games

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How One Man Solved a "Baroque" Mystery

In 2003, Neal Stephenson's book Quicksilver hit the stands. It was the first in a series called The Baroque Cycle, featuring (among many other things) the exploits of alchemists and mathematicians. But before Quicksilver was released, a promotional website appeared, featuring a mysterious opening page followed by some basic information -- an author bio, some sales information, and an excerpt of the upcoming novel. But what of that opening page? It was apparently an encoded message in graphical form,... READ ON

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In-Depth With the King of Kong

In last July's issue of Harper's, Joshuah Bearman revealed a wealth of information on classic gaming in general and Billy Mitchell specifically. Mitchell is one of the subjects of last year's documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Mitchell is a fascinating guy, with his supremely high-maintenance mullet, a list of arcade game records a mile long, and even his own brand of hot sauce. Bearman contributed some footage to King of Kong, but his encounters with Mitchell go beyond what we saw in the... READ ON

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14 Crazy Chess Boards and Variations

The game of chess has been around in its current form for hundreds of years. It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master, but it's not much of a spectator sport. Still, chess is so fascinating that considerable imagination has gone into making it more accessible and exciting for players, students, and... READ ON

Article

Using AI to Improve Animation

Torsten Reil gave a TED Talk in 2003 called Simulating Humans, describing his research on animating human characters in 3D. Reil discusses how traditional video game animation is static and repetitive: animators create each character animation, and the character goes through the same motions every time -- every time the character falls down it's exactly the same animation of falling down. As a result, human characters in games have looked pretty unrealistic, and movie animation has taken a long time to... READ ON

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Spore: The Buzz Begins

I've wanted to play Will Wright's next game, Spore, for years. I first wrote about Spore way back in February 2007, proudly and naively stating that "our wait will soon be over." Well, I was right if by "soon" I meant "in another year and a half." Spore has been in development since 2000, and it finally has a reliable release date: September 7, 2008. Let's hope the wait has been worth it. Spore is a video game unlike any other. Following in the tradition of Wright's SimCity and The Sims, it's a... READ ON

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Shigeru Miyamoto: Nintendo's Version of Walt Disney

A recent New York Times profile of Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of various Nintendo franchises, gives some insight on the man's history and creative process. Miyamoto designed the Mario and Legend of Zelda game series (among others), and his continuing work at Nintendo involves hit after hit. His designs are directly responsible for bringing Nintendo to international prominence, and through each generation of video game technology, he continues to focus on what's fun about games: play. By creating... READ ON

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Gaming History: Discovering Deep Ms. Pac-Man Secrets

I played a fair amount of Ms. Pac-Man in my youth, sometimes plugging my entire $3 allowance into the machine at the movie theater, or the one at the pizza parlor near my grandmother's house. I was never any good at it -- never much good at any arcade games, really -- but my father and brother were skilled Ms. Pac-Man gamers. They preferred Ms. Pac-Man to the original Pac-Man, but I don't recall ever getting an answer about why. (I must have assumed that her little red bow was the killer feature.)... READ ON

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Don't Panic: The Infocom Drive Surfaces

Programmer Andy Baio has gotten his hands on a piece of computer gaming history: a backup of game publisher Infocom's shared network drive from 1989. What's Infocom, you ask? (At least, you ask this if you're under a certain age and/or leaned left-of-nerdy in the 80's....) Infocom is the game company behind classic text adventure like Zork, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, and a little game called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- which was written with the help of Douglas Adams. A whole generation... READ ON

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How Electronic "20 Questions" Games Work

It was about four years ago when I first saw a 20Q ball. The tiny handheld device scrolled text across its meager one-line screen, inviting me to challenge it in a game of 20 Questions. I immediately thought of an object I figured it wouldn't guess ("iPod") and began to play the game. After a series of slightly odd questions -- including "Does it bring joy to people?" -- the little ball gave its guess: "MP3 player." Wow. It was right. So how does this 20Q device work? The short answer is... READ ON

Article

Super Mario World + Quantum Physics = Lots of Fun

I have a soft spot for Super Mario Brothers videos, and am particularly intrigued by a series of hacked versions of various Mario games that have hit the net in the past few years. In these hacked versions, the levels have been rearranged to make them more difficult, requiring players to repeat levels over and over to figure out the way past each little section. Videos appear on YouTube showing supergamers running through the hacked levels, performing seemingly impossible feats of timing and precision --... READ ON