Yesterday I finished my contribution to CGDC Conference 2002 in Tampere, Finland. Hopefully I will join in. In that case I wil be talking about computer game criticism, a method of analysing computer games in general.

I've read Eva Liestøl's new book on computer games called "Dataspill: innføring og analyse". In general it is interesting to see her analyses of computer games. However, I must point out the analyses seems more like she is analysing movies than computer games. And to the extent she focuses on the interactivity it is almost all of the time related to learning - and not the aim of having fun. She has in the end a chapter on play theory (which she refers to as game theory), but this part has no relation to other parts of the book. The ludologic approach still needs to be explored further.

It's been a while since I last wrote to this blog. We've finished playing Soulreaver - a tremendous game. I really like the fact, you do not die but turn into the spectral plane, from where you must find your way in the dungeons in order to shift back to the material plane. The ending was quite a disappointment, maybe because you just want more struggle indstead of glory. Especially because it was in fact not the end, but a new beginning.