Which might be a review of a new PC game, or an essay on forbidden love…

In which MetalJim talks about the fine line between playing a game and watching a replay…

Microsoft’s XNA framework, which is enabling game developers to target the PC and the Xbox 360 together, will soon allow the Zune to be targeted as well. What does this mean? Why do we care?

In theory, the XNA initiative is supposed to open the doors of game development (and really more importantly – distribution) to [...]

Chalk my household up as one of the latest additions to the Wii Nation. The very first game you get to play is the one where you try to locate a unit for sale and actually buy it. It’s not too hard if you’re persistent: you choose a close retailer like Wal-Mart and call them [...]

In which Metal Jim goes “inside” the Insider…

Here is the skinny on the coolest game I’ve played in a while. And it’s free…

Once upon a time I subscribed to a magazine called Computer Games (it actually started with a free subscription bundled with Europa Universalis II!), and as its name implied, it was all about gaming on the PC. Content was sterling, but readership wasn’t. They stooped so low as to start filling the back pages with [...]

Last year I told you about many exciting flash games out there. Here are a few of my favorite online games.

Because sometimes a game is more than just a game…

So here I sit in my corporate cubicle; life is more grand than bland, so no complaints about working for the Man. Like your typical coder, I move through periods of deep concentration, followed by the need to surface, stretch, unwind, and relax a bit before diving back in. That’s part of the general culture [...]

In which MetalJim tries to figure out whether or not a brain in a jar can successfully take over the world…

Which is really MetalJim’s review of a little something called Portal …

In which MetalJim asks how you like your ASCII dungeon crawling games…

Everyone knows that one of the great pleasures of life is found in the art and creativity that is tabletop role-playing games. And of all the RPGs out there, none comes close to Dungeons and Dragons in terms of collective cultural recognition – it’s in our blood, this high-octane affinity for the generically fantastic, this [...]

In which MetalJim joins everyone else in raggin’ on the PS3…

In last week’s post I used Gabriel Rocklin’s freeware version of Ra as a strawman to make some points about classic trouble spots in AI’s for computerized board games. Gabriel was kind enough to comment in and point to a newer test version of the game with some ongoing AI tweaks. Thanks for the response, Gabriel, [...]

On occasion I play around with the freeware (ahem, unlicensed) computer version of Ra that MetalJim referenced in his August post on digital cardboard. Random and I have debated whether getting good at this version helps in real live face-to-face play. I think it’s a mixed bag – it’s been good to get a lot [...]

I was thinking about what a friend had said; I was hoping it wasn’t a lie…

Big things are coming in the world of computer games, especially as far as paper and cardboard gamers are concerned. I’ve been following Microsoft’s XNA initiative so closely that it’s easy to forget that it’s been public for less than a year, [...]

I have been playing a lot of video games lately and this had lead me to certain realizations. Here is what I have learned…

This is the third and final installment in my astoundingly unpopular (it’s no wild boast – I read the site statistics!) series on rules, algorithms, and interfaces for computer versions of board games. See parts one and two here.

What’s left to talk about today is AI modularity. As a way of getting there, I want to start with [...]