Thursday, March 29, 2007

Raph Koster is Back on the Fun Track

Raph Koster is forging forward on the topic of fun, games, and grammar. His latest talk at ETech looks like it was very interesting.

When I reviewed his book, A Theory of Fun for Game Design, I proposed that the book was more about the theory of art in games than fun in games. This talk looks like a definite step back in the fun direction - less about internal transformations, and more about pleasure.

I'm looking forward to his next book, A Grammar of Game Play: How Games Work (due out when, Raph?).

Game News

Merscom will be bringing Ingenious to the PC. Details here.

The Herald Tribune talks about the shortening of board games. Apparently, Hasbro's down to 51.3% share of the marketplace, listing both Mattel and Cranium as its competitors.

Here's an article about a prisoner who hanged himself. And what, pray tell, does this have to do with board games? Apparently, the "attention" buzzers were taped off and the lights ignored while one guard was teaching the other how to play Backgammon.

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