Half-Life, and though he doesn’t make many sophisticated observations about gameplay he does have an interesting perspective to share.