Welcome to 2023’s edition of “Some Games I Played in [Year] and What I Thought Of Them”! This has been a very busy year for me – much of the time was spent applying for, and subsequently getting (phew!), both promotion (to “Senior Lecturer”, roughly equivalent to Associate Professor in North America) and tenure at … Read More
Welcome to 2022’s edition of “Some Games I Played in [Year] and What I Thought Of Them”! This year I’ve played relatively few games compared to recent years, but that’s in part because the ones I have played have been unusually time-consuming; also in part because of Covid becoming more manageable and therefore being able to … Read More
Welcome all to 2021’s (six months delayed) edition of “Some Games I Played in [Year] and What I Thought Of Them”! What a year it was. Much to my surprise (and I’m sure the surprise of everyone else) I released Ultima Ratio Regum 0.9 and I’m now actually beginning work on URR 0.10 (!) with … Read More
For the last several years a number of folks in the PCG world, especially those who are or were based at NYU, have been running the “Generative Design in Minecraft Competition” or GDMC, in which people are challenged to create an AI that can construct a logical, functional, appropriate, and aesthetically-pleasing, settlement within Minecraft. I … Read More
Hello friends. What a strange year: and it was a year in which, as well as moving country and finishing URR 0.8 and doing my usual academic work, I allowed myself some proper time to really play some games as the lockdown weeks stretched on (especially around the middle of the year, the height of … Read More
I’d like to start this entry with an anecdote, which outlines the basic issue I’m pondering far more effectively than an abstract discussion. A few years ago I found myself in the position of trying to teach someone who had never played a single video game in their life – and had extremely limited experience of board or card … Read More
HBO’s new Westworld series is absolutely essential viewing for anyone with an interest in games. It’s a great mystery, a great thriller, and great science-fiction, but it’s also fundamentally an exploration of games. On one level it is obviously an exploration of immersive or pervasive games – games that expand past traditional boundaries to engage with the “real … Read More
A Hunter is a Hunter, even in a blog entry… Regular readers of my blog may remember a comment I made a while back about a game I’ve been deeply anxious to play for some time. This was Hidetaka Miyazaki’s new masterpiece (or so the reviews told me) – Bloodborne. I know I’m rather behind the times … Read More
A few years ago Perfect Dark was re-released on Xbox Live Arcade. Whilst it was generally met with a positive reception as an impressive modernization of a classic game, especially since the new engine was built ground-up to be as close a copy of the old engine as possible, several reviewers claimed the game’s level design … Read More