Ludology.org

Partir, c'est mourir un peu

Yikes. Today's my last day in Angoulême, where I've been in residence writing my thesis. In a few hours I'll be taking the train to Paris and tomorrow afternoon will arrive to Copenhagen.
rIt's been fun spending some time in France, great food, great wine, plenty of great people and a chance to practice my French (which is sort of my second language but I never have the chance to use it). I have only good things to say about the ENJMIN, France's official school of videogame production. A couple of days ago, the first generation of graduates showed their games and I was truly impressed. If you are looking for a hands-on experience with a strong focus on design, you'll have plenty of fun in this school.
rIt's a beautiful sunny day and temperature in Copenhagen is 50% colder than here (read: no springtime yet) but it'll be great to hang out with my colleagues back at ITU (as long as they are not travelling, which is highly likely). I finally worked out the backbone for my thesis, so that's the good news (the bad news is that I will need to rewrite everything five or six times before it makes any sense).
rAn image to remember Angoulême by: Portrait of Yoshi by my apartment's window, taken by Aki.
rWell, I have a train to catch. To all the people in Angoulême, merci bcp! A+

You say you want a revolution?

Well, you know. Wii all want to change the world.
rNintendo just shocked the beejesus out of everybody and their pet dog by anouncing that their next-gen console will be called "Wii" (pronounce as in "we".)
rPeople reacted in many ways (some have argued that Nintendo marketers have been smoking some "wiid".) I like the name. It puts multiplayer where it belongs: playing is about "we", about us, about you and me. I hope this is the end of the reign of single player games. If Wii prevails, we'll be all goofing around with weird controllers in front of our TVs until the wii hours. Sweet. Do not get me wrong: I love single player games. However, play has always been multiplayer by default and videogames have always been single player by default. If Nintendo manages to reverse that, well, wii'll all have our revolution.

ESA launches Video game voters network

The ESA is lobbying to stop videogame regulation in the US. The set up a website that features a letter from Will Wright.

Lara as the Final Girl

Clive Thompson over at Wired has a nice article analyzing Lara Croft's success. He makes the connection with the role of women in horror flicks. It is a very interesting idea, even if you don't have to agree with it. I wish more videogame criticism was this intelligent.

Life of a former game developer

(via acidforblood) Game development can be a nightmare. Actually, it is often a nightmare. Here's somebody who will never, ever, consider making games for a living.

Digra 2007 Tokyo

The next Digra conference will be held in Tokyo! CFP and dates should be announced shortly but what is known is that it is going to be held in September. So, we'd be able to make it to the Tokyo Game Show, too. Here's the announcement.

Panda-Z Panda-Z PanZ (panceta tambien conocido como beicon por los gallegos)

I keep looking through my photo collection and uploading stuff to flickr (writing game theory is indeed very stressful.) If you have been following this blog for a while, you know that I am big fan of Gloomy. Last year, while in a toy store in Tokyo, I was waiting for my friends to give me a call (that's the way it works every time that I go to Japan. They drop me at the toy store and they pick me up a few hours later.) There was a Panda-Z poster and I was hooked. Of course, Gloomy is still my true love but Panda-Z is definitively a quality Panda bear that controls a mecha that happens to be built in the shape of a giant panda! Here's the poster so you get an idea and here's the official site (in Japanese.) Obviously, probably Panda-Z is sooo late 2005 but, well, I keep finding out about the cool stuff with a bit of delay. Enjoy.

Will Wright's GDC06 keynote online...for a fee.

Nothing is free in life. Last year GDCTV posted online Wright's GDC keynote, for free. I am sure that it was a wild success because now they are charging for it...14.95 dollars! It's sort of funny, I got the link on an email but I couldn't find its price until I actually clicked on Buy this Video and then looked into the basket.
rI think there is nothing wrong in charging for stuff. After all, 14.95 is much cheaper than actually flying to GDC. I would have just wished that they could have found a better way to make it cheaper or free through ads. 14.95 may not seem like a lot to people in Europe or the States but it is quite a fortune in the rest of the world (the rest of the world, however, has eMule, of course).
rAnyway, I just wanted to share the news. It's a great thing that the keynote is online and I am sure that a lot of people will benefit from it. It's just sad that it's so expensive.

Proud homeowner!

I finally paid off my home loan! Of course, I am talking about my Animal Crossing DS home. It took a while but now I am done! Tom Nook will build me a new house by tomorrow (and I will be in debt again). I am soooo excited! Yeah! The new house will have a yellow roof. Yellow!
rRight now I cannot accept visits because my WiFi is behind a firewall and does not work with the DS. That should be taken care off in a couple of weeks, so email me if you want to drop by!

Zooludia

And you thought the Nintendo Revolution promised hot new gameplay... Here's an article in Wired about research on videogames where you can play against your pets. Right, your pets, as in your hamster. Insane? Animal exploitation? There's no data about how hamster brains compare to the average I.Q. on Xbox Live but maybe that's their next step ;) How long before the PETA guys storm into E3?