Koster's Theory of Fun

I was at an interview with Ubisoft a couple of days ago, chatting to a designer who mentioned Raph Koster's book A Theory of Fun for Game Design. I haven't read it myself so I decided to do a bit of swotting up. Grand Text Auto have a review with a bit of reader comment and a reply from Koster himself. Slashdot also have a review and Terranova has some good, detailed discussion between readers and Koster.

At the end of the day it sounds like it's not so interesting for academics or industry folk, but rather is an introduction for people who currently only play but want to start thinking about them more deeply.

Ian Bogost on The Colbert Report

What a great combination!
I'm more of a Daily Show fan myself, but it's great to see Serious Games getting air-time.

Minesweeper: The Movie

Commander: "Why are you here soldier?"

Officer: "I'm here because I'm bored!"

So much for the Tetris Defence

Killer Whales Killer App: Games

The BBC report some interesting observations about progression in play of the dolphin family, of which killer whales belong,

Most mammals seem to enjoy play - but dolphins seem to like making their games as challenging as possible. A killer whale calf learned the trick of luring gulls to the surface of the water with fish. When the gulls landed on the water, the killer whale would then attempt to capture them in her mouth, without killing them.

Once she mastered this skill, she made the task more challenging for herself: instead of waiting for the gulls to land on the water, she tried to capture the gulls on their descent when they were more than a metre above the water surface.

She failed many times but kept going until she got good at it. More often than not, it was the naive juvenile gulls that were caught and subsequently tossed around. The next difficulty level entailed trying to catch the more clued-up, older gulls. As with human children, the activity itself, not just the outcome, has to be fun.

Life at Rockstar

An ex-Rockstar employee has written a fairly long account of his time at the company.
It's a good read, with some insights about the culture there that you might not have expected.

Draughts Cracked

The BBC has an article about a Canadian Artificial Intelligence team who have compiled a complete database of perfect draught moves which cannot be beaten.

Tesla Coil Music

Featuring music from Mario and Tetris, apparently.

Animal Play

Aw, a cute otter playing with a ball :-)

Younnat - Wheel Experience

There's something really appealing about music made with video game controllers.
The driving gloves are a nice touch too.

Avatar Machine

The Avatar Machine is a project to bring 3rd person gaming aesthetic into the real world.