Last week the KNAW (Royal Dutch Academy of Science) organized a symposium on serious games. Something we’re dealing with a lot right now, so we checked it out. Here’s some thoughts on what was talked about: David Shaffer was the first speaker. He made an interesting point: In order to learn by playing, the player [...]
Category Archives: Articles
Looking back on a serious symposium
Posted in Articles Tagged action reflection, applied games, conferences, David Shaffer, events, KNAW, pieter winsemius, Regulator Rally, serious games, symposium Comments closed
Cheating by the rules in Pirateball and Illuminati
One of the designers of the game Pirateball describes it as “extremely stupid”. I recently ran it at a games festival and discovered that it’s also crafted quite cleverly. Pirate baseball To potential players I always say that it’s baseball as pirates play it. Then you get an idea. That’s the first trick: the name [...]
Posted in Articles Tagged Bashers, board games, columns, Illuminati, pervasive games, Pirateball, urban games Comments closed
Introducing two junior agents and the Learning Lab project
Hello! Introduction times: My name is Wieger and I am what I like to call a spelletjesmaker. Which basically translates to game designer in English, so, there, I’m a game designer. Admittedly I’m still in school, sortof, becoming one, currently in our (our you say? yessir, Sylvan and me, more later) third year of Design [...]
You don’t put a game in a computer; my first column for Bashers
Here’s the first column I’ve written for Bashers, the premier source of games journalism in the Netherlands. I’m planning to devote subsequent columns to discussions of other pervasive games. Many thanks to Niels ‘t Hooft for indulging me. Do you know a game called Cruel 2 B Kind? It works like this: the goal is [...]
Posted in Articles Tagged Area/Code, Backgammon, Bashers, columns, Cruel 2 B Kind, Far Cry 2, game design, pervasive games, rants, Space War! Comments closed
Drifting through the city with a few bocce balls
On a recent sunny Sunday afternoon I took a walk while boulesing through Utrecht. Together with a group of friends I used a number of streets and squares as a playing field. The water-level walkways along the Old Canal, the fountain behind the city hall, and the usually quiet Seven Alleys. Passersby responded with amusement [...]