Player agency in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Over on my other blog, Cosy Catastrophes, you’ll find a review of Ubisoft’s 2010 videogame, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. I won’t post the full article here as it’s not directly related to serious games – but there’s a paragraph at the end of the review which refers to a particular scene in which the player’s ability [...]

Designing games for children

There’s a thought-provoking article on Eurogamer today about the principles behind designing games for kids. Jonathan Smith, head of production at Traveller’s Tales and director of LEGO Star Wars, says: Play is closely related to learning. When we have fun, we’re experimenting, discovering and developing our own abilities. This is especially true for children, who [...]

GameAccessibility site launches

The AbleGamers Foundation, a West Virginia charity dedicated to information and lobbying related to disabled gamers, has launched a new site called GameAccessibility. It’s a portal for developers and researchers to share thoughts about making all games more accessible, with news updates, and is well worth a look or even signing up to get involved.

Heavy Rain and unpredictable actions

Heavy Rain is the PS3′s much-anticipated new title from director David Cage. It’s a dark serial-killer thriller with adult themes and content – and Cage claims that with this title he’s produced a new genre apart from videogames – ‘Interactive Drama’.