Wonderland

Off on holiday

Oh it's the festive season alright, and we're off to the snows.

There will be minimal coffee-shop-style postings from hereabouts, until January 4th. If any at all actually, I might even go cold turkey (BA BOOM TISH) ;-)

Happy holidays, everyone!

American McGee's Alice papercraft

Ninjatoes made this:

... and you can get the pattern here.

(via SpriteStitch)

Space Invaders guitar strap

I really like the colours the maker chose:

Super seventies, which is appropriate.

(She also spraypainted some birds onto her DS using lace from a bra as the spray mesh. And why not.)

(via Craftzine)

Metal Gear Solid 4 in Little Big Planet

I'm not quite sure what's going on here, but I think it's an official Playstation advert for MSG4 it's an MSG4 theme pack for LittleBigPlanet. Cross-promotion genius, frankly.

(Via m,appeal: always interesting)

UPDATE: Offworld knew what it was.

I'm going to bite the bullet and get a PS3 in the new year. LBP has worked its magic: rather than being a flash in the pan, I really feel like I'm missing out on something there.

Bruce's lace .. brickbat? Breakout!

Bruce Sterling spotted this lacy number (an "American Tablecloth") in a Turinese shop window.

It's clearly a game, but which one? Brick Bat? BREAKOUT! (Thanks Han!)

Sackboy Is Sick Of Being Dressed Up

Not a Happy Sacky! Anyone would think he was a dolly. Oh wait.

(via Crafty Crafty)

Asteroids watch

I hate watches. What a waste of wrist space. Who needs 'em? We have phones for time telling. Watches are silly. Oh wait. Asteroids watch.

WANT.

(Thank you Boing Boing Gadgets)

Changing The Game

I'm currently reading two books at once: David J. Edery's Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, and the third in the hopeless Twilight series. For every brain cell that dies with every anti-feminist sentiment in the teen vamp quadrilogy, another three are plumped up by the deeply sharp insights of David and his co-author Ethan Mollick.

Changing The Game's focus is how business can benefit from gaming, gamers and game design. From advergaming to using games as output tools, from guilds and leadership techniques to rewarding work through achievements and play, David and Ethan cover the gamut of how gameware can benefit business.

It's a deeply informative read, and I highly recommend it. I'm not the only one: of (currently) 11 customer reviews on Amazon, Changing The Game has 5 stars overall. David's dayjob is Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live Arcade, by the way, so this is no dry academic tome either, but one straight from the frontlines of next-gen gaming.

One for your xmukkah list.

13 year old beats Guitar Hero

Yes, beats it. Because 100% on expert for The Devil Went Down To Georgia? Game over.

I wonder if he can play actual guitar. Also, how good he would be if he played actual guitar. Hopefully mastering this game is just a stepping stone...

(via Reddit, which is where it says he's 13. Can't actually find mention of that on the YouTube page.)

Dante's Inferno: The videogame

When I first read this, I presumed it was a new Devil May Cry title. Actually, no. EA are making a game based on Dante's Inferno, the first in the trilogy The Divine Comedy.

This is extraordinarily left field. I wonder if it will be at all faithful to the book, in any way artistically accurate? Gamasutra has more.

Inferno is a bloody infernal read, too. I had to have a go at it at college; it's wonderful, but also incredibly arcane to a modern audience; for instance, one of the more very serious sins is Dante's hell is blasphemy, which these days is pffff. It'd be interesting if the game explored some or all of the various more unusual sins, but it could quite easily end up being just another gory shmup set in hell featuring a ton of cookie-cutter scary-things.

Apparently Universal's gone after the movie rights already though, although - weird. The Divine Comedy is in the public domain, so why Universal would prefer to make a movie out of the videogame (and pay over 6 figs for the rights) rather than just make their own, I don't know...