I’m thrilled to announce my new book: Designing a Feel for the Game: A Guide to Making Play Meaningful ($34.99USD). After a decade teaching critical game design to aspiring game designers I’ve collected those lessons into this applied, accessible book. Link & discount code below!

I’m thrilled to announce my new book: Designing a Feel for the Game: A Guide to Making Play Meaningful ($34.99USD). After a decade teaching critical game design to aspiring game designers I’ve collected those lessons into this applied, accessible book. Link & discount code below!

The No ICE in Minnesota Charity Bundle has officially LAUNCHED! There are 1,439 games to discover for a $10+ donation to Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota! Purchase the bundle here: itch.io/b/3484/no-ic...

Some quotes from the first peer review for my upcoming book—Designing a Feel for the Game: A Guide to Making Play Meaningful: “Erudite, witty, passionately ethical, & deeply practical in all the best ways.” “A critical intervention into how we think, talk, & feel about games in society.”

Some quotes from the first peer review for my upcoming book—Designing a Feel for the Game: A Guide to Making Play Meaningful: “Erudite, witty, passionately ethical, & deeply practical in all the best ways.” “A critical intervention into how we think, talk, & feel about games in society.”

Oh. My. God. Chomsky talking about the 'hysteria' that has developed about the abuse of women and giving Epstein advice on how to handle the media. In 2019. The Media studies discipline and much of the left should reflect on the power given to this one flawed man to shape generations of thought.

Name them shame them

Untitled - Saskatchewan Winter Robert Newton Hurley 1969

I made a filterlist for uBlock Origin to remove Generative AI features on websites. Includes blocks for * Google AI Summaries * YouTube Ask button & chat summaries * GitHub Copilot * Facebook AI chat * X's Grok buttons * Deviantart DreamUp * Booru AI images * And more github.com/Stevoisiak/S...

Hollywood producer Barry Josephson to Jeffrey Epstein: “I've been thinking a lot about that question that you asked bill gates 'how do we get rid of poor people as a whole'"

Vibe coding is working as expected: it'll kill the open-source, secure, and ideologically maintained alternatives to make sure you have to pay the oligarchs to do anything at all, and they can control what you're allowed to make. www.404media.co/vibe-coding-...

This talk came about through a recent article of mine "Hello, Worlds: A Ludic Theory of Cognition" which is online and open-access if you're curious: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The fine folks at Berkeley's Embodied Design Research Lab invited me to talk about my research on ludic cognition. It was a fun, lively discussion and you can watch here ✌️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE_w...

Very interesting🧵by @stevewilcox.bsky.social on the benefit that gamification can bring to help people better understand diseases and the need to adapt their behaviors when risks are high. 🎯👇 threadreaderapp.com/thread/18925...

Juno turned 13 this past week and despite all that time she still sees me off every day with the saddest look imaginable 😅 (bonus Pixel content here; he comes out for scritches whenever I sit down to put my boots on).

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

For the past decade we were told canceling events at colleges over private protests was the harbinger of totalitarianism but now a right wing government is doing it so it’s fine bsky.app/profile/adam...

This is a splendid piece of writing by @edwinet.bsky.social. He really is one of the best at this. www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-gamergat...

This is also why we have been fighting against the notion that STEM is rational, objective, and truth-based. Technology exists within the same constellation of structural forces as everything else. It has and can be wielded to oppress and destroy.

Krugman says the editors at the Times editorial page were increasingly trying to water down his columns and arguments www.cjr.org/analysis/pau...

Collaborating with @rin-krichilsky.bsky.social and Kanako Shimizu, we put together what's basically a top-ten list of ways to help foster trans inclusivity and awareness within our scientific and academic communities and would love if you could help share the guide!

That time when I wrote this seven and one half years ago

Hey! #PortfolioDay I'm a freelance artist working in video games and tabletop! I'd love to illustrate your characters, creatures, or items, and make bespoke iconography for your game. My commission queue is clearing up soon! 💌[email protected] #uiart #ui #gamedev #illustration #gameart #ttrpg

Something disability justice activists have been screaming about for the last five years and some of you may just now be realizing: eugenicists believe disease is good. They believe themselves part of the “superior” race and that disease clears out the poor and unworthy. 1/

May as well dive right in. Did you know that dogs in ancient Mesopotamia also refused to drop the ball? According to a Sumerian proverb, “The dog understands ‘Take it!’ It does not understand ‘Put it down!’” Source: cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/34...

Preparing my academic self (as best I can) for the next four years. danielgillis.wordpress.com/2025/01/23/t...

Do you know how awesome it would be to take this course with Dr. Tilley?! In my undergrad, these were the kinds of courses that truly broadened my experience of art/life/society. To me, they're the lifeblood of higher ed and they're absolutely worth fighting for.

My department is hiring TWO assistant teaching professors of media studies! This is a great opportunity for people who are passionate teachers eager to explore new approaches to cultivating media literacy among diverse students. Learn more & apply here: jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

"[Musk's grandfather] was all about dog-whistle politics. He wouldn’t say ‘Jew,’ but he’d say everything short of it. He knew what he was saying, and his base knew what he was saying" - Janine Stingel, a historian of anti-Semitism in Canada. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Now in paperback! 📕 My contributor’s copy of “Playthrough Poetics: Gameplay as Method” in colourful glory! Mess with somebody’s computer clock today, in honor of us ⏰

Wrote about Stalker 2's abandoned men for @bulletpointsvg.bsky.social: bulletpointsmonthly.com/2025/01/22/t...

Presented without comment, just a deep tiredness

Genre studies of games are mostly stuck on early 2000s formalism. These 2 companion volumes push game studies toward understandings of games as 'equipment for living' and genres as located in the social and cultural conditions of their production and consumption. Coming Summer 2025!

Some fascinating things happening on Reddit. 22,000 upvotes on the subreddit dedicated to posting pictures of houses that are over 100 years old.

Just finished up a draft of a white paper studying game jams, so it seemed like a good time to re-share "If You Don't Like the Game, Change the Rules!" @omarieclaire.bsky.social and I collaborated on this project about Canadian worker co-ops and unions. michaeliantorno.com/if-you-dont-...

I'm teaching Ethics for Game Design this term where our major project is to create print-&-play expansion packs to existing games that add ethical reflection. Operation in a for-profit healthcare system? Risk but you're saving civilians caught in the crossfire? Read on for last year's expansions!

got frustrated with how hard it was to find old level design talks, so I started a "recommended talks" page on the level design book book.leveldesignbook.com/appendix/res... (still many talks missing, but it's a start)

Actual pro tip: the best way to break into any creative profession is by helping to support and advance other creators. Your peers are not your adversaries. They are your support group.

I've updated my personal Itch page with my hacks and experimental games (because some of the websites I used to host them on are deteriorating). michaeliantorno.itch.io

Pleased to say that after a short in-class exercise, I once again have 100% mask compliance in my courses. Every classroom is different, but we play The Long COVID Game, review the science on Long COVID + the efficacy of N95 masks, and every gets a free mask 👍 www.helloworlds.ca/the-long-cov...

🧵 With my article on ludic cognition out in the world, I wanted to shed some light on where the theory comes from. The project emerged out of my doctoral research into the use of autobiographical media to help us make sense of the world as other people do, what’s called social cognition.

Freud believed that infants understand their shit as a gift their parents welcome. Students who think AI improves their work suffer from a similar misapprehension: that we care about what they have produced rather than being pleased that they themselves have managed to produce it.

461 employees at ZeniMax Online Studios have unionized

My open access article "Hello, Worlds: A Ludic Theory of Cognition" is out today in Games & Culture 🎉 Drawing on a wide array of sources, I make the case that cognition is inherently ludic & enactive, meaning both game & world are brought forth through play. 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Are you in Toronto this weekend? Drop by Little Ghosts Books tomorrow at 1pm for the launch of Emily Flynn-Jones’ debut short story collection Is It Enough Yet? 🥳

as a gamer ive eliminated thousands of moo deng like creatures for their various parts . Ive completed countless quests using their pain

The Onion should buy Elsevier next

You still have eight days left to get your hands on a free e-book copy of LET THIS RADICALIZE YOU. I read the book earlier this year and ended up taking tons and tons of notes. (Yes, I loved it that much.) More info here (via @haymarketbooks.bsky.social). www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/517-te...