Ludology.org

Do you fancy a cup of Pikmin tea?

If something is true about the Nordic countries is that they pay attention to design. Yesterday I had some tea with Markku Eskelinen at Café Aalto before taking my train to Tampere. The teabags were not only extremely fancy but they seemed to be inspired by Pikmin! Maybe Nintendo's Revolution has something to do with a secret tea ceremony? Only time will tell. In any case, the tea was excellent and Finland is such a nice place to visit.

Mobile airport insecurity, the game

It is true that lately I have spent the largest amount of time in airports but if you ever miss the insane feeling of big brotherness that is so pervasive now in US airports, now you can get your fix of paranoia in a wireless, portable way. Ian Bogost just launched Airport Insecurity, a new cell phone game for the Nokia series 60. You can buy it here but just remember to turn it off before take off! (please excuse the joke, the Finnish lack of light is seriously affecting my neurotransmisors.)

Move: the videogame is on the floor

Remember when all it took was a piece of chalk and some clean piece of floor. Well, times change and now you can step over videogames. Check out Move, an extremely cool installation by Andrew Hieronymi. Make sure you watch the videos.
rBtw, I am in Tampere now after a weekend in Helsinki visiting friends (Markku Eskelinen, Aki Jarvinen and Satu Helio). Played some new games at Aki's. God, the cutscenes of Shadow of the Colossus are soooooo long.

Ludological talks, coming soon to a theater near you

I am getting ready for yet another series of talks. The first one will be in Tampere, Finland (but it seems that it will also be teleconferenced in Helsinki). I was invited to give a talk as a part of the Games and Storytelling series. I will be presenting some new ideas that I have been working on, mainly about minigames and, specifically, what is their potential for storytelling. Here is the abstract but, to make a long story short, let's say that I will be mainly talking about Nintendo games, some WarioWare and plenty of Feel the Magic.
rA couple of days later I'll be at the University of Vic, in Catalunya, a couple of hours away from Barcelona, where I'll be the closing keynote for the e-week, a week-long gathering on digital culture. It's too bad that I will arrive late and will miss most of the speakers. This time I'll be speaking about games and culture and about both the potential and current impact of videogames in our society. After that, I'll be visiting friends in Barcelona during the weekend (I already have quite a long list of food places to visit).
rI hope to see some of you up in Finland and Spain.

Miyamoto shares his wisdom

Miyamoto dixit: "Games aren't just about recreation and getting to the next stage. People often tell me nobody would play a game that isn't that way -- it would be too boring. But I don't agree with them"
rHe added: "I want families to play video games together. That was the concept behind the Revolution"
rClick here to read the full BusinessWeek interview.