When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedomFor players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual)Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealismAfter our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even strangerSomeone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted pointsIan made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic researchWhile I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.  

They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at usIt was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations

After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even strangerSomeone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted pointsIan made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic researchWhile I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developersAnd there are huge gaps in what we don't knowWhere is the research about sports games, to take just one example? Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed the exercise, and learned a lot from itI hope the audience did as well

But overall, I like to think that the attendance demonstrates that developers are interested in what academics might be able to tell them (again I will point out: no fruit was thrown)And all week, I talked with developers who were interested in what was going on with research, from the smallest to the largest companies

War Games Reviews

A tender coming-of-age story forged in the crucible of Biafra, War Games is a relentlessly candid and unsentimental reconstruction of a halcyon world suddenly shattered by hate, flight and strifeFor Basil Chekwubechukwu Odukwe or Cheche, the good life as a rich landlord s son in northern Nigeria suddenly turns nightmarish as the country descends into civil warThe five-year-old yet to know the meaning of Nigeria s independence perforce escapes to his rural village of Amafor in the south to start a different life in the shadow of traumatized parents and relatives, war crimes and songs, folksy traditional pastimes and exacting CatholicismIn this haunting and very original first novel, Dulue Mbachu adroitly enters into the skull of childhood to tell a compelling human story with remarkable restraint and resonant narrative grace - Uzor Maxim Uzoatu