thematic mechanic
Thursday, April 17th, 2008I know we’re all busy, so I’m not going to continue flogging the design challenge horse, but I do want to continue the conversation started in this weeks podcast. Specifically, I want to address the unspoken question, “Gee, Corvus. This theme ‘n’ metaphor stuff is neat and all, but what does it have to do [...]
podcast: Thematic Game Design
Monday, April 14th, 2008Man Bytes Blog, Episode #4: Today’s podcast delivers a twisted retelling of Jorinda & Joringel, a brief recap of the the last week of posts on theme and metaphor and issues a game design challenge that draws upon the conversation over the last week.
Today’s podcast features Creative Commons licensed tracks from the album Instrumental Field [...]
Exploring Theme: Jorinda & Joringel
Friday, April 11th, 2008Today’s post is going to wrap up our examination of the themes of the Grimm Brother’s traditional fairy tale Jorinda and Joringel.[1] While previous posts this week have spelunked for the theme by digging into various metaphoric elements within the text, today’s post is going to attempt to weave the discovered themes into some semblance [...]
Exploring Theme: A Rose By any Other Name
Thursday, April 10th, 2008Today we continue to the exploration of the themes of Jorinda and Joringel by examining the metaphors contained within the text.[1]
We have one more major element to discuss before pulling our focus back a bit and look at the overall theme of the narrative. This element is the, “blood-red flower, in the middle of which [...]
Exploring Theme: Which Witch is Which?
Thursday, April 10th, 2008Today we continue to the exploration of the themes of Jorinda and Joringel by examining the metaphors contained within the text.[1] If you’re just joining us, I read and discussed this Grimm fairy tale in my last podcast and followed up with a post talking about the birds that appear in the story.
Having discussed the [...]
exploring theme: for the birds
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008I was tempted to start my exploration of Jorinda and Joringel* with the witch. After all, the tale begins with the witch and she’s certainly critical to the central themes. I’ve decided, however, partly in the interest of time (which I don’t have enough of today) and partly in the interest of clarity (which I [...]
When Transparency is Bad
Monday, December 17th, 2007As I’ve said in the past, I’m a huge fan of transparency. I like to know when my software is dialing home. I want to know if the informative and friendly person I run into at a convention works for the company they’re enthusiastically telling me about. I want to support a company that readily [...]
Two More Stories
Thursday, December 6th, 2007If you haven’t played either of these, do so now. Immediately. They each tell a very different sort of story and they each do it simply and exceptionally well. Both are playable under Windows, OS X and Linux. I’d recommend playing them before you read a lot about them. I’ll come back and add my [...]