Monthly Archives: February 2009

Serious games are a category of games which, in my opinion, tend to get a bad rap. People hear the terms “serious” or “educational” and run in the other direction screaming, and frequently for good reason! Serious games tend to be less fun, as they frequently sacrifice bits of fun in the name of getting their point across.

Not so with the Redistricting Game, a great title that came out of USC a few years back and was developed in part by Chris Swain. In the game you take the role of a congressional gerrymandering panel, trying to carve up states in an effort to get the most votes for your congressman. The game is really fun, I suggest giving it a shot!

Follow the jump for a bit more analysis as to why I think the game succeeds. Continue reading →

I can’t speak for everyone, but I find that I am less and less inclined to play games that are too long. This weekend I popped in Fable 2, a game I’ve really been looking forward to for some time, and I just stopped caring after about an hour of game play. I guess I’m just not really interested in games that have extended tutorials that go longer than 10 minutes, and I found the lack of ability to do whatever I wanted stifling.

However, I think my problem isn’t with Fable 2 as much as it is with long games in general. Nowadays you see games that come out with 40, 60, 80 hours or more of gameplay, and I just don’t really know who has the time to play these games anymore unless they are making it their second job. As a result I find myself being more and more drawn to shorter games that promise 4 hours or less of gameplay (like You Have to Burn the Rope). This weekend, for instance, I played Mega Man 9 for two or three hours, and I suspect a large part of the reason was because I knew in the back of my mind that the game would be over sooner rather than later.

What do you think? Any other long time gamers finding themselves frequently passing on longer, more polished AAA titles for shorter games?

Last weekend was just chock full of games, with MIT’s battlecode final tournament, the robotic competition final tournament (post coming soon), and of course the Global Game Jam, the latter of which produced a bunch of terrific games!

The full download list for all the games made at GAMBIT are posted here. Of special interest in my opinion is Move Mouse to Fulfill Destiny, an artistic title by Dan Roy, Will Jennings, and Filippo Beck Peccoz. You can read the description about how you are a farmer making friends, but if you ask me it’s much more fun to just play without thinking too much. The Beat is an interesting two player puzzle game which is all about timing your actions with the actions in the world, and was made by Marc Flury, Jesper Juul, Van Nguyen, Randy O’Connor, Filippo Beck Peccoz, and Daniel Costello. You can’t play it alone so be sure to find a buddy! It has an especially entertaining “scream” option, which doesn’t seem to accomplish anything but sure is fun to do.

Of course there were several other games made at GAMBIT, and hundreds made all over the world! Check out as many as you can at the GGJ game browser.

Last night MIT’s annual battlecode competition had it’s final tournament, with the top teams squaring off against each other for the title of baddest ass programming team. After a long arduous battle that lasted the better part of the evening, team g2g ice skating lessons won in a nail biting come-from-behind victory. Steve Bartel, Spenser Skates, Randy Shults, and Karen Sun had apparently spent the entire past month quarantined in their rooms writing AI scripts in their bid to win. Steve is actually an ex-GAMBINO, having worked on Muzaic this past summer. Congratulations team!

Follow the link for a quick synopsis of the competition. Continue reading →