Went to the Freeplay Independent Games Conference on the weekend. I was hoping to live blog it from my phone, or at least some sort of new fangled method of blogging, but I didn't get around to it. The highlight was definately Jonathon Blow's keynote talk about his upcoming game Braid, as well as some issues he has with the unethical nature of videogames in regard to reward systems and the like, really fascinating stuff. You can read more about his views on unethical game design here, I suggest you do, even if games aren't your thing. From what I saw of his game, it looked fantastic. It plays with the notion of space/time/causality, which I find to be of the utmost interest. Another point of interest was a panel discussing politics in games, how it can be used as a persuasive tool, as well as for education. I finally got a look see into Escape from Woomera, which made big headlines here when it was released.
In other news, ACMI seems to be getting a new facelift, or to be more precise, a new gallery. I'm a bit annoyed that Denton Corker Marshall are getting their grubby hands on it, but the london based Ab Rogers Design seem to know what they're doing, should be a good mix.
