A good week for games... well, mostly...

My previous week:

• I was kind of thrown into the role of Game Control for an online playtest - which I found a little stressful, but illuminating and useful as well. Lots to think about, especially running other people’s game designs.
• A really useful conversation on how to make money out of game design. I’ve been put off the idea because so many game designers make a point of explaining that it’s not well paid, but as always I’m trying to find a different angle.
• The online services provider for my work went down temporarily. While there was really no harm done, and I was kind of covered, I was reminded that we all need to test all fallback procedures in advance. I was reminded of this recent post on hybrid gaming when your Internet connection goes down.
• Inspired by this tweet I’ve been thinking of how to design Play By Video games, both as the desired format for the game, and as a way to playtest them. It’s a particularly difficult design problem for anything beyond a simple game like chess because the players have to trust each other with anything hidden or shared… lots to think about. Also I don’t have the space to leave these kind of games out, but I’ve ideas around that too.
• I was the remote adversary for the Ransomware workshop at BSides London. The event went well, I’ve received some good feedback, so I’m looking forward to where we go with the idea in future.
• Also I’m looking forward to seeing the recording of the presentation my rookie presenter mentee put together, a cross reference of penetration testing and Persona 5.
• We watched Shang Chi and the legend of the ten rings; in some ways not a typical Marvel film, and the better for that.
• We also watched Red Notice and, as many have said - an unsurprising film by numbers. It works as an “enjoyable romp” if you’re drinking, or not particularly awake.
• And lastly, with the unscripted excitement of a game but the budget of a movie comes watching the Seattle Seahawks. After navigating poorly described and outdated contractual restrictions I managed to get access to the game… was it worth that level of effort? Every week Lee Sharpe creates these great gifs, that map each team’s Win Probability as the game progressed, which give you a really great idea on the flow of the game. You can figure out the flow of this one pretty easily…