Last week, the famous Montessori Method celebrated its 100th anniversary. Created by Dr. Maria Montessori, it consists of a philosophical and educational method that aims to change the way we acquire knowledge when we are kids. Today’s educational system perceives children as “adults in little bodies” and the goal of this revolutionary dogma is to [...]
Archive for the 'theory' Category
Montessori Method
June 23, 2007
Results & Competition
June 17, 2007
On my previous post, Patrick’s comment on skill gaming made me think about the nature of sports. Videogames that rely exclusively on mastering a particular set of skills, are usually considered digital sports. Such is the case of Unreal or Age of Empires that are part of digital olympic events.
The nature of skill-gaming has a [...]
Ludic Metaphors
November 10, 2005
“This game is a biting commentary on our vapid consumerism; our desire to acquire possessions at all cost. It’s about how we can only become whole people through the ownership of things. Things we don’t need or even want. We just roll over them, adding to our stature and self-worth.”
Ron Gilbert blogging on [...]
Homo Ludens and the Origin of Play
November 1, 2005
We have only to watch young dogs to see that all the essentials of human play are present in their merry gambols. They invite one another to play by a certain ceremoniousness of attitude and gesture. They keep to the rule that you shall not bite, or not bite hard, your friend’s ear. They pretend [...]
Organic Games
October 24, 2005
When I was a little kid that enjoyed playing Super Mario, I often wondered why did that world always looked the same. It’s not like our world where we have Autumn and the leaves fall from trees or Summer where everything has a brighter color. Every time the NES was turned on, all the trees, [...]
Games as Essays
October 17, 2005
There’s a literary genre that I often enjoy reading: Essays. Usually for philosophical purposes or simply to express a personal view of life and the world, this genre has a very open structure and a wide range of topics that can treat. And today, there’s no other form of expression that can do this so [...]
Realism vs. Style
September 8, 2005
“The larger question at hand, however, is perhaps unanswerable: Is the point of gaming to recreate reality, or should it go beyond realism, into the realm of art?”
An article at Slashdot debated on this issue by analyzing a very well-known game such as Zelda.
We all know how Nintendo tries to struggle against their karma [...]
Different Cultures, Different Games?
August 25, 2005
“Japan would never produce Doom 3“
Those words came from an interview IdleThumbs staff made to Ron Gilbert. And it got me thinking if afterall there’s a real cultural identity behind games.
This industry has emerged (as it inevitably should) in the rise of the digital era. That means, the era of communications where Globalization has become [...]
Defining Art Games
August 22, 2005
As its cultural impact increases, the gaming industry is starting to diversify: “Serious Games”, “Mobile Games”, “Casual Games” are some of the new categories that had emerged in the last years to use as a reference for gaming works that reflect particular ways of playing or specific uses of the game.
I would like to propose [...]
Sports from a Game Designer’s view
August 16, 2005
Western culture brought back to life during the XXth century something that seemed forgotten since the Greek times: Sports. It’s undeniable the huge cultural impact these had since the conception of the Modern Olympics by Baron Pierre du Cubertain on Athens 1896.
Sports are usually games that require the use of the body, but games after [...]
