The Five Great Apps I Let My Own Kids Play

I grew up with board and video games as a kid. I still play and review hundreds of games a year, but now I'm doing it as a parent, a college professor teaching games and 3D graphics, and a game developer who's contributed to many of the top video games.

Image by Kris, CC0 License

My children are in elementary school. They play a lot of board games and video games. Like your kids, most of their video games are apps on iPad and iPhone. We have limits on game playing time and rules about sharing and playing with friends.

Journey

There are video games that you'll enjoy and be good at playing. They address your gender, sexual, religious, and ethnic identity. They have worlds where you'll feel comfortable and engaged. You can find what you're looking for, whether it is non-violent play, strong narratives and characters, complex decisions, freedom, or emotional highs and lows. Most games are not very expensive and many run on computing platforms that you already own, such as your old PC, your Mac laptop, or your mobile phone.

Game Design as a Science for Public Policy

Screen shot of the action role-playing game Titan Quest

by Iron Lore Entertainment © (THQ Inc., 2006)

Cross-posted with Casual Effects.

What do a presidential election, a sporting event, government spending bills, and a video game have in common? They are all subject to analysis as games: scenarios where intelligent agents (players) seek to maximize their payoff (win) under a set of rules. Although some seem like fun and others like work, an understanding of each instance informs the others, and insights for any improve how we both work and play.

Games are about decisions, and decisions matter. Computer science, mathematics, psychology, economics, and political science have explored decisions in formal games for several decades. Their classic problem is to find the best strategy under a set of rules. A new, more important problem reverses this: design a rule system that drives players to desirable behaviors. In the real world, we want the rules in our tax code and laws to be fair and encourage strategies that benefit society as well as the individuals. In virtual worlds, choices must also entertain the agents. Sometimes the line between these is blurry: Ebay's auction rules intentionally trade market efficiency with the thrill of last-minute deals ("sniping"). The short-lived "entertainment shopping" introduced by the Swoopo company took this one step further, in a form that we're likely to see more in the future.

Some Interesting New Game Art Styles

Little Big Planet 2

Expressive, also known as "non-photorealistic," computer graphics seek conscious stylization over mimesis. The world of animated films has long embraced non-mimetic styles, however relatively few games exhibited bold style after display resolutions and processor throughput became high enough to escape the (pleasant) confines of pixel art and flat-shaded polygons. Some noteworthy big-budget exceptions are Oni, Okami, Another World, Wind Waker, Prince of Persia, Jet Grind Radio, Ni No Kuni, Little Big Planet, Borderlands, and Mirror's Edge.