http://grandtextauto.org A group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:03:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This was posted on March 12 and yet no more than 22,000 people know about it by now. So, I figured that I’d better mention: Home Taping is Killing Music. (Thanks to Allen on ifmud.) And remember … whenever you violate copyright, God kills a kitten. http://nickm.com/post/2010/03/musics-are-being-killz0red/ It doesn't look like the apocolypse The title: Farmville Killed Gaming, V-Worlds, And Your Dog (tongue-in-cheek) The premise: “…it seems the talk of GDC 2010 was… Farmville. Specifically, how metrics-driven game design (such as what Farmville uses) will destroy fun as we know it.” The response: “i take particular exception to your statements about ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/scott-jennings-on-the-zynga-phenomenon/ Who would have guessed that an incredible (and very brief, and very well-illustrated) talk on poetry, videogames, and the relation of the reader/player to the poet/designer’s making would be delivered at GDC by my collaborator Ian Bogost? http://nickm.com/post/2010/03/poetry-games-and-excavating-the-creator/ Race in videogames is not an entirely overlooked topic, but mainstreams games, at their best, tend to play, strech, and poke up against stereotypes rather than offering affirming visions of our identities and communities and how they interrelate. So, I was glad read that discussion of this topic “found its ... http://nickm.com/post/2010/03/playing-the-race-avatar/ I developed a version of EISBot that plays a specific strategy, known as a 10-15 gate rush. The build was recently made famous by Nony. It is a Protoss build with the goal of harassing your opponent with ranged units as fast as possible and is most commonly used against ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/eisbot-shows-potential-versus-human-players-2/ Ken Perlin, Professor of Computer Science, New York University Ken is giving a talk titled: “Graphics, Games, Characters and Touchpads — a tour of recent research” Date: Tuesday, March 16 Time: 11:00am Place: E2-180 (The Simularium) Abstract This talk will provide an overview of various recent research,mincluding Games for Learning, pressure sensitive touch devices, emotively expressive procedurally animated characters, intuitive ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/ken-perlin-visits-ucsc/ Two quick interruptions to our unscheduled blog hiatus: Francisco J. Ricardo of RISD’s Digital+Media Department has written a deep and detailed blog post, “From Objecthood to Processhood.” In it, he defends artists, their work, and their discourse about the digital, responding to Henry Jenkins’s 2000 article “Games, the New Lively Art,” ... http://nickm.com/post/2010/03/art-as-process-basic-considered-helpful/ One of Kevin Dill's game credits: Master of Orion 3 “The Art of Game AI: Sculpting Behavior with Data, Formulas, and Finesse” Kevin Dill, Lockheed Martin Date: Monday, March 15 Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm Place: E2-180 Simularium Hosted By: Michael Mateas Abstract This lecture will explore the challenges that are involved in constructing believable AI behavior, the mindset that ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/kevin-dill-talk-at-ucsc/ The CNET News article, GDC: What’s next for video game AI?, features demos of EIS research projects delivered at the AI Summit at GDC along with the latest AI demos from Richard Evans and Ian Holmes. The AI Summit session, Experimental Game AI: Live Demos of Innovation, included demos of ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/eis-research-demos-at-gdc/ This surprisingly broad lecture on game design was given by Noah Wardrip-Fruin to help students review for the final exam in our Foundations of Interactive Game Design class. However, if you are not one of the 300 students in the class, you might find it quite interesting to share with ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/epic-game-design-tour/ The Global Game Jam 2010 concluded over 30 days ago, but the treasure trove of indy creations it left behind remains largely unexplored. Then again, how is anyone supposed to review some 1000 games created specifically for an event that shuns any global judging? Who has that kind of time ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/global-game-jam-recap/ AIIDE 2010 has posted a call for papers, just in time to advertise the conference at GDC. The deadline for papers and the industry track is May 16, 2010. This year AIIDE will also be hosting a StarCraft AI competition! http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/cfp-artificial-intelligence-and-interactive-digital-entertainment-aiide-2010/ Intro: "When I was 5 years old, I had a crush on Super Mario" EIS was featured on current.com The Game Developer’s Conference is less than a week away, and for those who don’t get to see what goes on during this amazing week, we, at the Expressive Intelligence Studio, put together ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/game-developer-conference-current-tv-features-eis-podcast/ Intro: "When I was 5 years old, I had a crush on Super Mario" EIS was featured on current.com The Game Developer’s Conference is less than a week away, and for those who don’t get to see what goes on during this amazing week, we, at the Expressive Intelligence Studio, put together ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/game-developer-conference-current-tv-features-eis-podcast/ The clustering of WoW Feral Druid forms (Bear on top, Cat on bottom) Over at the Armory Data Mining blog, a plucky computational biology PhD student under the name of Darush has taken a look at some World of Warcraft Armory data and run some fascinating transformations to analyze the number ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/wow-armory-data-mining-the-next-generation/ The group (Copyright Robinson Kuntz/Santa Cruz Sentinel) EIS is now able to claim “big in Santa Cruz” after being featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the local newspaper (I’ve also heard reports of the story being syndicated to the San Jose Mercury News for the wider Bay Area). http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/03/eis-featured-in-local-news/ If you never found the five minutes to play Jason Rohrer’s Passage, previously discussed, you can now play Passage in 10 Seconds as interpreted by Marcus Richert. Thanks to Jason Scott for the link. http://nickm.com/post/2010/02/passage-in-10-seconds/ We need to tag 64,000 photographs with expert data. Thousands of people are going to come and help us, some for hours at a time, and we will attract them through the pleasure of play. How can tagging an archive of old photographs ever be an enjoyable experience? Contemporary designers are ... http://www.tiltfactor.org/?p=1446 Here’s an interview with me, on YouTube, focusing on ppg256. http://nickm.com/post/2010/02/nickm-on-paloma-tv/ “Façade tried to solve this problem by replacing the parrot with something more like a brain-damaged human; Heavy Rain, by comparison, is probably the best-trained parrot in history.” From Archie Bland’s Control freak: Will David Cage’s ‘Heavy Rain’ videogame push our buttons? http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/heavy-rain-vs-facade/ “Developing Games for 2020″ Bob Mitchell, ohai Date: Thursday, February 25th Time: 2:00pm Place: Digital Media Theater, UCSC Hosted By: Noah Wardrip-Fruin Abstract Students at UC Santa Cruz today will be among the engineers, artists, designers, and producers leading game teams in 2020.Review some of the changes to interactive entertainment over the last ten years in order ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/bob-mitchell-talk-at-ucsc/ I’m here in Banff (in Alberta, Canada) at the cutting edge, or maybe the precipitous edge, or, as I’d prefer to think, the connecting edge. The occasion is In(ter)ventions: Literary Practice at the Edge: A Gathering, organized by Steven Ross Smith. The presenters include: Charles Bernstein, Jen Bervin, Christian Bök, J.R. ... http://nickm.com/post/2010/02/interventions-in-medias-res/ John Davison (image from the San Francisco Chronicle) “The breadth of video game development” (working title) John Davison, Executive Vice President of Content at GamePro Date: Tuesday, February 23rd Time: 2:00pm Place: Digital Media Theater, UCSC Hosted By: Chris Lewis, Noah Wardrip-Fruin This lecture is free and open to the public, but visitors should purchase a parking ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/john-davison-of-gamepro-talk-at-ucsc/ John Davison (image from the San Francisco Chronicle) “The breadth of video game development” (working title) John Davison, Executive Vice President of Content at GamePro Date: Tuesday, February 23rd Time: 2:00pm Place: Digital Media Theater, UCSC Hosted By: Chris Lewis, Noah Wardrip-Fruin This lecture is free and open to the public, but visitors should purchase a parking ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/john-davison-of-gamepro-talk-at-ucsc/ Some of the Tiltfactor team members are attending Toyfair this week researching product development and educational toys. We especially enjoyed meeting folks at Rubbing Hands, a small company in Connecticut. They showed us their games including Fred and Capture the Gag, which were very well designed with interesting play dynamics. We ... http://www.tiltfactor.org/?p=1470 Space Invaders Enterprise Edition I’m pleased to announce that I’ve released Space Invaders Enterprise Edition (Java, cross-platform executable), the first prototype program from my newly announced research direction, Zenet. Space Invaders EE is a clone of code from Coke and Code, and as a tutorial for how to create games. However, it’s ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/space-invaders-enterprise-edition/ “Players are Artists, Too” Henry Lowood, Stanford University Date: Thursday, February 18th Time: 2:00pm Place: Digital Media Theater, UCSC Hosted By: Noah Wardrip-Fruin This lecture is free and open to the public, but visitors should purchase a parking pass from the visitor kiosk at the main entrance. There they can also provide a map showing the ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/henry-lowood-talk-at-ucsc/ “Geração sobre a fala” (“My Generation about Talking,” Nick Montfort) Tradução para o português, Cicero Inacio da Silva. “My Generation about Talking,” a text generator which I first presented at the Software Studies Workshop on May 21, 2008, is now available in Portuguese translation, thanks to Cicero Inacio da Silva. It ... http://nickm.com/post/2010/02/geracao-sobre-a-fala-my-generation-about-talking/ Did you know Tiltfactor has a YouTube channel? We have videos on the lab in general, the Playcube events, news coverage of the game LAYOFF, video of Massively Multiplayer Mushu and Massively Multiplayer Soba, and more. http://www.tiltfactor.org/?p=1315 “Animating the Gesture Style of Particular Individuals” Michael Neff, UC Davis Date: Friday, February 12th Time: 12:00pm Place: Engineering 2, Room 599 Hosted By: Professor Marilyn Walker, Dept. of Computer Science This lecture is free and open to the public, but visitors should purchase a parking pass from the visitor kiosk at ... http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/michael-neff-talk-at-ucsc/