GameSetLinks: The Nintendo Textfyre Championships
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's daily link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
Continuing the GameSetLinks fun and games, with another six links of death or so, starting out with, coincidentally, a link all about what happens if death in games really means death. And that's kinda scary, conceptually.
Also in here - the scarily expensive Nintendo World Championships gold NES cart, some very interesting group discussions about physics from the UK newspaper The Guardian, Jason Rohrer's Edge Online interview, the debut (finally!) of a commercial text adventure form Textfyre, and lots more.
A donut with no hole is a Danish:
SLRC - Suspiciously like Red Communism: Permanent Death, Episode 2: From Here to the Hearafter
Playing Far Cry 2 as if death is not a possibility.
Video Game Price Charts: 'How I Got Nintendo World Championships Gold'
One of the holy grails of video game collecting: 'I gave him an offer of $17,500, which was quite a bit lower than his asking price of $25,000.'
Published! – Jack Toresal and The Secret Letter « The Textfyre Times
One of the first commercial text adventures in a long time (aimed at the youth market) is finally out.
The truth about game physics, part five: conclusion | Technology | guardian.co.uk
A fun series, though some respondents clearly have ad agendas - here's the other parts
Can You Make a Board Game About the Holocaust?: Meet "Train" - Speakeasy - WSJ
Spoils the secret behind Brenda Braithwaite's thought-provoking board game - some commenters not impressed. Haven't played it, but I find the concept oddly prankish, interestingly provoking.
Interview: Jason Rohrer | Edge Online
Interesting interview - addresses the alleged backlash over him signing with a creative agency too.
Comments
How is it possible that there are people who, upon loading small yellow humanoid figures into a windowless train, do not immediately grasp that it is Holocaust-related?!
Aside from people who might think "well, no one would make a game like that so obviously it's something else" or "it can't be about the Holocaust because the board is a (ridiculous) shattered window, so maybe the game is just about nightmares in general?" or something.. like, how does it not come to mind immediately?!
Also, I wish I could find a playable version of this game (which seems a lot more reserved and less "lets beat this thing into the ground with outlandish symbolism"): http://www.tigsource.com/articles/2007/04/20/sim-stalag-preview
That physics panel was interesting but as you mentioned it was like 6 shills and Chris Hecker. I would read an unlimited amount of Chris Hecker talking about physics, or really anything; do we really need people trying to shoehorn "Havok AI" into the conversation? Come on. Either say something useful or shut up and let Hecker talk.
p.s - happy Canada Day :)
Posted by: raigan | July 1, 2009 1:00 PM