Dr. José Zagal

Did the layered diorama aesthetic @benjedwards.com and I describe in our Virtual Boy book not make sense? Hopefully this video (19th century book!!) clarifies. :-)

SLEEP AWAKE is AVAILABLE NOW on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
The HUSH waits for you.

➡️ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2446540/SLEEP_AWAKE/
➡️ https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10011233
➡️ https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/sleep-awake/9pf3t0m4hk95

I wrote a short writeup on miscellaneous game release gotchas & pitfalls... enjoy!

blendogames.com/news/post/20...

What can we learn from breaking down game design to its core elements?

@jzagal.bsky.social joins grokludo this week to talk about the Game Ontology Project - reducing and categorising game design elements to study them piece by piece.

DiGRA 2026 Conference | Maynooth University, Ireland Join the DiGRA 2026 conference at Maynooth University, 14–18 June 2026. Theme “Intersectional Pleasures.” A global hybrid event for game research, culture, design, and industry.

DiGRA 2026 submission deadline is now December 8th (Anywhere on Earth - 23:59 UTC +12)! www.digraconference2026.com #DiGRA26

Total Replay : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive 100s of games at your fingertips, as long as your fingertips are on an Apple ][DownloadDownload Total Replay (version 5.2, released 2024-09-09, 32 MB disk...

For the Holiday, what a great time to check out TOTAL REPLAY, a years-long project to make hundreds of Apple II games easy to boot up, play, and discover. It even works on original Apple II hardware (with a little modern trickery). Emulated in Browser, of course:

archive.org/details/Tota...

Gaming Like It's 1930 A game jam from 2026-01-01 to 2026-02-01 hosted by Randy Lubin & Copia Gaming. A new year means new material entering the public domain! Starting January 1st 2026, works from 1930 are free to use and ...

"Gaming Like It's 1930" is coming this January: itch.io/jam/gaming-l...

Come join us for our annual public domain game jam, celebrating new works that are entering the commons

YouTube video by GoGoGaming The Baby Steps Interview: Does Bennett Foddy just want to make us mad?

@foddy.net @gcuzzillo.bsky.social @maxiboch.bsky.social on designing Baby Steps. “Making it interesting to get lost is a big creative challenge.”
#gamedev
#gamedesign

The tram ride blew our minds (my friends and I) because we thought it was a cutscene and then realized it wasn’t! I’d guess reviews of the day didn’t want to spoil the surprise…

Sure. Except when it’s a “significant” call - then half the players and fans celebrate. 😜 Outside of errors, there’s wiggle room in terms of judgement (scoring olympic gymnastics)

Uncertainty in Games In life, uncertainty surrounds us. Things that we thought were good for us turn out to be bad for us (and vice versa); people we thought we knew well behave ...

Hi @costik.bsky.social, I've really enjoyed your book on uncertainty in games (mitpress.mit.edu/978026252753...). I was wondering how you think of the uncertainty introduced in games with a human referee? (refs make mistakes) Is this a "valid" form of uncertainty in your view?

a drawing of a man in a suit standing in a suitcase with the words sheepfilms.co.uk below it ALT: a drawing of a man in a suit standing in a suitcase with the words sheepfilms.co.uk below it

It's platforms all the way down.

A poster advertising a twitch stream at 9pm et on twitch.tv/professor_ashley. The stream guest will be Dr. Marcus Carter

Tomorrow night!

Ah, ok. I see where you're coming from. :-)

But, the same applies for games you can win - you need to think about how players what the "winning condition" is... It's definitely something that could be designed poorly - there's plenty of games with win/ending conditions that end up detracting from the gameplay experience... (thus, "flawed")

"So it’s not an insurmountable design flaw" -> Why would it be a flaw?

Probably three phones - assuming you're games are on iPhone and Android, no?

Jill Lepore, www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

Depends on whether it's a personal phone or a work phone? I'm hearing more about people who have two phones because they refuse to install work-related apps on their personal devices.

Placeholder Content in Game Development | Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

Lots of best practices - some are even contradictory!
dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

CGSA/ACÉJ 2026 Fourwaves - CGSA/ACÉJ 2026

Our brand-new and bilingual website for CGSA 2026 is now live (a whole day early, go us!): event.fourwaves.com/cgsa2026

We're officially ready receive your wonderful proposals (click the "Submissions" tab in the top-left).

As always, email us if you encounter any issues or have any questions. <3

Screen Australia is doing a massive research project on the current state of the screen and games industries in Australia. Local devs, please consider taking the time to complete their survey survey.alchemer.com/s3/8573365/S...

For some reason I always read this as "Professor" and my eyes light up! Ooh someone made...and then, oh..it's not...but...still looks cool! :-)

With the #DiGRA26 deadline coming up I hope this meme isn't true for everyone! www.digraconference2026.com

"Every system has an opinion" -> #truth

ECONOMICS GAMES ARE NOT ABOUT MONEY AND I CAN PROVE IT BY SHOWING THIS ALIEN BABY ABSOLUTELY BEEFING IT AND LOSING ALL AUTONOMY AND LIVELIHOOD IN SPACE WARLORD BABY TRADING SIMULATOR.

I GROW MORE NORMAL BY THE DAY.

Grey matter. It's all grey matter...you know, wisdom and stuff...