UALR Game Resources

Article on in-game collectibles. I'm not sure what I think about that phenomenon as a gamer, but from a marketing standpoint, it's another facet to get player involvement in the game world.

Mojang (the makers of Minecraft) has a card game called "Scrolls." Looks like a combination of Magic the Gathering and Might & Magic. I know plenty of people who like both/either of those games enough to LOVE this Scrolls.

"It's fun when you win," he said, exhausted. "And boring when you lose. Haven't we moved past that yet?"

A great web design magazine.

Best game design software ever.

This is the Game Studies journal

Nice site for table top game reviews and news. It's a bit more user friendly than boardgamegeek. Lots of good reviews and articles. 

Just posting this because it's a great reference. 

This looks interesting. It incorporates "sins" as a game mechanic. Plus, it's based on The Canterbury Tales, so it's kind of required gaming for word geeks. ;) 

Hahah. This game evolves from 8-big graphics all the way to textured 3D as you level up. It's an RPG about the history of video games. 

This is very funny. I wish they had the old Ultima IV screen, though. That's the first one I remember playing.

Here's a discussion of 7 Grand Steps, which is a game about family lineage. Seems like it might give you some interesting ideas about your game. It's coming out June 7th. I'll probably get a copy from Steam if you want to check it out.

This is a really useful article on designing choice (simultaneous versus sequential) in games.

This looks like fun. 

This will be a great one for my kids. I especially like the cat-o-matic 4000.

Interesting take on multiple layers of moral dilemmas  vs good-bad dichotomy in games. 

Jesper Juul: "A Clash between Game and Narrative". Paper presented at the Digital Arts and Culture conference, Bergen, Norway, November 1998.

This is a great example of the narratology versus ludology debates that were going on in the 90s and early 2000s. Janet Murray's _Hamlet on the Holodeck_ was a key work, as Juul mentions.

Cool looking kickstarter. These guys have all the right ideas. Player choices, huge worlds, puzzle elements, good crafting matrix, and player mods. I hope they can pull it off.

I'm glad someone if finally addressing this. "The Grind" in games (spending hours and hours doing the same actions to get better items) has long been one of my soap box rant topics. It's interesting that it took "freemium" games on Facebook and iOS to pave the way for big game houses like Blizzard (Diablo and WoW) to adopt a better standard. Still not sure I agree with the in-game auction house, but it's a start.

Abstract. This paper introduces the concept of Narrative Game-based Learning Objects (NGLOBs) as the basis for the creation and control of Story-based Digital Educational Games (DEGs).

The following are archetypes used in Storyteller System system games to describe a character's personality. Architect - Creation is your passion. Autocrat - Control-freak. Autist - One who buries their secrets. Avant-Garde - A fascination with the trendy and new.