Old Is The New New

Last week I had the pleasure of taking part in a terrific two-day symposium on playing with, making, and teaching history, hosted by Kevin Kee and funded by The History Education Network (THEN/HIER). The Twitter hashtag was #pastplay, although as I remarked at the time, we were often too busy playing to tweedle. The first [...]

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At BLDGBLOG, a great guest post by Jim Rossignol on the imaginary architecture of enemy lairs in videogames.

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An interesting interview with Sid Meier. We may think Civ is about history, but it is really about psychology: a diabolical Skinner box of operant conditioning.

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One of the challenges in designing games or activities for education is the interface between a game’s subject and its mechanics. Picture if you will the classic computer game John Kerry Tax Invaders, released by the GOP during the 2004 election. The gameplay is identical to Space Invaders, but instead of a ship you control [...]

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Mark Rayner’s latest is a funny in-joke for recovering Civilization addicts like myself. Related: uh-oh.

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With Buster Keaton as Mario, Mary Pickford as Princess Toadstool, Harold Lloyd as Luigi, and Fatty Arbuckle as King Koopa.

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Geeks Citizens, rejoice: I made up three alternate Alpha Complexes (uno dos tres) for a buddy’s gaming blog.

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Part three of the Braunstein trilogy: was old school D&D for squares or hippies, hawks or doves?

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More from the Victorian internet department: Paul Collins on chess, bowling, even billiards by telegraph.

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A renaissance in old school gaming has brought with it a welcome interest in the history of RPGs.

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