https://alpha.app.net/riyad/post/16862808
Tag: Internet Finds
Intriguing Serious Games
I don’t know how people come up with this, but I’ve come two very interesting games that pick up topics you wouldn’t immediately think of. I haven’t played them yet, but I’m intrigued by the concepts.
Papers, Please! puts you into the shoes of an immigration officer at an airport of a fictional country. You have to examine visa applicants and finally granting or denying them entry. You earn money from how many people you correctly admit or reject. And you need the money to pay for your own expenses: rent, food, heating, medicine. Screw up and you won’t be able to afford them.
This puts you into a difficult spot. Your performance doesn’t only affect the live of the person you’re examining, but yours too. You learn that (surprisingly) You’re swayed between concern, duty, diligence, suspicion, courtesy and cynicism … and you get why border are no laughing matter. :/ I think the review on Arstechnica captures the feeling well.
In Blackbar is a different twist on puzzle games. You get to read mail between two fictional people with parts blacked out. Your task is to reconstruct the blacked-out parts. It’s as simple as that. You get drawn in into the story between the two and you need this context to deduce some of the parts. It feels creepy. :/ TUAW has a nice review of it.
Forensic Architecture
Forensic Architeture is an interesting research project analyzing target sites of drone strikes from publicly available information. They remodel and reconstruct the architectural features of those sites and provide necessary context for human rights violation investigations carried out by UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights (UNSRCT) Ben Emmerson.
ADN: Luxurious Shanty Town
https://alpha.app.net/riyad/post/16458353
NROL-39: Release the Kraken
A kraken devouring the earth captioned “Nothing is beyond our reach” is an official NRO spy satellite mission patch … you can’t make this shit up.


Update:
Arstechnica has something about this as well. 🙂

Struggles of a Systems Programmer
James Mickens has probably written the most hilarious essay about the struggles of a systems programmer. xD
Universal Surveillance Justification
You have your own invasive surveillance program? The EFF has created an online tool for generating justification statements using real quotes that are so broad and nonsensical that they can be used to justify just about anything. 😀
An ABC for Baby Linguists
Ingenious: An ABC for Baby Linguists
Thanks @atopal
Super Mario World Camera Logic Review
A great analysis of the level of detail that went into the camera logic of Super Mario World.
Jonathan Blow: Game design: the medium is the message
Jonathan Blow shares his insights into why free-to-play games are a step back in the evolution of entertainment. He basically talks about what constraints of the medium (structurally) influence film plots and game play respectively. He draws an interesting parallel between free-to-play games and the “commercials and syndication” based monetization model of 70s and 80s TV series.
Highly recommended! 😀