Flipping through my Latin dictionary, I came across a fun new word: fulgidus. It means flashing or shining. That entertained me for a moment, then I decided I might be hungry and considered making a sandwich. I didn't, though. Too bad. Sandwiches are good. Now that you've learned a Latin word and have contemplated what kind of sandwich I wanted to make, you've earned a few good games to ease your troubled mind.

Another quick update to mention that Kim JongHwa's captivating new puzzle game, Rooms, has just been updated again with the final, debugged version (v1.2) with all 14 levels playable. All links contained in our review from a couple of days ago point to the latest version.

We had another great poker night on Saturday, and I have another set of winners to report. The tournaments were a lot smoother this week thanks to the handy registration form I threw together for our weekly event. Players sign-up by entering their Triplejack username and a special code we give out just before the tournaments begin, and then a table number is assigned. We'll do it just like this again on Saturday, and this week's tournaments will begin promptly at 3PM Eastern (GMT-5:00).

A quick update to mention that the Experimental Gameplay Project has announced the theme of their new competition running now through February 19th. And the theme is "attraction" in honor of Valentine's Day, coming soon to a sweetheart near you.

One of the most innovative casual games of 2006, flOw, is breathtaking both as a game and as a work of art. The concept, the environment, the gameplay, and of course the music all come together to create an atmosphere that feels immeasurably deep to the senses. I recently caught up with Austin Wintory, the composer for the music in flOw, and got to take a behind-the-scenes peek at the creative process behind the sounds in the game.

The poker tables in our private Triplejack lounge will open up early today with tournaments beginning at Noon Eastern time. In addition to the usual prizes we have Virtual Villagers games, and a grand prize drawing to be held in May for a brand new Nintendo DS!

What's that? A totally new version of Eets for the Xbox 360 Live Arcade? You may now celebrate. With enough extras and bonuses to almost consider it a sequel, Eets: Chowdown has been molded to fit the Xbox 360 interface like a glove. Expect tons of new items, puzzles and features such as single-system multiplayer, all enshrined by gorgeous HD graphics. Swoon!

The recent news that Capcom's critically acclaimed hit, Okami, would be ineligible for awards this year from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, because of Capcom's refusal to pay membership fees to the organization, has been met with harsh criticism from the developer calling into question the credibility or value of awards that require developers to pay a fee to be considered.

Wow! Another amazing poker night last night, but not without a few bumps as we experienced more interest than ever before. Although I was too busy for frequent head counts, I estimate we had close to 100 simultaneous players in our private Triplejack lounge(!)

Just a reminder that today (Saturday) is JIG Poker Night! And just as we have been doing for the past few weeks, we'll be running a series of tournaments this evening in our own private Triplejack lounge for chances to win fabulous prizes! Up for grabs again this week: Eets games, one month of Triplejack Power Player, one deck of Triplejack playing cards, and one JIG Casual Gameplay t-shirt. But that's not all. The champion of tournaments will be entered into a drawing for a ginormous, as-of-yet undisclosed grand prize.

A plate of gaming; Waits for your select tasting; Is it sweet or sour? The best of the best; Will be treated to review; And the rest will rest. And without any further ado, we bring you another Link Dump Friday!

Yahoo! Mail Ultimate Championship Games is a series of four short mini-games created to promote the improved Yahoo! webmail service in the UK. Each one has a distinct e-mail theme and is incorporated in a slick, nighttime gameshow-like style complete with videos and a futuristic neon-purple interface. Master the surprisingly entertaining mini-games while accidentally learning about Yahoo! Mail's new features.

Another successful Poker Night saw lots of people here on hand for our weekly tournament of tournaments. There were just a couple minor hiccups in the very beginning with the initial mad rush to enter the first couple of tourneys, but after that it was smooth sailing through to the final table.

The poker tables in our private Triplejack lounge will again open up today at 3PM (GMT-5:00). Please come join us for some Texas Hold'em poker fun, have a few laughs with us and friends, perhaps win some prizes, and enjoy lots and lots of pies!

JIG Poker Night keeps getting bigger and better. Yesterday saw a record number of simultaneous players in our private JIG Triplejack poker lounge, and we even awarded some of the lucky ones with prizes to take away from the event.

It's that time again... JIG Poker Night! (RWAR!) Fun was had by all last week at our first poker night with (at its peak) 50 simultaneous players logged into our private Triplejack lounge playing across five separate tables and tournaments. And today there will likely be even more players, so come join in the fun!

Help save these innocent poker players from certain banana doom! We've checked them for color but who knows if the inside is truly delicious? Check out these selections from our quite frequent submissions to select which ones, if any, deserve an authentic JIG Review!

Have you ever thought it would be fun to do some voice acting for a game and have your voice heard by millions of people? Well here is your chance! Ben Leffler is hard at work on the third installment of his famously good horror genre point-and-click game, Exmortis, and he needs your help.

Come join us for some Jayisgames Texas Hold'em Poker fun in our own private Triple Jack lounge this Saturday evening (tonight) beginning at 7:00PM EST (GMT-5:00). All you need is a Triple Jack account (it's absolutely FREE) to play with us. Depending on how well these go we are likely to have a weekly poker night, and perhaps even have special tournaments for fabulous prizes. So grab your virtual chips and a chair and come have fun with us at JIG Poker Night!

Wooty tooty flip-bam-booty! We hosted our 2nd Flash Game Design Competition! Yes, the type of entry we were looking for was the same as what we called for during our first competition. The simple puzzle idea proved to be an excellent choice, and we have over a dozen excellent games now to choose from. Congratulations to Sprout and Gateway II for taking home the prizes valued at over $2000!!

After much deliberation and talking amongst ourselves, the JIG collective has come up with its picks for the Best of Casual Gameplay 2006 and published the results, along with the voting results from you. It wasn't easy, and we did the best we could considering there were more games reviewed here last year than any one person could have played.

The nominations for this year's Best of 2006 awards are now up and the virtual voting booths have officially opened! We'll be taking your votes for the next several days up until the dawning of the new year when we present the very best in casual gameplay that we enjoyed throughout 2006. Play along or just browse through the nominations and relive those cherished moments from the year.

Winter is here Family coming into town The snow keeps falling not making a sound That's not really true This is all a lie I live in Florida I'm going out of town This link dump is quite short So please, Don't frown

The irresistible webtoy Line Rider has returned, now in a delicious "beta 2" flavor! The update fixes a few rough spots in the interface and adds some much-needed tools to the mix. Those of you already hooked on Line Rider will appreciate how much easier it is to create a masterpiece with the new additions, and first-time players will see just what all the fuss is about.

BrainBall is a collection of ten smart-making puzzle games that give your gray matter a workout every day of the month. Featuring logic, number, memory, spatial orientation and many more, BrainBall keeps the same types of games for one month but changes the content every day. Not only is your score kept and compared to other BrainBallers, but you can uh... what's that called? Learn! You can learn, too!

SissyFight 2000 is a free online multiplayer shockwave game that lets you take part in a good old fashion schoolyard tease-fest. Take your slandering skills to the playground and whittle down the self-esteem of the other girls by using scratches, grabs, teases, tattles and more. The game plays out in a series of rounds and works a lot like a complex version of rock-paper-scissors. The only difference is the loser of this game runs off crying.

Introducing the HELP SQUAD! You'll find a new menu option on every page titled "Help Squad" that when clicked will slide open a portion of the page where the 20 most recent comments posted to the site will be displayed. My hope is that people will enlist themselves and offer to help those strugging with a game by checking the comments posted to the Help Squad frequently. Now with LIVE update!

Welcome, to the end of another week and the beginning of a sweet, sweet weekend. Here at the JIG Studios you may know us for our handy game submission suggestion form. It's easy, it's convenient, and it doesn't work with Netscape (and who does?). What you may not know is how we sort through all your nasty little submissions to find the shining gems of casual gameplay goodness.

Perfect for the impending holiday season, It's a Wonderful Internet is an interactive narrated storybook. Take in some soothing music as you listen to a classic holiday tale (tongue-in-cheek style) about a geek whose life is a little too dependant on the internet. Flip through the pages and interact with the scenery, and when the narration ends move your cursor around the pictures for some nice surprises.

If you've been sitting on the fence wondering if you should buy Eets, this should push you right over the top. Klei Entertainment has announced they're cutting the price of the refreshingly unique puzzle game Eets in half. How does $9.95 sound for a game that was named "Casual Game of the Year" by GameTunnel? There's no shortage of praise for the g...

Remember that amazingly good platformer, Mission in Snowdriftland, we mentioned last week? The one that was organized like an advent calendar and sponsored by Nintendo? (If you didn't you should play it immediately after reading this) Well, Casual Gameplay contributing author, Thomas, had a chance to catch up with the developers, extra toxic, as both he and the company are located in Germany. Here is a translation of what Christiane had to say of the company and their work...

Get Hostile is an abstract strategy game based on the board game Acquire. Like most great strategy games of its kind, Get Hostile packs an enormous amount of possibilities into surprisingly few rules. The object is simple: finish with the most money. However, there are many ways to do this, and not every strategy fits every game.

As the US prepares for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I have my own chores to do in preparation for a house full tomorrow with family and friends. Therefore, unless one of the other contributing authors comes through with a review to post, things will likely be quiet around here until Friday. But be sure to check back just in case.

As those of us that played the original await the coming of Virtual Villagers 2 (sometime this Winter), you can get your fill of some news about what's in store for your little islanders by visiting Gamezebo and reading the Developer's Diary they have up about it.

VH1 Game Break currently has a promotional contest running, Digging for DS, in which you can win yourself a DS (yes, the DS is still cool even with the imminent release of the Wii). Just head on over there and do yourself a little digging through the archives for your chance to win!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the BBC has just 'opened the flood gates' to CDX for a limited time to iron-out and debug issues with its technology that restricts access to UK IP addresses only. Therefore, this may be your last chance to play the game if you live outside the UK.

You know the feeling when you return from the restroom and all your co-workers' brains have exploded, and they have all been transformed into blood-thirsty zombies, infected by an intergalactic computer virus disguised as check-this-out mail attachment? This is it.

Good news for point-and-click fans and for those that missed it the first go-round, all four episodes to CDX are once again online and available to play, even if you live outside the UK! Be sure not to miss this fantastic adventure that includes full-motion video of live actors, selectable dialog, and top-notch production values.

Adobe made available a beta version of FP9 for Linux systems a few days ago. It works pretty well with most of the flash games reviewed at your site (which often did not work with the highest version available for Linux - 7). I don't know how many of your visitors are using Linux OS but even if it is 1 out of 100 it could be nice to give them that info.

I've been playing a lot of games lately trying to find something to sink my teeth into enough to write a review for. And while some games definitely look promising, the time required to play through each one enough to write a decent review is the bottleneck for me right now. So, here are links to a couple of games I'm currently evaluating; please help me by indicating in the comments which one(s) deserve(s) a review more than the others, and why.

Alick over at Mousebreaker in the UK sends word of a Flash game development contest they are running now through the end of November. They are offering substantial cash prizes for the three (3) best games submitted. See their contest page for complete details.

We've just launched our own IRC channel, which you can get to by clicking "Chat" in the menu above. That will take you to an open source Java client and automatically log you onto the chat server being hosted at Casual Gameplay. If you prefer to use your own IRC client, then point it to irc.jayisgames.com and join channel #casualgameplay. See ya there!

The results are in from the recent Flash Forward Film Festival held in Austin, Texas, last week, and there are some exceptional items that simply should not be missed. In particular, be sure to check out the Bendito Machine, a stunning piece of work by producer, animator, and illustrator, Jossie Malis.

Just wanted to let you know that the entries are all in for Experimental Gameplay's second competition. The first competition was to create games with a "consume" theme, and the theme of this one (which is sponsored by Red Octane) is to create games that use a dance pad, but that are not dance games.

Today the wraps were taken off the remaining details regarding the launch of Nintendo's next console, Wii (pronounced "we"). Besides being available November 19th for a retail price of $249, what was even more interesting (at least to me) was word confirming that the Wii Opera Web browser would indeed support Adobe Flash(!)

Dutch website Planet Internet just published a feature article about this site including an interview that author and JIG visitor, Wouter, conducted with me over email a few weeks ago. It is all in Dutch, so reading it may be tough if English is your only language. Still, it's very flattering to see my very first interview in 'print', and I wish to thank Wouter for the exposure and for the very kind consideration of requesting the interview to begin with.

<rant>Dreamhost, why can't you give me even one complete week of uninterrupted service? And why, once you verify that one of your servers is down, does it take an hour to bring it back online again?</rant>

I took time out from playing and reviewing games today to give the Favorites feature a long overdue update. I switched the underlying technology from DHTML to Flash (8), which made cross-browser support a lot easier on me. Sorry Linux users; you will still have to use the old interface until Flash Player 9 comes out early next year.

Those wild and muy loco hombres over at VH1 Game Break are running a contest in celebration of the US release of Sony's LocoRoco for the Playstation Portable (PSP).

Judging this competition has truly been a bittersweet experience for all of us here at JIG Casual Gameplay. Sweet because we have been graced with so many wonderfully creative and original puzzle games to play. Every last one of them deserves the usual treatment we like to give around here, so look forward to seeing each game highlighted and reviewed in the days and weeks ahead.

Today we are proud to announce the Audience Prize, to be awarded to the game designer of the competition entry that receives the most votes from the JIG community. This award will be a cash prize of at least $100(!)

The next batch of entries submitted to our competition are up and available to play! Thank you kindly for leaving your comments and constructive criticisms for each of the puzzles. There are just a few left that are giving me some trouble getting them to play well with my API. Hopefully the rest will be up before the end of the day so we can concentrate on figuring out who to award these prizes to. =)

The first batch of eight (8) entries submitted are up and available to play! I think I have all the bugs worked out of the UI. I've rushed to get this up, though, so please be kind with your bug reports.

Our first ever game design competition deadline is upon us, just a little less than 12 hours away, and already I am inundated with unbelievably good, fantastic puzzle designs to sort through and choose from. Picking the best of them will certainly not be easy. I am working feverishly hard to make sure that you are able to play each and every one of the finalists, and depending upon the quantity of any last minute submissions received, I will (hopefully) have something up and playable for you over the weekend, so be sure to check back if you are as excited as I am about it! =D

Welcome to Jayisgames' Casual Gameplay, simply the best selection of (mostly) free casual games you will find on the Web today. We have been here reviewing casual games most likely longer than any other site on the Web, since 2003. We could probably claim that we were the world's first site dedicated to reviewing casual games. But I loathe to make such a self-serving statement as that.

Seems like the summer of game design competition announcements, but if you're a game designer/developer, especially one interested in Web games, there are plenty of opportunities available to earn recognition and win fabulous prizes for your efforts. The first deadline to submit entries for next year's competition is coming up: September 8th, and among the various categories offered is a Best Web Game prize of $2,500 that is up for grabs.

I just finished making a JIG Google Gadget using Google's Gadget API. The gadget displays a random selection of game icons on your Google home page, similar to what shows up in the recommended section on every page of this site. If you would like this gadget added to your Google home page, just click.

We hosted our first Flash game design competition, and what an amazing event it was! 21 creative and original puzzle games were submitted from all over the world, and just about any one of them could have walked away with one of the prizes. You simply must play every one of these games and experience the amazing quality present in each of the entries. Cheers to everyone that participated, either by submitting an entry or by playing the games submitted!

The Eets Caption Contest has come and gone and we received a deluge of great lines over the past week. Thanks to everyone for sending their creative ideas! After some serious voting and rounds of rock-paper-scissors, we finally determined the winners of the Eets Caption Contest.

A fellow graduate of RIT, John Resig, has developed an awesome little Javascript library, called jQuery, that takes much of the chore out of client-side programming and makes it fun. Learning to use jQuery took just a couple of hours and I have already rolled out the first site features that make use of it.

Today is the last day for our Eets Caption Contest! Get your entries in before 11:59 PM (GMT-4:00) tonight to be eligible for free Eets swag, including copies of the game for you and your casual gaming pals. To enter, just take a look at this image and e-mail a funny, serious or otherwise unwordly caption to EetsContest{at}jayisgames.com. One entr...

The Experimental Gameplay Project has just announced their second game design competition, and this one is going to be RED HOT! The folks at Red Octane, makers of Guitar Hero, are sponsoring this latest competition and they are looking for innovative game ideas that make use of their company's Ignition Dance Pad. Competitors are being asked to design a non-dance game that uses the pad.

Klei Entertainment, the creators of the fantabulous indie game, Eets, just turned one year old. To celebrate their anniversary we thought it would be a good idea to partner with those emotional chaps and give you a chance to show off your creativity. You just might snag a few awesome prizes if you hurry: deadline for entries is this Thursday, July 27, 2006 at 11:59 PM (GMT-4:00).

In the Calucci game you play the role of a Mr. van der Berg, a key witness in the prosecution of a ficticious mob organization, the Calucci family. In return for identifying the family's boss, Paul Calucci, you are granted protection with a new identity and residence in a community far away. Unfortunately, you no sooner get inside your new home and someone comes a knocking on the door. What will you do?

Getty Images has enlisted five artists and designers to produce 10 interactive Flash or Shockwave pieces, collectively known as 10 Ways. Each uses Getty's extensive collection of stock photography and is based around a related concept, such as light, space or transformation.

As it is a holiday today here in the US, all of the JIG reviewers are outside barbecuing and having quaint little get-togethers with friends and/or family. We'll resume things on Tuesday. Cheers! =)

Brucker writes: "Hey, anybody playing that puzzle game that links in to Lost?"

Yes, I am still here, though I am busily working on finishing up my last quarter at RIT, and for which I have just one more paper to write. Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I promise to have a couple of new reviews for you very soon. Thanks for your patience! =)

GameTrove is an online portal for independent and casual computer games. It pulls together screenshots, demos, game summaries and more into one easy to use site. Scroll through the pages and see what catches your eye, or sort the games by genre, platform, price, popularity and more. The site functions much like digg and allows you to rate and comment on games that developers have added to the database.

As mentioned a couple of days ago, the Experimental Gameplay Project has just launched their game design competition today by announcing the gameplay theme: consume. You now have two weeks to come up with a game designed and developed with that theme in mind. Games that do not follow the theme may be disqualified.

the Experimental Gameplay Project has been so successful that they are opening up the fun to anyone who wants to get involved! They are holding a 2-week game design competition to build a game based on a theme. The top 5 competitors will receive an interview with THQ's Heavy Iron Studios. One will be selected for a paid summer internship with the company.

I'm off to San Jose, California, to attend the Game Developers Conference, March 20-24. If you are planning to attend the conference and haven't already set up a time to meet with me, although my schedule is already pretty full, I would welcome the opportunity to meet in person and for a chat about games, the conference, future employment opportunities, business development, whatever.

Allen Varney has a new article up, Attack of the Parasites, in the latest issue of The Escapist online magazine where he discusses the explosive growth of the casual games market and the issues we're seeing that comes with it. He points to the rampant copying of ideas and gameplay to feed the ravenous appetite of the large game portals to shed a not-so-glamorous light on these latest dotcom darlings.

For those who just can't get enough free game play, 1Up has a new article up today from print publication Computer Gaming World listing over 100* free games in its "definitive guide to the best new free games on the Web." You could do a lot worse, I suppose, knowing the quality that usually comes from the folks over at 1-Up. *101 to be exact.

“Jayisgames.com: passionate, well-designed and knowledgeable.” One of the Top 100 Sites For the Year Ahead (2009) - The Guardian

Please help one of my RIT classmates by answering his one-question XML survey. Cheers! Update: Although I welcome any discussion about this topic in the comments, if you plan to take the short survey please wait until after you respond to read the comments. I wouldn't want anything that anyone says about it to influence your answer....

I am pleased to finally announce the arrival of the first-ever Jayisgames.com T-Shirts, available through a partnership with SpreadShirt. These fine washable-wearables come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and each one with the nice and new, spanky-brand-clean and gnarly, Classic Jayisgames.com full-name logo thingamajobber. Yessireebob.

With the rustic point-and-click adventure game, Sancho's Island, you have the opportunity to accompany Sancho and Don Quijote on their adventures—if you can help Sancho straighten out his family matters and prepare for the quest. You may even win an isle to rule, even though Sancho isn't sure what that is.

The Best of 2005 is a celebration of the best games reviewed here at Jayisgames over the past year. It is not an exhaustive list of all the best games available since we can only review the games that we come to know about. For this year's Top 10 list there are ...20 games! Yes, that's right. There were too many great games released in 2005 to narrow the list to just 10. So, without any further ado, here are the games you picked as the Best of 2005:

The Best of 2005 is a celebration of the best games reviewed here at Jayisgames.com over the past year. It is not an exhaustive list of all the best games available since we can only review the games that we come to know about. If you have a game, or are part of a team that produces them, and would like to have your game considered for a future rev...

Thanks to everyone who participated by casting votes in the Best of 2005 feature. And, after close to 20,000 votes tallied, I can say with confidence the winners this year are undisputed leaders of the pack. Look for a countdown of the top Web games of 2005 beginning sometime tomorrow (the 1st). Have a safe and happy New Year! =D...

Just a quick update to wish everyone and their loved ones a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, or whatever it is that your religion or your culture celebrates at this time of year.

Seeds of Imagination can be classified as an interactive toy; a charming diversion that doesn't seem to have any purpose other than to delight and entertain, and possibly even to educate us while we play. Create a beautiful flowing plant simply by planting a seed and 'talking' to it as it grows.

Well it's that time of year again, a time to look back over the great casual Web games we enjoyed playing throughout the year and select the very best ones for the coveted Jayisgames' Best of 2005 awards. In fact, you can help me decide which games were the very best by casting your votes now. Vote for up to 10 games that you thought were a cut above the rest, or for the ones you keep coming back to time and time again.

A fairly decent, fairly standard point-and-click game of the escape-the-room variety that is 50% hunt around to find the missing pieces, and 50% solve the puzzle with the pieces. Attic Escape will keep you busy for about 20-30 minutes, depending upon your skill level with this type of game.

Director, game designer and art director Fumito Ueda and producer Kenji Kaido, along with the rest of the development team behind ICO, have broken the mold and released, exclusively for the Playstation 2, what has become the single most original and awe-inspiring gaming experience of my life, Shadow of the Colossus...

The chips were reset for the last time today and it looks like Last Call Poker is making its last call in keeping with its namesake. I will be sad to see it go as it was a brilliant game with a great community. Kudos to 42 Entertainment and, in particular, Jane McGonigal for the phenomenal experiences being created in the area of immersive and pervasive play.

Well, the folks at the BBC are building themselves quite a reputation. All the point-and-click games they turn out are just golden. And The Seven Noble Kinsmen is no exception; possibly their best work yet. SNK is a murder mystery in six (6) acts, all of which are now available to play.

Toulouse is played with three to five human or computer players, and a well designed interface and beautiful presentation make this web-based version user friendly and highly enjoyable. The folks at AsoBrain.com have also recently added the option of playing with up to two expansions to the original board game, making this as involved a Carcassonne experience as one could hope for.

This Texas Hold'em poker game offers something a little different than most games in this category. Launched sometime in late September, Last Call Poker combines elements of alternate reality games (ARGs) and online poker tournaments to do its bidding for Activision's soon-to-be-released wild west video game, Gun.

Cheers! to USA Today for the "Hot Sites" listing in the Tech News and Web Guide section. =)

"Climb the slopes of Opniyama (yama means Japanese mountain) and take part in this interactive play while adding to your liking of the trees with the landscape! Discover the jokes of this vertical world! Direct your misadventure and hoist towards the higher plates while launching the hook!"

A game that makes excellent use of Flash video (FLV) segments to form an engaging interactive narrative, A Race Against Time puts you in the driver's seat of a brand new Saab 9-3 SportWagon on a mission to Hazard Point. What could possibly go wrong?

Picross is pixel painting for the logic minded. The recent entry for Alien in the Room: Reloaded had a puzzle in it that was called Picross. This entry is for everyone who enjoyed that puzzle. If you have also enjoyed the Sudoku and logic puzzle games, TylerK's Picross offers a visual twist.

With just 15 minutes before our final demo, the spring quarter at RIT is nearly finished. So, if you have come here in recent days looking for an update, my apologies. I had intended to post a link to our Flash point-and-click adventure "Curse of the Pharaoh" when we were finished with it. Unfortunately, it does not quite live up to my rather disc...

While I am conscious of the fact that this blog has become primarily focused on games, it is still my only outlet for publishing noteworthy items of interest. That is why, when scanning the archives, you will find a few entries on a variety of topics that have little to do with games. Add one more to that group. Late yesterday I became aware that ...

A few months ago I mentioned that I had contributed to a book written about video games. Compiled and edited by James Newman and Iain Simons, the answers to several questions about videogames were collected from people in the games industry and beyond. A few of those questions were: What is a videogame?What is gameplay?Why do you play videogames?W...

If you have experienced a problem connecting to the site within the last 36 hours, that is because there was a server failure with one of the RIT servers that hosts this site. Work continues on it today, so access is likely to be spotty at times. I apologize for any inconvenience you may experience....

Last week during Will Wright's Spore demo at GDC, he asked everyone to refrain from taking any pictures. At first, it struck me as odd that he would say such a thing since I had been snapping photos during the entire conference when there was anything noteworthy to see. However, the no photography announcement came before he admitted that the rea...

After a long week filled with events and activities, attending lectures and panel discussions on a variety of game development topics, meeting lots of people and going to several parties, I am finally back home, unpacked and rested. Although I am back in my comfortable and familiar environment, images continue to pervade my thoughts reminding me of...