Gaming

Andy and I have bitten the documentation bullet and started a Pluto Development Journal here. So far we've covered: Delicate Development - Building Pluto Pluto Flyby [a Pluto gameworld flythrough]: #PlutoGame Evolution Snippets Pluto and the Distortion of Time [which almost sounds like the title of a Doctor Who Episode, huh.] Expect much more over the coming months.

After reading the news that the experimental game studio Tale of Tales has sadly ceased game development after their latest game, Sunset, sold only 4,000 copies, I immediately reached out to one half of the ToT's crew, Auriea Harvey. Auriea and her partner in all aspects, Michaël Samyn, have been creating work in the same online spaces for as long as I have.

After a discussion 3 days ago covering similar conceptual territory during a Pluto game dev session, this article really does target-resonate: "Stepping into games is like arriving at a cheese-tasting party where most of the crowd is angrily murmuring that cheddar and swiss are always and objectively the best cheeses on grounds of utility and pleasure, that assholes offering a plate of mold-laced bleu are an affront to any real cheese-lover, that brie may simply be too soft to be a real cheese.

So I hear that certain enthusiastic individuals (here's looking at you, Electronic Literature scene) are keen to latch onto any news tidbits regarding Pluto, our current transmedia project in development with Dreaming Methods. Lucky for you then that we've just revamped our website with brand new eye-candy including a new preview trailer resting alongside some luscious imagery.

Yes folks, all is finally revealed: after months of painstaking assessment, we're happy to announce the 2014 New Media Writing Prize Shortlist. The list is chock full of some pretty amazing projects [such as 3D and 2D textual games, geolocative based treasure hunts, engaging browser works and velvety-smooth mobile based narratives]. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the The NMWP [as us judges have fondly come to call it], this friendly sound-byte description should bring you right up to speed: "