Eric Berne: Games People Play

A seminal, very useful book is turning 50 this coming year. Published in 1964, and the best selling non-fiction book of the 1960s, Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne introduced Transactional Analysis, which looked closely at human relationships. He opted to study interaction as transaction, since he said we communicate to get something out […]

The economy of gaming

Jesse Schell, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, presented “Design Outside the Box” at the DICE Summit 2010, held February 17-19, hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. I found it through Ze Frank. First Schell explains how the new generation of online games work. He explains how surprised game designers are that non-traditional […]

Zap targets bullying among boys and girls

Zapdramatic is an interactive roleplaying game series for practicing and discussing communicative behavior. Michael Gibson, the mastermind behind the series, is planning a slow reveal of his relaunched Zap site. He wrote to me that they are “looking for new users to help support our new projects.” I’m a member of Zapdramatic because it gets […]

Lost on games or just sold on Zapdramatic?

All you need to feel like an old fart is to spend a few hours spread over a few days trying to imagine what learners of English could get out of playing online games. This is really quite hard for me,  just learning to move around and react to virtual surroundings makes me feel like […]

Blogwichtl aka Secret Santa

I found the following very charming “Secret Santa” or “Wichtel” in my in-box. Thank you so much, Unknown Wordler and Help-Shift-Happener (and thank you, Hollemann, for running the show): Liebe Anne, or should I say dear Anne? Your lovely Blogwichtel war ja schon ein bisschen estonished, als mir Dein Blog – I have to admit […]

Looking for online game plugins: Hangman and crossword

Hello, game builder. I’m looking for two very nice open source plugins for games to build into our CMS. I’ve seen Crossword Compiler, which would be perfect (fresh look, a pdf printout version and a user-friendly interface) if it didn’t cost €1500. Can anyone provide or recommend games for less (like: much less), at least […]

Escape Christmas

We can’t escape Christmas, can we? Wait, maybe we can, by staying locked in this room. Try this game from Silke’s email advent calendar. And tell me if you find a way out 😉