Ooh boy, a big hot topic over on Costikyan's blog. The reply I ended up typing was so long I decided to post it here. Go ahead and read his post (which in turn is a response to a post on Mark Barrett's blog) first. I'll wait.

Read more of "Emotional Involvement, the Universe and Everything"

Here's a thought: rather than running around like headless screaming Serious Sam monsters, let's try measuring Emergent Strategies based on how many rules they invoke.

This article is much shorter than the last one. I promise! It also might be slightly offensive if you are either Harvey Smith or Dr. Juul, so cover your eyes when you read it if you are either of hims!

Read more of "The Complexity of Emergence"

Every game tells a story through its outcome, but a match of Chess is hardly Shakespere. How can we adapt the outcomes of games to look more like regular stories. More importantly, do we really want or need to?

Read more of "Emergent Narratives: Game play as a narrative machine."




Introductory cliché #342: present an aggressively erroneous statement, which is sure to rile up even the most apathetic in the respective field. Spend much time explaining why, if you stand far enough away and squint, the statement makes sense. Sort of.

Read more of "Why Games Aren’t Interactive"

"Narrative context is simply one way of adding value to interactive simulations, regardless of how useful that context may be in attracting an audience or selling product."

Via gamedevleague, a link to designer / writer Mark Barrett's blog, in which he makes several very good points about internal consistency and the "Seduction of the Cinematic Moment". Check the "Articles" subsection of his design page for lots of in-depth essays.

First Draft. Feel free to help squish the bugs of nonsense in this first iteration.

Also, save me from disappearing up my own ass! Read more of "The Anatomy of Games"

If you don't know who Jesper Juul is, you don't know ludology. Jesper has done commendable work in the field, opening up and defining a framework for game related studies in the past. Now he's bitten the bullet and opened up a blog. Expect a slew of great ideas for a month or so, and then a sudden vacuum of enthusiasm - such is the way of blogging. We are living proof ;)

Actually, on that note, we have to apologize. In recent times, the AntiFactory has hardly been mass producing content (although that's certainly not what we're about!). This is because JP is moving both career and home, and I'm locked underneath a slew of final exams. Pretty soon we'll be able to refocus some attention back to the site. Check back as little or as often as you like! This is a repository of ideas, not a news site!