Nothing in the news caught my attention yesterday. So, in lieu of the usual ‘articles of interest’ post, check out this cute video; Counter-Strike superimposed on reality. Warning: it drags a bit in the beginning.

I recently overheard that some of the most hardcore mobile phone gamers are now popping their phones into ziplock bags so they can play games while they shower. My first thought was: wow, that’s pathetic. My second thought was: holy shit — if I put my DS in a ziplock bag, I can play Advance Wars while I shower!!

(OK, so I didn’t actually go through with it. But I almost did.)

BTW, I blame this all on Ctrl-Alt-Del. Ethan sets the hardcore geekdom bar so deliciously high that my sensibilities have skewed. Must… resist… obsessive… behavior…

A momentary respite from pontification to have a little fun. Splash Back is a cute, free Flash game. I got bored after three gameplay sessions (each of decent length), but that’s OK. I had fun while I was playing, and now I’m familiar with another interesting design mechanic.

Btw, I stumbled upon this via Digg (a democratic linkfarm/blog, for those not familiar with it). As a means of quickly turning up interesting news, Digg hasn’t really worked out for me. I find what I’m looking for (faster) via Slashdot, Next Generation, etc. However, Digg appears to be good for turning up games, interesting videos, etc. And it’s a (somewhat) useful measure of what people find interesting.

Thanks to Wonderland, I’ve discovered a cool little game called Fastr which is based on the Flickr image-sharing service. Fastr is a multiplayer game. Every 40 seconds or so, it appears to pick a random (simple) word and then begins downloading images from Flickr that have been tagged with that word. It displays another image every few seconds. Your goal is to guess the tag word as quickly as possible (based on the images). A quicker guess yields more points. I love it!

This game has opened my eyes to a whole new world of potential design uses for open content. The possibilities are endless. For example, how about an FPS or RPG in which the player has the power to look into other people’s minds via ESP and see their thoughts (which would be expressed as images)? When the player uses his power on important characters (especially at key plot moments), he would of course see pre-defined content. But, when using his power to gaze into the minds of normal people on the street, the images he sees could be pulled directly from Flickr. Image selection could be based on a sensible set of random keywords. Or perhaps images could be pulled from a randomly-selected Flickr user’s library (preferably sharing a tag-word, regardless of the word itself), so that a truly meaningful “thought-sequence” would be reconstructed for the player. All of a sudden, “filler” NPCs in a game acquire unique, interesting characteristics. They cease to be filler, and instead truly enrich the player’s experience. :)

Tomorrow, I intend to write something timely and professional. But today, I want to treat you to this fantastic old NES advertisement. Go on. Click it. You know you want to.

In the past, I’ve questioned the video game industry’s reluctance to embrace older consumers (casual games notwithstanding). But seeing this old TV ad forces me to admit that we’ve come a loooooooong way. On a tangent: the wikipedia entry for the NES is very nice.

The consumer electronics industry, having recuperated from previous defeats (and encouraged by widespread use of bluetooth phone headsets), has renewed its efforts to make us all look like the Borg.

IGN reports that a company called eMagin is promoting a VR headset (the “Z800″) at CES. Wearing the headset is apparently like watching a 105-inch screen from 12 feet away. It also includes head-tracking… perfect for first-person games. Reviews (1, 2) that I dug up are very complimentary, but both mention problems with queasiness. One review notes that even with careful calibration, you can’t wear the headset for more than 30 minutes. Too bad; experiencing World of Warcraft in VR would have been neat, but you can’t pick your nose in WoW in under an hour.

The z800 is ugly. It’s overpriced. And I know I’m going to spill my drink and/or smash something while I’m wearing it. But I still want it. God help me.

Comparisons have already been drawn to Nintendo’s old, failed Virtual Boy console. IMO, the timing, pricing, quality, and basic nature of the two devices are so different that objective comparison is difficult. Anyway, IGN reports that Nintendo is interested in the Z800.

eMagin isn’t the only organization rethinking VR headsets — researchers in Singapore have been using them to bring Pacman to life. Hey, maybe if we all become accusomted to strapping hardware on our noggins, the Media Lab can finally get its brain wave game controllers into commercial production. *grin*

PS. If you want to look even more Borg-like, you can cover just one of your eyes for the low, low price of $600. Don’t assume that everyone will get used to it right away, though… we’re a heck of a lot more attuned to faces than we are to ears.

Edge Online has highlighed a couple of really creative casual games that are worth five minutes of your time. In the first, you use a paint brush to “draw” walls, fire lines, and plant formations (which grow), in order to creatively contain falling lines of sand. In another, you manipulate a single thread which condemned souls can grab onto (if you let them.) Swing the thread in the right way, and you’ll fling the souls up into heaven.

Both games suffer from the lack of a victory condition and/or point system and/or levels (any one of these would give me more reason to play the game repeatedly over the long term). That said, I really enjoyed the gameplay. It’s a lot of fun experimenting with the tools you’ve been given; seeing what works and what doesn’t.

I can easily imagine versions with interesting victory conditions which lead to progressively more challenging gameplay. For example, level two of the hell game could have a little demon who occassionally skewers the souls you’re trying to rescue. :)

I love my university. :)

Hackers decorated the MIT infinite corridor with the trappings of a Mario game level.

Oh happy day … I’ve spotted the convergence of two of my favorite topics: physically-active games and user-generated content. :)

Codemasters has announced that Dance Factory will be available for purchase in April. Dance Factory is DDR with a twist: game content is auto-generated using a player’s own music collection. In other words, you can dance to anything you own (or create!) I wonder what would happen if you popped Barry Manilow in the drive…

This screenshot shows that the game has a definite emphasis on exercise: it displays “calories burned”, “equivalent jogging”, and “equivalent swimming”. I wonder if this might almost be too much information? I think the fitness angle is extremely important, but it’s kind of a downer to think about jogging when I’m looking for fun. More of a downer if I play a quick game and burn hardly any calories. Maybe there’s another way to communicate this information? Doritos incinerated, perhaps? Gotta choose a small food unit to keep the reported numbers high. :)

BTW, Codemasters has also produced Music Generator 3, in tandem with MTV. Good example of the correct way to fuse consumer brands with video game content — sensible and relevant to the gameplay.

Just want to quickly point out a nice resource: the game company database, which takes advantage of Google Maps to pinpoint every game company in the US. (Thanks GamesBlog).