Ludology.org

Elvis is not dead! He just found a job at Nintendo! (Dylan's next)

Bob Dylan played yesterday night in Punta del Este, a resort on the eastern side of Uruguay. It was the second time he was here (the first time I was a teenager, I had no idea who he was and ended up in the concert because a friend of mine had an extra ticket). Last time I saw Dylan playing was in Corvallis, Oregon, the day the war in Afghanistan started (not surprisingly, he opened with Blowin' in the Wind).
Yesterday's concert was very nice and it was a blessing to be so close to the stage (the audience was probably only 3 or 4 thousand people, because he was playing in a hotel.) This time I wasn't planning to attend neither (couldn't get tickets in time) but my friend Pablo had an small accident and he was kind enough to call on his way to the hospital so his tickets would not be lost. Thanks Pablo!)
Anyway, this long introduction is actually game related. I was just browsing some Dylan stories online, and found a quote from Bruce Springsteen. It's from the speech he gave when Dylan was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual."
The quote reminded me of videogames (ok, most of things remind me of videogames :) Nintendo is playing Elvis, by reminding us that play is innately physical. That's actually one of the main topics of my PhD dissertation (which, I know, it's not yet online, I promise to work on that): play is mostly about performance. And that's a lesson from our childhood playgrounds that we had forgotten and the Nintendos and Harmonix of this world are reminding us of. But, as The Boss said, being innately physical doesn't mean that it has to be anti-intellectual. I'm dying to play those games.

Follow Mii

I do believe that religion is opium of the people and all that. There are far better alternatives to religion if you want to love your neighbors and stop having fear of death. Videogames comes to mind as an option. Well, according to Kotaku, there is a church in San Francisco that created Jesus' Mii in order to promote their Easter activities. That's cool! I'm not going to say that I'll sign up right away, but I promise that if I ever get really desperate and think about becoming religious, I'll take the Mission Bay Community Church into account.

Tetris or Cubist art

You may remember that last September I was lucky enough to meet Toru Iwatani, the creator of a little game known as Pac-Man. He was very kind and he even draw me the game's main characters. Well, I guess I started a new collection, because today at GDC I met Alexey Pajitnov, creator of Tetris. He was part of the 2008 Game Design Challenge, which was about creating an inter-species game. Pajitnov suggested the creation of a game involving dolphins and paintball. Yes, it was as crazy as it sounds. However, it ended up in third place, even though that was not a problem at all, since the whole session was hilarious. Anyway, once the session was over he draw me this Tetris block that I am so glad to share with all of you.

Danish Radio Interview

I haven't been able to listen to it (damn Windows Media Player) but in case anybody is interested, this is the interview that I gave the day of my PhD defense (literally right after my presentation, since the journalist ambushed me the second I finished :)

Frasca en español

Last time I was in Madrid, I was interviewed by local newspaper El País. It´s a short piece, in Spanish, where I review some of my favorite topics.

Presentation tools

Over the years, I gave multiple talks and presentations. I have always been trying to find the perfect tool for showing my slides until I found it a couple of weeks ago. It´s the Kensignton Presenter, a little remote control that includes 3 buttons (previous slide, next slide and hide slides) plus a laser pointer. I have previously tried different alternative options, including Salling Clicker which sounded like a good idea at the time (basically, it allows you to turn your cellphone into a bluetooth remove control). The problem with the Clicker was that it is not compatible with all phones but also that some phones do not have good clicking feedback and it is hard to know for sure when you pressed a button. In theory, it was the perfect solution, because it uses a tool that you already carry with you: your cellphone. Sadly, it was not that great and it became obsolete when I switched to my new Samsung phone, which is not supported. The Kensignton Presenter solves the problem with elegance. Even though it must use a USB dongle, it is a perfect solution because it does not require any setup and it works with almost any OS (the secret is that the dongle works as a USB keyboard that connects to the remote via RF, so there´s no nee for drivers at all). Besides, the dongle is elegantly stored inside the remote itself (which, by the way, is covered in rubber and has an excellent grip). I normally do not blog product reviews, but I thought that such a great tool had to be shared with colleagues. I paid about 50 Euros for it and I couldn't be happier with it. It's the perfect companion with Apple Keynote (which, needless to say, works like a charm). Notice: the presenter that I bought, unlike the one in the picture, is all black. The one in the picture seems to be the US model, which doesn't run on 2 AAA batteries but uses a flat CR2032 instead. Here's a link to the European model.

Back into the game!

Yeah! I'm back online. After many long months of silence, Ludology.org is back online with a new website. Many things have happened since my last post. I submitted my PhD dissertation (I'll be defending it end of August); Powerful Robot's new game for Cartoon Network reached over 13 million accounts; and I moved back to Uruguay to work on my game studio.
As you'll notice, I moved to a different blogging platform. I was unhappy with the previous one, particularly with the way it dealt with spam, so here we are. The main issue that I still need to resolve is to import back my previous post database into this system (any SQL volunteer out there?) but I figured that it was better to post back than to wait forever.
As of January 2007, I am not affiliated with any University so I'm technically not an academic anymore. My plan is to focus on Powerful Robot but I don't discard giving some lectures or courses here and then. I'm really happy to be back home, there's plenty to do in the studio and we have some really cool projects coming up.
So, enjoy the new blog. It's great to be back into the game after so many months of silence!