@uminnpress.bsky.social has the blurbs for The Impossible Reversal on their site ( www.upress.umn.edu/978151791622... ). I'm honored to have the amazing and generous Amy Ogata and Aaron Trammell as readers!

I'm in here!

Another Fluxus game that I talk about in The Impossible Reversal (www.upress.umn.edu/978151791622...) is Yoko Ono's HIDE-AND-SEEK PIECE, which reads: Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies.

The editorial board of Press Start invites book reviews for its upcoming regular issues! - Word count: 1200-1500 - Deadline: 31 January 2026 More information in the thread, and please see the attached image for the list of available books for review:

In my upcoming book, I look at experimental games by Fluxus artists. These have been touchstones for game studies scholars like Mary Flanagan and Ian Bogost, but usually only in a cursory way. I thought it might be fun to take a look at a couple of examples. www.upress.umn.edu/978151791622...

I've been editing the page proofs for my forthcoming game studies book, The Impossible Reversal (coming out in Feb with @uminnpress.bsky.social). I'm starting to get pretty excited! The table of contents turned out to be pretty enticing, no?

Dr. Krista-Lee Malone is live streaming with some of the finalists for the GEE! Learning Game Awards on twitch. Tune in here: www.twitch.tv/gameranthro

A true horror; a choice to know, discover, and inspire less. A victory for the reaction. An assault on our youths and future.

The cover for my upcoming book, The Impossible Reversal, is up on UP Minnesota's website! Super thrilled by this design. (you can pre-order it there as well). www.upress.umn.edu/978151791622...

I believe they call this "finding out" arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

You can read my testimonial on the KS page, but I *loved* BFF! The Golden Years and I'm so excited to see it in this finely aged version 💖

So Codenames (and thus CGE) has blocked me, a Trans developer and designer, because I had the nerves to send them the two replies you find below. Judge for yourself if these are worth a ban. This is their way of dealing with empathy and care in this ongoing conversation.

hi nerds! i released a new #ttrpg today. COLDBLOODS is a 3-5 player game about mercurial vampires. drink the blood of humans to gain their knowledge, be physically changed by your monstrous actions, and maybe - if you're lucky - earn the respect of your ancient family.

And now the more experimental batch! First is a proof of concept called Line: A 1D Platformer. It represents height by color--gray scale for platforms and blue--red for objects and enemies. When you jump you shift hues, which reorients the player to the temporal rather than spatial aspects. (13/17)

I feel some pride in the growing number of platformers made with GBStudio and my tool PlatformerPlus. For instance, Kero Kero Cowboy. So many frog avatars in my lists. This one has Kirbyish spunk combined with levels designed to coherently push one or another aspect of movement.

There have been a couple of big releases this year. I've been following the Siege and the Sandfox for a while (partly because it uses Unreal). It is a stealth metroidvania with a few really spectacular moments. But ultimately its narrative, visuals, movement play the same note too often. (8/17)

A couple of micro-trends that I mentioned in my wrap up from last year continue. The momentum platformer had a strong showing in SeaFrog, which elegantly combines skating and traditional platforming. It piles on style, and makes many thoughtful design choices (esp. with enemies). (2/17)

When I wrote Run and Jump (direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...) I thought that airing my thoughts on 2D platformers would let me take some distance from the genre. Actually, it has only made me pay closer attention to new releases. So, I thought I'd share what I've seen so far this year.(1/17)

Has anyone build an easy AI scraper poison pill? Something that would add a bunch of garbage data that is invisible to human users but visible to crawlers?

The End of Gameplay is out RIGHT NOW! My masterpiece. A pixel art adventure through my mind, broken by kill gameplay 🔪 love, droqen store.steampowered.com/app/3120040/...

LOOK AT THIS

Submissions for the 2025 GEE! Awards are now open. There are categories for formal learning, informal learning, analog games, and games by small studios. I've judged the analog games in past years and love seeing the variety and experimentation that people develop. www.geeawards.com

I just learned the exciting hack that you can prevent Google’s AI from showing up at the top of your results by including a curse word, which has given me the perfect excuse to start every query with “fucking.”

In another of the year's in-depth Q&As, @nothingunfinished.bsky.social spoke with UW-Madison professor @pdmcdonald.bsky.social in August about his book "Run And Jump: The Meaning Of The 2D Platformer" tonemadison.com/articles/fun...

Some love from (and for) The Video Game Library

(37/?) Ending my list with some oddballs. My favorite platformer of 2024 was Goodboy Galaxy. It gives the player three tools--a gun, a shield, a jump--but charts multiple paths per level by stripping one of the three. A total surprise, inventive and charming, with Mario 64 as my closest referent.

(27/?) Continuing my year of platformers in 2024 with some smaller games from itch.io. First up is Frogfall, a game about planning out a series of jumps without landing. It gets a lot of depth and variation out of that simple idea. kultisti.itch.io/frogfall

Saw this useful set of block/mute lists in my feed, thought it would be helpful to share. bsky.app/profile/skys...

(14/?) UFO 50 was an amazing gift this year, with several platformers that deserve mention. It imagines a forgotten console from the 1980s with 50 original games. That context makes allows a return to abandoned styles of arcade and couch co-op gaming, while incorporating modern design sensibilities.

Just saw that Indie Games Plus is back up and running. Thrilled to see this coverage of smaller games indiegamesplus.com And a great thing to support on Patreon.

(9/?) Another type of metroidvania this year has roots in the work of @nifflas.bsky.social (I think). The gnomic creatures of Animal Well remind me of Knytt Stories, and its electric palette of Uurnog. Its secrets are not so much demands to collect stuff as whispers that get under your skin.

(6/?) Continuing coverage of my year in 2024 platformers. Hollow Knight continues to dramatically shape the current landscape. With one of the best being the beautifully drawn precision combat game Nine Sols. However this game has no chill. There is nary an enemy that lets you stop paying attention.

Hello to the new folks on here! Earlier this year I published a book on 2D platformers, with an open access version you can get here: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254739... Despite being around since the early 80s, the genre is still evolving every year. Let me recap some of what I loved in 2024 (1/?).

"Tenure's gone" at the University of Florida. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Grant Phipps at Tone Madison magazine recently interviewed me for a write up about my new game studies book, Run and Jump. Take a look! tonemadison.com/articles/fun...

I sat down with @ranjodh.bsky.social and Pippin Barr to talk about our recent books in the @mitpress.bsky.social Playful Thinking Series: vimeo.com/994129943 If you're inspired to grab Run and Jump, you can find it in paper-back and open access: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254739...

The new Game Studies theme issue of Configurations is out! Thanks Ed Chang and Ashlee Bird for your editorial shepherding. Chris Carloy, @juliannegrasso.bsky.social, and I have a conversation about the merits of 2D platformers as academic objects. muse.jhu.edu/issue/52328

I had the great pleasure to talk to @pdmcdonald.bsky.social for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about his new book "Run and Jump" (MIT Press). newbooksnetwork.com/run-and-jump 🎙️ ... I might add that this is indeed the 100th episode at: newbooksnetwork.com/category/spe... 🎂 #gamestudies #podcast

"So, if the projections by these agencies range from weak growth to stability to very slight decline, why are administrators preaching cliffs, crises, and cuts?"

Submissions for Play Make Learn close on the 18th. Come hang out in Madison to talk about games, libraries, arts education, maker spaces, and much else! web.cvent.com/event/513f1d...

I got my physical copy of Run and Jump in the mail, and I am thrilled with the GameBoy greens. Thank you @mitpress.bsky.social and @springer.bsky.social! Looking forward to hearing my #gamestudies folks thoughts about it.

Only part way through Chapter 1, but really digging the structuralist lens. Just had a whole train of realization about how Bowser's ability to jump / control gravity (which has increased exponentially over the series) is a core part of what makes such him an effective foil to Mario.

Run and Jump is out in the world! You can grab it from the MIT bookstore, or read it through their open access portal here: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon... I hope you all enjoy it!

'Masocore' is a platformer subgenre, but one where the jargon isn't so helpful. It accurately describes games with intentionally sadistic design elements, such as the tricks in I Wanna Be the Guy (2007). However, it is applied too broadly for any difficult game. I think we can get more specific.

The other day, I mentioned the sub-genre of arena platformers. These are tense and hilarious local multiplayer games, with quick matches and frantic outcomes. They also differ from arcade platformers because players traverse space in undirected ways while pursuing foes, as in Bubble Bobble (1986).

There is a micro-genre of stealth 2D platformers with only a handful of representatives. But, these games dramatically change the meaning of 2D space. Ground that usually a resource for propelling movement becomes mottled with risk. Katana Zero (2019) constantly oscillates between these two views.

Let's talk about metroidvanias! I prefer that awkward portmanteau over the more generic 'adventure platformer' because it points to an intersection between the close and slow combat of Castlevania and the acrobatic gunning of Metroid. It leaves out the chaos of Kid Icarus (1986) though.

There are many sub-genres of the 2D platformer. Some of the most recognized include the hop-and-bop (mario-like), metroidvania, run-and-gun, puzzle-platformer, infinite runners, roguelike platformers, and cinematic platformers. This week I'm going to explore aspects of these sub-genres and others.

Run and Jump is out in one month! It's a book for game studies folks, game designers, casual players, people who teach design, humanities folks who want to integrate games into their classes, and more. You can pre-order on @mitpress.bsky.social store: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254739...

To round out this week of indie platforming designers who have been shaping the genre for decades, here is Edmund McMillen. All his games share the feeling of wounded petulant child confronting a barren hostile landscape. Within those worlds, McMillen polishes one or two game mechanics to a point.