Only a Game

Adventure-X Game Expo (December 2011)

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be speaking at an all new Adventure Game expo in December this year, hosted in Didcot, UK. You can find all the details on the Adventure-X website. Hope to see you there!

Modern Board Games and Why Game Studios Should Care (DiGRA Panel)

I’m honoured to announce that I’m on a panel with Reiner Knizia and many other wonderful people at the Think Design Play DiGRA conference in Utrecht on Thursday 15th September 2011. There’s a little more information over at the website for the conference. Many thanks to Ben Kirman and Jose Zagal for inviting me onto this panel!

Earlier in the day, at either 2 pm or 3:20 pm, I’ll also be in a Match session with someone else (I don’t know who!) where I’m supposed to be presenting some of the old DGD2 research, but will in fact be explaining why that research isn’t very clever, and neither is much of what is published as game studies.

Anyone at Think Design Play, I’m only there for the one day so catch me while you can!

Cross-posted from ihobo.com.

Feedback Request: Myths of Evolution

This coming Tuesday the Summer of Evolutionary Mythology closes with an interview with evolutionary biologist John O. Reiss that bookends this series of posts. Hope you enjoyed these extracts from Myths of Evolution - I should probably leave it there for now, and concentrate on getting the draft manuscript completed. 

Thoughts on the kind of work I'm doing in this book would be most welcome, even if you're not really familiar with the subject material. Does this kind of critical approach to evolutionary theory interest you? Are these essays too complicated to follow? Did you learn something new from reading them? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Also: please help me refine my subtitle. I was going to use Scientific Metaphor and the Nature of Life but it's been pointed out to me that "metaphor" is a pretty academic word. I'm now thinking Revealing the Nature of Life is a better subtitle. Thoughts on this also welcome!

Seeking New Mail Client

Can anyone recommend a mail client for use under Windows XP?

I still use the aging Outlook Express as my mail client, largely because I’ve been unable to find anything better. I did try Thunderbird the other year, but found it had no significant advantages over OE, and a lot of clunky new problems.

The main factor pushing for change is that when I’m travelling, transferring mail from my desktop to my laptop is very difficult – even with a tool expressly designed for the job. In particular, mail rules (which OE stores in the registry) do not transfer well. Webmail is impractical for the volume and diversity of email I handle (e.g. sometimes I get 5,000+ survey data emails in a week), so it will need to be a POP3 client.

Here’s my “wish list” for a new mail client:

• Lightweight code – quick to start, little to go wrong.
• Easy filtering – ideally, I’d like to drag an email into a folder and have the client learn that I want emails from that contact to go into that folder. Failing that, to be able to easily compile lists of contacts that filter into a particular folder. But most importantly, all this information has to export easily for when I transfer to my laptop.
• Effortless export – as I say, I need to switch from desktop to laptop without losing any data.
• Secure – I have to protect non-disclosure agreements with commercial clients, so I need software I can trust.
• No fluff – I want a mail client to sort and read mail; I’m not looking for software that tries to take over my desk diary’s job.

Any suggestions?

Cross-posted from ihobo.com.

Update: following a demonstration of Gmail by Peter, I'm now much more confident that this is a sensible step for me to take. I'm going to experiment with Gmail while I'm on the road in July and if it works out I'll ditch Outlook Express when I return. Thanks to everyone for their assistance!

A Game of Gender

Here’s a game for you.

Let’s pretend gender fiction can be understood as having just three dimensions – behavioural, sexual and physical. Now let’s say that we have three values in each dimension. ‘Ma’ for male-esque, ‘Fe’ for female-esque and ‘Ni’ for any ambiguity therein. (For the sake of this game, behaviourally male-esque means something like ‘butch’ or ‘masculine-behaving’; sexually female-esque means ‘attracted to men’ and physically male-esque means having a penis).

You can now make a word to describe your gender in glorious 3D – by combining these three syllables (‘ma’, ‘fe’ or ‘ni’) three times, once each for your behavioural, sexual and physical circumstances in that order, and then adding the suffix ‘le’ at the end.

So if you are a butch lesbian your 3D Gender is “mamafele”. If you are a behaviourally neutral bisexual with a penis your 3D Gender is “ninimale”. If you are a feminine-behaving person who is attracted to men and have no penis your 3D Gender is “fefefele”. While if you are masculine-behaving man-lover with a penis your 3D Gender is “mafemale”.

What 3D Gender are you today?

Asylum Seeking Daleks!

This is a poem by Attila the Stockbroker (facebook/homepage) that I'm republishing as a bookend to this month's posts. It is dated 6 May 2002 and dedicated "For Ann Winterton".

They claim their planet's dying:
that soon it's going to blow
And so they're coming here - they say
they've nowhere else to go....
With their strange computer voices
and their one eye on a pole
They're moving in next door and then
they're signing on the dole.....

Asylum seeking Daleks
are landing here at noon!
Why can't we simply send them back
or stick them on the moon?
It says here in the Daily Mail
they're coming here to stay -
The Loony Lefties let them in!
The middle class will pay......

They say that they're all pacifists:
that doesn't wash with me!
The last time I saw one I hid
Weeks behind the settee...
Good Lord - they're pink. With purple bumps!
There's photos of them here!
Not just extra-terrestial....
The bloody things are queer!

Yes! Homosexual Daleks
And they're sponging off the State!
With huge Arts Council grants
to teach delinquents how to skate!
It's all here in the paper -
I'd better tell the wife!
For soon they will EXTERMINATE
Our British way of life.....

This satire on crass ignorance
and tabloid-fostered fear
Is at an end. Now let me give
One message, loud and clear.
Golf course, shop floor or BNP:
Smash bigotry and hate!
Asylum seekers - welcome here.
You racists: emigrate!

I Write Like...

Jim Swallow drew my attention to a site called I Write Like which claims to analyse your writing style and liken it to a famous author. I ran it a couple of times using different posts for a source, and got different results.

The one that comes up most often for me is...

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

...although I have no idea who that is. I also had it suggest...

I write like
Margaret Atwood

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

...which is flattering. Less so when it suggests...

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Happy Spring Festival!

Happy Beltane, Lag BaOmer, Therevada Buddhist New Year, May Day, Rogation Sunday, Cinco de Mayo, Labor Day,  and Havvoth Nar! Because of the Spring festivities, comments will run slow this week, but the serials will run as usual.

Have fun everyone!

Next Week on ihobo

Running in parallel to the serial on Professor Kendall Walton's philosophy book Mimesis as Make-Believe here at Only a Game (which starts tomorrow), ihobo.com will be running its own serial: Game Design as Make-Believe. Beginning next Wednesday, these posts adapt Professor Walton's work to the design of videogames, boardgames and tabletop role-playing games. Each part mirrors a piece of the main serial, which will be cross-linked each week. You don't need to read both, but if you do you'll be sure to get the most out of the ideas being presented.

Cross-posted from ihobo.com.

Happy Yang Metal Tiger!

Happy Chinese New Year! The new year just beginning today is Yang Metal Tiger, which means this is the Year of the Metal Tiger. Congratulations and prosperity to all, and hǔ nián xíng dà yùn!

The image is borrowed from here.