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Very interesting looking game project that has received funding via the Daniel Langlois Foundation (2002) - subversive collective ®™ark is producing a game called C.O.R.P.S.E. (Corporate Organism Replication and Patterning in a Simulated Ecosystem).

According to the FDL website: "Within the playful world of C.O.R.P.S.E., participants will apply laws that regulate the evolution of fictional biological entities that are metaphorically associated with the operations of a company. As in other artificial life games that allow players to change the attributes of the characters and their environment and then watch how the system evolves, C.O.R.P.S.E. will serve as a home laboratory for creating an alternative economic model. Players will be able to observe the effects of their regulatory choices on the evolution of their virtual ecosystems, and thus visualize the effects of similar actions in real-world socio-economics." The proposal was submitted by Ray Thomas, one of the core members of the collective.

Posted by cloo @ 12:53 AM EST [Link]

Two found articles: One is on the science of Serious Play that I hope can help me get my head around future research on play/construction/agency/subversion. The second is to back a personal interest; I'm going to be heading up student teams designing games to teach kids about head injuries (sorry, no site-- but here's a press release), and for the most part, these are standard edu-tainment fare, so if I can try to guide folks towards a more game-oriented model of learning games, I'd imagine its worth a go.

Posted by cloo @ 10:04 PM EST [Link]

You better not pout, you better not cry... DigitalEve's newsletter idea/idee has picked up the Xmas Tech Gifts article.

The lead is a bit off (I think culturally everyone's supposed to be 10 now, which makes terms like 'girls' and 'toys' confusing), but other than that, its nice to see it run!

Posted by cloo @ 09:02 PM EST [Link]

Vancouver's New Forms festival is expanding this year-- I think its just on the verge of exploding (the good way), so I suspect the next couple of years are the ones to watch (and hopefully more than that, if everyone can keep the underground spirit intact and vibrant). There's looking for projects, proposals, presentations and performances...I don't know if the CFP/P is online yet, but here's a sneak peak:

"The New Forms Festival is an annual festival of digital arts and technology, including: digital art, music and film, performance, installation, immersive environments, and conference. It covers four days of performances, panel discussions, workshops, and interactive galleries on contemporary media arts issues. In its third year, The New Forms Festival 2003 will be held in Vancouver, BC, from Thursday July 24th to Sunday 27th..."

[for a complete CFP, view comments]

Posted by cloo @ 08:45 PM EST [Link]

Well, it doesn't look like I'll get a decent article together for Christmas Tech Gifts for Girls this year-- I threw something together as a sidebar for an article, but it's not going to be published after all. And more importantly, I don't feel confident I've researched everything properly-- I'd prefer to have visual confirmation everything is in Canadian stores, and get an average price. But here is the article anyway, if anyone is looking for ideas, and I did manage to mail out to the DigitalEve list again this year.

Also disappointing as I was asked if I could participate in a radio show for the CBC discussing Christmas tech toys for girls (with a few others talking about tech items in general), and had to decline, as this is the final week for a number of academic projects I am wrapping up.

*Sigh!* Maybe next year...

Posted by cloo @ 03:55 PM EST [Link]

By way of Ludology.org: Jonas Heide Smith has a literature review for computer game research up at Game Research.

Posted by cloo @ 07:40 PM EST [Link]

Just in time for Christmas gift ideas, Shift.com has an article on Seniors as Gamers. So what do older gamers look for in their games of choice? Realism in their simulations (I can see that...particularly if gaming is contextualized as a hobby), and, no surprise, the socialization of MMORPGs (which seem to attract a more diverse audience generally). Slowly but surely gaming expands its demographic?

Posted by cloo @ 10:29 PM EST [Link]

4 pages of work-arounds to install Lego Vision Command software on a Windows 2000 machine! The software it comes with only works on Windows 98. No patches, no upgrades. Now, seriously...

Posted by cloo @ 01:55 PM EST [Link]

Game Girl Advance has a great snippet from Celia Pearce on her experiences with the Sims Online beta after her Sim was kissed by another player's Sim:

"I think, intellectually, the idea that you have a mental model of the whole world, and you are the one who's influencing whatever's going on, is fundamentally different than there being a real person on the other end of the line. This guy who just kissed me is a real person and that was weird."

I had the same experience in the beta for Anime Noir-- for some reason a game that would have been a bit of silly, naughty fun was, well, kind of creepy with "real" people involved. If you're weirded out by kissing, try the first time you're licked by a stranger!

"When the Sims first came out, many active gamers worked to break the system, make their characters have sex, or die in creative ways." Ah, this is still my favorite part of any game. Betrayed by the rhetoric of "interactive" entertainment, rabid players rebel by subverting the game structure. Now that's interactive! I'll reclaim my agency by ignoring the choices you gave me-- by playing outside the game, I'll *really* have the control you promised me. (Rant credited to Context Providers: Conditions of meaning in Interactive Art.)

Posted by cloo @ 12:43 PM EST [Link]

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