The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for driving across the hills, and through the forests. Sundays are for getting home to a cup of a tea and a boiled egg, and realising there's still a compilation of the week's words to do. These are those.

• This week's winner in the game of words is this dictionary development studio jargon that has been compiled by Gamasutra. I am sure some of them are fallacious, and I have never been used in anger, (while others are just silly), but I couldn't help smile at "Gone All Kurtz", "Save the Astronauts", "Eating Your Own Dog Food" and "Pink Lightsaber".
• Brandon Sheffield's The Creative Intent Of Rage interview was interesting to read, and then to reread in the light of wider discussions. It's one of those situations where Sheffield was absolutely right, even if he was unfair. Whether you care depends on how you view the game in question. Me? I'll be genuinely interested to see if mutant bandits do have an artistic streak, come the apocalypse.
• "Would you play a videogame you could never win?" Yes, of course. And I played several of them for years. (True answer: depends on the videogame, obviously.)
• I seem to be linking to Kotaku a lot at the moment. Because they keep putting out stuff like this analysis of the success of Ian Bogost's social/casual game satire Cow Clicker, as it explains: "This is the story of a person whose joke project became more successful than the one on which he lavished love and intellect, the climate that caused that to happen and how ultimately he decided to learn from it instead of becoming upset."
• NSFW: Electron Dance on the damage the psychic damage the Marvel Brothel creator did to himself through the research that went into his game. Remember, Internet Surfers, you cannot unsee!
• Deltagamer interview the In Momentum devs Digital Arrow: " InMomentum itself started off as a project that explored human reaction to simplified visuals where the focus was only on simple shapes, colors and lighting. Later on, this expanded more and we actually wanted to go towards an underground, dungeon art style. Looking back to that, I’m very glad that we did not, because the more the game evolved, the more important became to be able to quickly comprehend your environment. If we would’ve kept rocky surfaces and more complex shapes, it would’ve made the comprehension of your environment far more difficult, especially at high speeds."
• Podcast of the week has to be Three Moves Ahead on Achron. Our own Rich Cobbett is on there, talking for Britain.
• The exit of game making talent from the UK is starting to make news. Sceptical as to whether there's much to be done about it, frankly.
• Gaming Daily talked to Chet Faliszek.
• 2D Boy's Ron Carmel asks "Is XBLA past its prime?" His detailed reasons for asking that question make for interesting reading, and, although a number of people have questioned his conclusions, everyone seems to agree that MS should probably pay attention. What do YOU think?
• This interview with Where The Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak is angry, sad: "Sendak is in search of what he calls a "yummy death". William Blake set the standard, jumping up from his death bed at the last minute to start singing. "A happy death," says Sendak. "It can be done." He lifts his eyebrows to two peaks. "If you're William Blake and totally crazy.""
• A comic strip about the bleak possibilities of Portal. Heh.

Music this week is Tim Hecker's Dropped Pianos, via another Tim.