News
Ian Bogost on Brain Games and Crossovers
Alibaba and Forbes interview Ian Bogost as part of an article on the rising popularity of brain games and its importance to the video game genre.
Gamasutra reposts Bogost’s blogpost on crossovers as part of their Expert Blogger feature.
What Is Narrative Summit: Live Videostream
How to Think About Narrative and Interactivity will be available over a live videostream at http://lcc.gatech.edu/graduate/live.
This historic event will be taking place on Tuesday, October 20th, 4:30-6:00pm.
Ian Bogost on Iterative Game Design
Gamasutra has a feature on iterative game design, using Ian Bogost’s theory of Unit Operations as its basis.
What Is Narrative Summit: Tuesday, Oct. 20th, 4:30pm, Skiles 002
Colloquium: How to Think About Narrative and Interactivity
Please save 4:30-6 Tuesday October 20th for a reprise of the conversation from DAC 1999 … and the surprising next stage of the Ludology/Narratology discussion, featuring…
Espen Aarseth
Janet Murray
Fox Harrell
Each panelist will speak for 15 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of mutual questioning and responses from the audience.
Skiles Classroom Building Room 002
Refreshments at 4 outside Room 002
The event will also be available over a live videostream at http://lcc.gatech.edu/graduate/live.
Ian Bogost on Self-Adjusting Video Games
Kotaku and Tonic quote Ian Bogost in their articles on self-adjusting video games and the Super Guide, Nintendo’s latest feature. Read the articles here and here.
Celia Pearce Book-Signing Lecture, 10/14 Georgia Tech Barnes & Noble
CELIA PEARCE LECTURE & BOOK SIGNING
Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds (MIT Press)
By Celia Pearce, Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Communication & Culture
October 15, 12:00PM – 1:00PM—Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech (Upstairs)
48 5th Street Northwest Atlanta, GA 30308 - (404) 894-2517
Students in SDSU’s Exploratory Learning through Games and Simulations discuss Dr. Ian Bogost’s newsgames research and game development as exemplifying the potential for video games to educate the public on social and political issues.
Read the blog entry here.
Synaesthetic Media Lab in Purple Pawn
Purple Pawn has an article on game scholarship that includes Optical Chess, a game designed by the Synaesthetic Media Lab for their Tangible Tracking Table project.
Read the article here.
Mads Haahr talk: Sept. 22, 4:30pm, Skiles 002
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
4:30-6:00pm
Skiles 002
The Ghost and the Machine: Mediation and Horror in Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly
ABSTRACT: For psychological horror games, a particularly interesting characteristic is their common use of mediation as a means to connect the ‘ordinary’ game world with a hidden supernatural (and invariably frightening) game world that would otherwise not be accessible to the characters. Perhaps the most sophisticated use of a mediative object till date occurs in the Japanese psychological horror game Fatal Frame
II: Crimson Butterfly (2003). In this game, two Japanese twin sisters lost in the forest encounter a cursed village, haunted by the ghosts of its former inhabitants. The game contains several mediative objects, most notably an ancient camera that improves the the twins’ ability to see into the spirit world and at the same time allows them to exorcise the ghosts by photographing them. This talk presents a reading of Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly in which analysis of the game’s story, aesthetics and gameplay is used to examine the emotional effect that the game is intended to have on its players. Particular attention is given to the way the game uses mediation to create feelings of dread and suspense, but other elements of gothic horror
are treated as well.
BIO: Dr Mads Haahr is a Lecturer in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin. He holds BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous computing, self-organising systems, interactive and location-aware narrative, computer game
studies and artificial intelligence for games. He also edits a multidisciplinary academic journal called Crossings: Electronic Journal of Art and Technology.
Conventional Dress Screening: Sept. 10, 6pm, Skiles 002
Thursday, September 10th
6:00-7:00pm
Skiles 002
The EGL is proud to present the premiere screening of Conventional Dress, a documentary on the cosplay experience at Dragon*Con. After the screening, Celia Pearce, Evan Barba, and Bobby Schweizer will discuss the project, as well as their upcoming paper on the subject.
