Links For May 28, 2014

Osmo – physical-digital tabletop gaming. I made one of their launch titles (Newton).


Folk Lore: How Johann Sebastian Joust is defining a new gaming genre

The term “Folk Game” has been co-opted somewhat from its original definition. Traditionally, folk games feature no specialized equipment, and their few, player-mediated rules are subject to transform as they’re transmitted orally between cultures and generations. Folk games are old and ubiquitous, created by ancient forerunners and played by millions of schoolchildren across the globe. Video-folk games, however, are the interest of only dozens, maybe hundreds.


Inside Bounden, the iPhone app that tricks you into dancing

Two players place a thumb on the iPhone screen to begin, but after the device calibrates, a sphere appears with several circles upon it, which are cleared by a marker as players move the device in the appropriate direction. As a song plays, the circles continue to emerge in various patterns, requiring more elaborate movements in tandem, and before long you’re dipping and twirling your partner. Whether you anticipated it or not, you’re dancing—all thanks to an iPhone app.


Why we should embrace (and be inspired) by our untidy homes

However, Vohs and her colleagues also found that chaotic environments have their own effects. When given a task, those who worked in a messy room were much more creative thinkers, and identified with options labelled “new” more than “classic”. Disorder leads to unshackled, innovative thinking. Clutter is the realm of serendipitous interaction.


The Song That Made The Pill OK

The song was banned on some country stations, but that failed to keep it from spreading. The pill was already popular, but Lynn’s lyrics seemed to laugh at the worst fears of those who opposed it: weakening families (even though the wife in the song already has several children) and breaking homes (even though the husband in the song is already sleeping around). The comedy, of course, is that the wife singing is actually pleading with her husband to stop cheating on her; the pill might, in fact, save the couple from divorce.


Aug(De)Mented Reality