Author Archives: Hayley Roder

“Why Portal?”

I am tackling the “Why Portal?” question from the two other exhibit aspects: the narrative and the popular response. πŸ™‚

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Expert v. Novice Game Players

I would categorize novice game players as players who have not spent any significant lengths of time playing video games. They are not familiar with typical game nuances, controls, sequences, or events. They do not intuitively know which buttons to … Continue reading

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Genre Starters or Cultural Artifacts?

One of the first things I noticed in the “Is That Just Some Game? No, It’s a Cultural Artifact” article was that film and video games are still closely linked, even in their historical preservation. What surprised me, then, is … Continue reading

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Atari for the iPhone/iPad!

A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook tonight, and I was really excited to see it. The emulator is a free download and comes with Pong, and you can download additional games for 99 cents. Awesome! http://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/07/ataris-greatest-hits-for-iphone-ipad-and-icade/

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Iraq Veterans, PTSD, and Video Games

I dug up an article that Professor Sample referred to in class today about Iraq veterans playing video games to help overcome PTSD. Games Help Treat Military Veterans For PTSD Interestingly, an article posted more recently suggests that veterans should … Continue reading

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Video Game Pancakes

I found this blog tonight about a dad who spends his Saturday mornings making creative pancakes for his daughter. He posts pictures of his creations, and I thought you all might enjoy seeing these. Tetris Pancakes Pac Man Pancakes   … Continue reading

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IF Characteristics–Hayley R, Meghan W, Ryan C

1) text-based 2) story 3) ambience acts 4) breaks 4th wall 5) actions limited by language/imagination

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IF “Works” as Stories, Narratives, Games

Note: this includes mild “spoilers” to the games on the syllabus, so if you haven’t played them yet or don’t want hints, wait to read my post! πŸ™‚   Montfort does a wonderful job of laying out the surprising number … Continue reading

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“Spent”

http://playspent.org/ A friend of mine posted this on Twitter over the weekend. It’s a game created by/sponsored by the Urban Ministries of Durham in Durham, NC (the town closest to Raleigh). Here’s the description of the game: We’re going to … Continue reading

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Games? Stories? Both? Neither?

I thought that Aarseth’s article regarding games as stories or texts was fascinating. He mentioned that because of the “academic discovery” of games, they have been pressured to fit into an “acceptable” form of art or literature. But why not … Continue reading

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Hayley–Seeker 2/3

When we were discussing Huzinga and Caillois in class yesterday, much of what we were talking about reminded me of this episode of The Big Bang Theory. If you are unfamiliar with the show, the gist is that these four … Continue reading

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