Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) is an interdisciplinary centre for research/ creation in game studies and design, digital culture and interactive art

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Bits and Pieces of Suffering: Creating Ancient Greek Punishments in Bitsy

Posted by Pippin

(Note: throughout this text, I’ll be linking to process materials generated as part of the project in its code repository. I’ll also cite specific “commits” (moments of active development) by their hash number where relevant. This approach to process documentation is part of the Games as Research project.)
Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Bitsy Demake is the tenth edition in the “Ancient Greek Punishment” series I’ve been working on since 2011. As a kind of companion piece to the Twine version I made previously, …

Let the Punishment Fit the Twine: Ancient Greek Punishments as Hypertexts

Posted by Pippin

(Note: throughout this text, I’ll be linking to process materials generated as part of the project in its code repository. This approach to process documentation is part of the Games as Research project.)
Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: The Twine is the ninth edition in the “Ancient Greek Punishment” series I’ve been working on since 2011. Lately I’ve been interested in what happens when I retell the five mythological punishments using the “language” of different game engines, and this time around the …

TAG Profiles: Kalervo Sinervo

Posted by michaeliantorno

TAG Profiles is a blog series that explores the work of current TAG scholars. Dr. Kalervo Sinervo is an outgoing PhD student in Concordia’s Interdisciplinary Humanities program and will be starting a FRQSC post-doc in the University of Calgary’s English department this fall.
You recently completed your PhD here at Concordia. What was it about?
My PhD revolved around three specific topics that overlap, sort of like a Venn diagram. One of them is pop culture iconicity, …

CGSA 2019 Part 3: The Aftermath

Posted by rebeccagoodine

This series of posts recounts the development of I WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON, a research-creation process talk presented at CGSA 2019. For this project, we began with the idea that we might be able to teach each other valuable game design skills without putting undue pressure on one another. Our collaborative process ended with revelations about the powers of group care, quitting, and nail salons. In our last post, we discussed the development …

CGSA Vancouver 2019 Reflections

Posted by scottbdejong

From June 5 – 7, 2019 I got to hang out with a bunch of TAGsters at Congress in Vancouver. Despite an eclectic collection of conferences occurring, I spent my time (as did many others from TAG) at the Canadian Game Studies Association’s conference (CGSA). It was three days of panels, presenting, staring with my mouth open at the beautiful University of British of Columbia campus, filling my mouth with sushi, and receiving a slew …

The Charming Asymmetry of Root

Posted by michaeliantorno

Despite quite enjoying my first game of Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right, I found myself scratching my head as the game session drew to a close. The marauding Marquise de Cat had, to put it bluntly, utterly annihilated the other three factions, winning by a comfortable margin of ten points. My imperial bird armies had performed admirably in the face of this feline onslaught, despite grappling with their fair share of internal …