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On Relativism And Games

This is a post about the psychology and art of games, and we’ll return to your regularly scheduled programming blog shortly.

In almost every game I’ve played, there has been a force of evil. In fact, an overwhelming majority of not just games, but films and books, and stories that we tell our children, and legends of gods and demons, have a simple premise: good versus bad. Humans versus aliens. Allies versus axis. Good people versus bad people.

Now, this goes deep into our roots. Those who share our moral views are with us, they’re the good side. Those who don’t are bad people, the bad side. An over-simplified look at things? Well, bear with me.

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Flax Project has a new HQ!

The Flax Project is now operating out of the UNUM lab in Carlow Institute of Technology. Thanks to one of our college lecturers, Joseph Kehoe, we have been granted access to this top of the range software development center, so a big thank you to the college and Joe. This week we are busy working on the design document for the Flax Game Engine, and currently Carl is experimenting with the HTML5 audio tag in different browsers and platforms Continue reading ‘Flax Project has a new HQ!’

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Kid Paddle – A Serious Misrepresentation of Video Games



Kid Paddle, for anyone (which is probably everyone) who doesn’t know, is a children’s cartoon based around a few boys who spend the majority of their time in video arcades, getting into adventures involving playing against players who are better than them, making new arcade games, doing research to improve their ability to play etc.

Although this concept may appear sound enough, albeit slightly contrived, it is the kind of show that would quite easily affect parent’s opinions of video games in a negative way, especially due to the tenuous climate video games currently find themselves in.

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Choice systems and immersion in games

Choice systems and immersion in games

A great many games in the last few years have had choice systems, most based on dialogue choices the player makes in certain situations. While this is certainly a step in the right direction, it’s also quite flawed. Continue reading ‘Choice systems and immersion in games’

How to play PC Steam games on Mac OS X

How to play PC Steam games on Mac OS X

So, Steam (a well-known game-to-computer content delivery system) recently released for Mac OS X, and as of today, only one hundred of the games available on Steam are cross-platform. It’s a start, but it’s not yet the revolution every Mac gamer would like it to be. To this end, I’ve made a short how-to so that you can play some of Steam’s PC-only games on Mac OS X.

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