Month: August 2021

Video games most always focus on their heroic protagonists, but just as with other forms of media, the villains are often the more interesting of characters. There have been some stellar antagonists throughout gaming history–from the princess stealing lizard King Bowser, to the homicidal artificial intelligence GLaDOS–yet, for each one of these praised representations of pure evil, there are dozens more that fly under the radar. Perhaps they didn’t get the screen time that they deserved, or maybe the game they starred in has too gone underappreciated. Whatever the reason, countless bad guys aren’t notable in the gaming community, and it’s high time we change that.

JRPGs are known for their unforgettable stories, and one of the best examples of these is 1998’s Suikoden II. While the majority of its cast is phenomenal, I am surprised that one of the game’s primary villains, Luca Blight, isn’t brought up more when…

In this post, I’m going to lay out some concepts I picked up, in part, from the documentary . These lessons align with an important observation made by Rob Kunst. That observation is this; Role playing games are a combination of open and closed systems.  Role-playing games are games in which players can do things that are not in the rules. Dave Arneson’s genius was in making this leap, according to Kunst. I don’t think Arneson had a “Eureka!” moment where his lateral thinking led him to that understanding. I think it was a series of experiments by Arneson and his friends who were trying to make their war games more enjoyable that led to a discovery. That discovery is that the combination of open and closed systems allow for a depth of play that cannot be matched by a pure closed system or a purely open system.

The…

From carnival games, to arcade machines, to escape rooms, interactive amusement attractions continue to evolve. Activate Games in Canada and the US combines elements of virtual and physical play to create an experience unlike anything else I’ve experienced to-date.

by Daniel Cooper, Engadget

China has announced a further crackdown on the amount of time children can play online video games, with the new limit set to just three hours per week.Bloomberg, reporting from local news sources, says that platforms like Tencent can now offer gaming to kids between the hours of 8-9pm on Friday, weekends and public holidays.

It’s a significant and notable reduction from the previous rule, which had been generally capped at 1.5 hours per day in 2019. Earlier this month, Tencent was forced to cutthe amount of time minors could playthe smash hit mobile titleHonor of Kingsto just an hour on weeknights and two hours on the weekend. The added restriction is likely to impact the share price of companies in this space, which has seen recent instability.

Historically, China has always had an aversion to video games, albeitwith…