a game for all ages

Before the press conferences of the Big Three at E3 2006, TIME magazine explains why Nintendo’s strategy for success is “don’t listen to your customers”. And given the anticipation for their revolutionary new console, it seems to be working.

Stickhandlers

For many of us, the first thing we learned to draw was Homo Anorexia: the Stick Figure. A circle, a few straight lines, and there it was: a shaky but recognizable approximation of the human body. The Stick waltzed into our games (hangman), the surreptitious notes we passed […]

Blow Em Up Real Good

Clive Thompson decides to raise hell: “Let us talk openly about how just totally awesome it is to grab a fully loaded railgun in Quake 4 and wade into a mass of gibbering Strogg aliens and kill and kill and kill again, until there are guts on, like, […]

Turok Comic

A scathing/affectionate look back at some insanely cheesy Turok comics from the 1990s: “They crash-land in the Lost Land, naturally. There the survivors are attacked by dinosaurs, kidnapped by telepathic aliens with sharp sticks, and menaced by a huge shapeshifting monster made of flesh-melting goo. It is awesome.”

Tundra Horror

I see writing for kids as one of the most difficult creative tasks to do well. How to judge what might appeal to a younger audience? How to make the tone convincing yet not condescending? The difficulties seem multiplied when you add horror to the mix. It intensifies […]