May 3, 2021

BBC: ‘I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them’

BBC: ‘I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them’. “Matt Ginsberg is good at a lot of things – he is an AI scientist, author, playwright, magician and stunt plane pilot. But he isn’t very good at crosswords. In fact, despite writing them for the New York Times, he says that when they are published, he often cannot solve his own. So when he was sitting in a hotel ballroom losing yet again in a major US crossword competition, he decided to do something about it.”

Research & Opinion 0
April 27, 2021

EurekAlert: NYU Abu Dhabi researchers design simulator to help stop the spread of ‘fake news’

EurekAlert: NYU Abu Dhabi researchers design simulator to help stop the spread of ‘fake news’. “To improve news literacy and reduce the spread of misinformation, NYUAD Center for Cybersecurity researcher and lead author Nicholas Micallef is part of a team that designed Fakey, a game that emulates a social media news feed and prompts players to use available signals to recognize and scrutinize suspicious content and focus on credible information. Players can share, like, or fact-check individual articles.”

New Resources 0
April 25, 2021

Spotted via Reddit: PixAll

Spotted via Reddit: PixAll. From the announcement: “PixAll was actually born of frustration. I noticed how often I got invited to diversity and inclusion panels but so rarely to game design ones…. So I decided to create a database that all of us can share with non-marginalized people, hopefully answering the questions they’d ask us and letting us focus on the fun part – making and playing games!” There are links here as well as articles, people to follow on social media, useful groups, etc. Plenty of useful information though I think I would have organized and presented it differently.

New Resources 0
April 8, 2021

Among Us: How to play everyone’s game obsession online (and use the new free Airship Map) (CNET)

CNET: Among Us: How to play everyone’s game obsession online (and use the new free Airship Map). “If you’ve spent any time on Twitter or around a person under age 30, you’ve probably become familiar with memes involving colorful Teletubby-like figures clad in spacesuits. These are the players of Among Us, which skyrocketed in popularity over the past few months…. We’ve got everything you need to know about Among Us right here to get you ready for some remote gaming.”

Useful Stuff 0
April 6, 2021

Analysis: 2,000 digital-only games will disappear when PlayStation closes its stores (Video Games Chronicle)

Video Games Chronicle: Analysis: 2,000 digital-only games will disappear when PlayStation closes its stores. “Although users will still be able to redownload their previous purchases for the foreseeable future, from July 2 it will no longer be possible to buy games on the PS3 or PSP online marketplaces, and come August 27 the same will apply to the Vita too. Of the games set to disappear from the formats, the vast majority are available on other platforms such as older PlayStation consoles or PC. However, around 138 games will essentially become lost forever once the stores close, our analysis suggests.”

Research & Opinion 0
March 29, 2021

SUPERJUMP: An Appeal Through the Nostalgia Glasses

SUPERJUMP: An Appeal Through the Nostalgia Glasses. “Any perusal through social media will show you that gaming’s appreciation goes far beyond whatever the most recent release is. Gamers love to talk about old games, and not through a fond ‘do you remember when’ anecdotal sense, but through a ‘I just played this very real game on my very real PlayStation 2 last week’ sense. It can be expensive for companies to leave their servers live and allow gamers to buy games that are ten, fifteen, twenty years old, but maybe this finally needs to be accepted as a sacrifice for the historical curation of the medium — or, maybe, we need to figure out a better way to make virtual consoles and re-releases viable that go beyond a complete obliteration every couple of console cycles. “

Research & Opinion 0
March 27, 2021

Game changer: Video game could help improve brain function for children with disabilities (Times Colonist)

Times Colonist: Game changer: Video game could help improve brain function for children with disabilities. “Researchers at the University of Victoria have tapped into a booming gaming industry to help improve brain function and cognitive abilities in children with disabilities. A team at UVic, building on years of study, have partnered with the private sector to create Dino Island, a video game that takes children with neurodevelopment disabilities on a tour of a fictitious, digitized island where they face a progressive series of challenges in the hopes of improving their brain function.”

COVID-19 0
March 22, 2021

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Fish Magic (Techdirt)

Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Fish Magic. “Today, we finish our journey through the winners of the third annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1925. We’ve covered ~THE GREAT GATSBY~, The Great Gatsby Tabletop Roleplaying Game, Art Apart and There Are No Eyes Here, Remembering Grußau, and Rhythm Action Gatsby, and now it’s time for the final winner: Best Analog Game recipient Fish Magic by David Harris.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
March 20, 2021

No Man Is an Island: How Animal Crossing: New Horizons brought us together over the last year (Nintendo Wire)

Nintendo Wire: No Man Is an Island: How Animal Crossing: New Horizons brought us together over the last year. “Early 2020 ended up having more in store than just Animal Crossing: New Horizons, however, and by March the COVID-19 pandemic had made its way to nearly every country on earth, prompting stay-at-home orders and quarantines across large parts of the globe in hopes of keeping as many people as possible healthy and alive. As timing would have it, while the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world to hunker down in their homes, Tom Nook was inviting players to get away from the turmoil with his Deserted Island Getaway package.”

COVID-19 0
March 19, 2021

EurekAlert: Pretty gameful!

EurekAlert: Pretty gameful!. “To get children and young people interested in the topic of quantum physics, the research alliance is developing an entertaining mobile game that is intended to be played around the world. Based on a popular quantum mechanics thought experiment by Erwin Schrödinger, the players accompany ‘their’ cat through a crazy quantum world and solve attractive brainteasers along the way.”

Research & Opinion 0
March 17, 2021

CNBC: Dungeons & Dragons had its biggest year ever as Covid forced the game off tables and onto the web

CNBC: Dungeons & Dragons had its biggest year ever as Covid forced the game off tables and onto the web. “With vaccination rates rising, an end to the pandemic appears to be in sight. The D&D brand is emerging in a strong position. Stalwart fans used lockdown to teach friends and family how to play, ushering in a new cohort of dice-rolling enthusiasts that will transition from socially distanced online chatrooms to crowded tables in the coming year.”

COVID-19 0
March 16, 2021

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Rhythm Action Gatsby (Techdirt)

Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Rhythm Action Gatsby. “From the name alone, you can probably guess what the game is: rhythm action games are a popular genre, and hey, why not make one for The Great Gatsby? The premise is presented as a joke, with the designer describing it as ‘the way F. Scott Fitzgerald would have wanted his legacy to be maintained’ — but the game doesn’t just lean on this one bit of amusing silliness, nor does it cut any corners in fulfilling its promise. Rather, it’s full of handcrafted original material.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
March 8, 2021

CNET: Hamilton’s entire first act stunningly recreated in Animal Crossing

CNET: Hamilton’s entire first act stunningly recreated in Animal Crossing. “Hamilton was a huge success when it transitioned from the stage to Disney Plus last year, yet the musical film may not be the most impressive reimagining of the hugely popular play. That accolade may instead go to Guitar_Knight14, a YouTuber who meticulously recreated Hamilton’s first act in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.”

Other Things I Think Are Cool 0
March 4, 2021

SupChina: Chinese youth find pandemic relief in the form of role-playing

SupChina: Chinese youth find pandemic relief in the form of role-playing. “Murderers disguise themselves as friends, members teleport back in time, and even laws of physics are transcended on a whim. All from the comfort of home. The role-playing murder mystery game jùběnshā 剧本杀 (literally, ‘script murder’) has been popular in China for years, but it was only during the pandemic, as people were cooped up inside, that it really took off. It is now the favored pastime of many Chinese youth.”

COVID-19 0

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