Spent some time today with @volko.bsky.social’s Coast Watchers, published by @gmtgames.bsky.social. This has all of Volko’s trademarks but some new twists, hidden info, full solitaire support, and beautiful production. Preorder here with a discount: www.gmtgames.com/p-1102-coast...
Label on mesh bag that says: “Life is hard, enjoy soft! Simple and not simple.”
Sage life advice on the shopping bag included with my 4-year old’s outdoor play-kitchen built last night.
Simple and not simple indeed.
Just put in a CSU bookstore textbook order to use Maurice Suckling's (@writegameread.bsky.social) Paper Time Machines in my Fall 2026 International Relations Game Design course. Game on!
www.routledge.com/Paper-Time-M...
There is absolutely a modern retelling of Gogol’s ‘Dead Souls’ waiting here to break out.
I think Eklund might say those two are aligned and then say something like you can’t make a Western Chauvinist omelet without breaking some eggs, but that’s pure speculation on my part!
You can play Pax Ren and have theocracy take over, which is counter to Eklund’s thoughts on West’s supremacy, but this is always framed as counter-factual and does little to alter Eklund’s larger ideological arguments. He makes grand arguments and you play only a sliver of the history discussed.
Tried to address this in my 2017 critique of Pax Renaissance; while it allows outcomes that differ from ideology in rulebook/footnotes, periodization of the design abstracts outcomes produced by the model and mitigates/obscures them with Eklund’s reckoning of history reallifemag.com/period-piece/
“You’re still gonna be drippy”
You can have your puddles, we just need to tax the flood.
Taste in music is a signature signpost for subjectivity in our capitalist system, but only if it feels ‘authentic’ because authenticity is a coping mechanism for the mimetic sameness imposed by capital. Threatening that authenticity unleashes violent potentials embedded in mimetic acts à la Girard.
The hands clasping meme with “Geese was a psyop” on the left, “Rene Girard” on the right, and “Exposing the violent potential of mimesis” in the middle.
Taste in music is a signature signpost for subjectivity in our capitalist system, but only if it feels ‘authentic’ because authenticity is a coping mechanism for the mimetic sameness imposed by capital. Threatening that authenticity unleashes violent potentials embedded in mimetic acts à la Girard.
30 years ago today, Principal Skinner purchased fast food to disguise as his own cooking at an unforgettable luncheon with Superintendent Chalmers.
#TheSimpsons episode “22 Short Films About Springfield” first aired April 14, 1996.
Don’t Look Up (2021)
or, alternatively,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Yeah, that was a blast from the past. I helped play test Fire in the Lake and other COIN games. Fire is probably my second favorite, with A Distant Plain taking the crown for me.
Ha, I recognize that image of Fire in the Lake
I’m actually going to send you this list on Discord as I don’t want to ramble on in 280 character chunks, ha.
A picture of some board games.
I’m making an order for strategy games and historical war games for some research I’m doing. What recommendations do people have for interesting stuff? (deep cuts appreciated) (image for attraction)
I can get you a list during my lunch break, no problem!
What is your cutoff date for published historical wargames? Stuff before 2000?
Gilded Pinions card from Streets of New Capenna set in Magic: the Gathering. Costs two colorless mana. Artifact — Equipment When this Equipment enters, create a Treasure token. (It’s an artifact with “{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.”) Equipped creature has flying. Equip {2} ({2}: Attach to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery.)
Gilded Pinions has been a go-to in my non-green decks. Checks a lot of boxes: is an artifact, makes a token on etb, provides temporary ramp, and gives your threats evasion (or a chump blocker the ability to chump in the air).
GNOSIS casting pearls before swine, am I right?
Event flyer that says: "INFINITE POSSIBILITY: The Speculative Potential of Games SPEAKER: DR. CAMERON KUNZELMAN RESPONDENT: DR. TERRENCE SCHENOLD MAY 21ST 5-7PM, PIGOTT 103 Science fiction and video games grew up together, and together they are the dominant genres and media forms of the current moment. This talk addresses some of the recent forms of speculation that digital and tabletop games have grabbed onto, thinking through what it means to develop narrative and coherent media objects in a world where the world feel less coherent, and more fragile, than it ever has before."
Very excited to be hosting @ckunzelman.bsky.social at Seattle U next month. Stop by if you're in the area!
Also, only a society so in love with gambling would call what is essentially a slot machine word producer “AI.”
I think my favorite part of “AI” being crammed into everything is that recommendations for how to “better write” my emails in Gmail come up before it tells me if I misspelled a word (if it does at all!) and, honestly, that is the perfect metaphor for “AI” in general.
Here's the link to the free pdf of my new book The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet. Access is so important and I'm grateful that the press is platforming it as one file that is easy to download. www.upress.umn.edu/978081669906...
Four images depicting board game prototypes. Two show hex boards, one a map with roads, and one a spiral tracking war stage.
First student prototypes of the year! From civilian resilience to evacuation to Klaipėda Revolt of 1923. A great start, looking forward to see how they develop in the coming months.
Getting inevitably closer to the US Government announcing that interest in AI is ‘too big to fail’ and all these grossly insolvent companies will be bailed out by taxpayer money.
