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 [...]
Tag Archives: columns
Cheating by the rules in Pirateball and Illuminati
Posted in Articles Also tagged Bashers, board games, Illuminati, pervasive games, Pirateball, urban games Comments closed
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 Also tagged Area/Code, Backgammon, Bashers, 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 [...]