03 PM | 13 May

“An Iranian developer’s entrancing game about his culture…” [#geekgirl]

[From an article by Tracey Lien at Polygon]: “Projected onto a large screen to a crowd of hundreds of people, Bahrami showed solutions to his geometric, ancient Iranian art-influenced puzzle game. “So you have an object on a table,” he said to the audience, pointing to a screen where a rectangle sat on the edge of a desk. “Now if you draw a point somewhere on that object, what kind of line would it make if it fell?” He placed a dot on the corner of the rectangle. He hit “play.” The rectangle tumbled off the table, leaving behind a squiggly line.

In the early build of Engare Bahrami showed, at the start of each level players were shown a line they had to replicate by placing a dot on a moving object. Perhaps it was a hook-like curve they had to recreate. Perhaps it was something that resembled the McDonald’s golden arches. Each of these puzzles was mind boggling on their own. Then Bahrami got meta: what if you drew a dot on the game’s menu tab so when you pulled up the menu, it created a line? And then what if you got rid of the menu and the table and the moving objects and just allowed the line to replicate itself again and again and again?”

03 PM | 13 Jan

Gal Sponsorship for Melbourne’s Global Game Jam Closes Today! [#geekgirl]

“As the Principal Supporter of the Melbourne Global Game Jam, Screen Australia  has kindly sponsored places for women wanting to participate at Melbourne’s Global Game Jam 24-26 January, 2014.

All women wanting to jam and aged 18+ are invited to apply for GGJ Assist by Monday 13 January. Successful applicants will be notified of the outcome by Wednesday 15 January.

If you have already booked and receive a GGJ Assist place, your $60 registration will be refunded to you. GGJ Assist covers the $60 registration fee only, any additional costs will be borne by you. The registration fee assists with the costs catering, equipment and staffing for the entire GGJ weekend.”

06 PM | 30 Dec

Play Vintage Console Games in Your Browser [#geekgirl]

[Via archive.org]

[Via archive.org]

[As reported at The Verge] “This week, it means that nearly every Atari 2600, Atari 7800, ColecoVision, Magnavox Odyssey², and Astrocade game is now playable on the web. It’s part of the Internet Archive’s new Console Living Room section.

While the Internet Archive’s Historical Software Collection is meant to highlight a small number of culturally important programs, the Console Living Room is slightly different in scope. It’s only games, but it attempts to collect practically every game for these vintage consoles that would be playable. Curator Jason Scott tells The Verge that while it doesn’t include homebrew or titles for obscure peripherals like the Atari Mindlink, the current library for these five machines is otherwise comprehensive to a fault. “A new generation of people are going to discover how horrible some of these games were,” says Scott, half-jokingly.”