Jason Nelson on “The Bomar Gene”
1 comment April 19th, 2008
Posts filed under 'News'
Jason Rohrer’s Passage
Here is the link to Passage, where you can download Mac and PC versions of the game. After you’ve played the game, see Jason Rohrer’s Creator Statement too.
February 12th, 2008
Problems with “Trigger Happy”?
A few students have run into problems opening up the Trigger Happy reading. Note that the link on the syllabus goes to Steven Poole’s Trigger Happy page, where you’ll find a link to a PDF file. To view the file, you’ll need a PDF reader, like the free Adobe Reader or free Foxit Reader. If your browser does not immediately recognize the file, then you can download the file directly to your computer. On a PC, right-click on the link and select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As.” On a Mac, I think it’s CTRL-mouse-click which will give you the same menu.
Once you’ve got the file open, our reading comes from pages 307-321 of the original book. These pages do not correspond to how the PDF file is numbered. If you go by the PDF’s page numbers, then you need pp. 305-321. In any case, it’s the first couple sections of chapter 9, “Signs of Life.”
January 26th, 2008
Using Stella, the Atari 2600 emulator
Here are a few tips on using Stella, the Atari 2600 emulator you need to install on your computer in order to play a few of the required games this semester.
- First you need to download the program (it’s open-source and free). You’ll need either Stella for Windows or Stella for Macs (select the appropriate link to download the program).
- Once it’s downloaded, open the installer just like you would to install any other program.
- Accept all the default settings.
- Once Stella is installed, you’ll need a game “ROM” — this is basically a tiny piece of software code that mirrors the code on the original game cartridge. There are plenty of places online to find ROMs. Atari Age is the premier Atari site, and you can find the ROM for next Tuesday’s game-playing there: Star Wars: The Arcade Game. Even simpler, you can just download it from me, here: Star Wars.) Do NOT open the program with StuffIt Expander or any other compression program; just save as-is, and take note where you save it.
- Now you can go ahead and run Stella. When you first open the program you’ll see a DOS-like directory, navigate through here to find where you saved the Star Wars ROM. Look for a file called “SWARCADE.BIN” and “Select” it when you find it.
- After the opening theme music, press F2 to begin the game. You navigate/aim by using the arrow keys, and you fire with the SPACE bar.
- When you die, press F2 to begin the game again.
Enjoy!
5 comments January 25th, 2008
Reading “First Person”
It occurred to me that the reading on “Narrative, Interactivity, Play, and Games” in First Person might be a little bewildering at first, so let me contextualize the essay briefly.
First, all of the essays in this collection feature “responses” by well-known game designers or scholars that are integrated directly into the primary essay (rather than, say, coming after the essay). So, this leads sometimes to the awkward placement of two or three essays on the same page, one of the top and perhaps two on the bottom. You’ll see this on the first two pages of the assigned essay (pp. 154-155). My advice is to read the primary essay first in its entirety and then go back and read the accompanying responses.
Second, the author of this particular essay, Eric Zimmerman, is a game designer and teacher, and he is jumping right into an ongoing debate in the game-design community, about the nature of games as stories or as something else entirely. This idea–about the interplay between narrative and gameplay–will be something we come back to again and again in the course.
January 23rd, 2008
Welcome to HNRS 353:002
This is the course website and blog for HNRS 353:003 (Technology in the Contemporary World), an Honors Program seminar focusing on the cultural impact and interpretation of videogames. Here you’ll find all the course documents, including the most up-to-date version of the syllabus.
December 31st, 2007
