These days life rarely affords me the time to play video games, much less write about them. However, one gaming event I always make time for is PAX East—especially this year, when the hot, sweaty, crowded expo floor of was a welcome tropical vacation from the comically extreme weather we’ve endured in New England this…
9:30 AM – It’s the third and final day of PAX East 2014! Sunday is the shortest of the three days, but easily feels the longest. I really can’t imagine how exhausted the exhibitors are at this point (though that’s due in part to my poor emotional intelligence and limited capacity for human empathy). 11:00…
10:00 AM – Back to the convention center for Round 2. Saturday at PAX traditionally draws the most die-hard fans, the ones who are willing to wait for hours to play the newest entry in their favorite franchise for just a few minutes, or spend months painstakingly crafting highly accurate foam replicas of fantasy weapons…
8:30 AM – This year will be my third PAX East, making me a fully-fledged PAX veteran. And like a veteran, I’m eschewing the complimentary PAX swag bag (and the 2-hour wait that comes with it) and shooting to be on the expo floor a half-hour after it opens. 10:30 AM – After an hour…
It hard to believe it’s only been three short years since I launched Applied Gaming. According to The Internet, the appropriate gift for such an occassion is leather, though I’m hardly sure why… perhaps Year 3 is just about the time when a relationship needs the kind of spicing up best provided by leather goods.…
As many of you know, this past Saturday I participated in the Extra Life charity gaming marathon. I wanted to take this opportunity to extend my deepest gratitude to everyone who joined with me to support the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Together, we raised over 2,000 for Boston Children’s Hospital, with at least another $500…
October was one intense month. I started a new job for the first time in 10 years, we threw a birthday for our 5-year-old son where the theme was “all of the iPad games”, and our Boston Red Sox won the World Series! Fortunately, I get to kick off November with a nice, relaxing 25-hour…
This fall I’m participating in two marathons: the Extra Life charity gaming marathon on November 2, and the Philadelphia Marathon on November 17. One is a grueling test of strength, skill, that will help me raise money for a worthy cause, while the other is a totally self-indulgent 26.2-mile run that will help me raise…
Boston is a wonderfully complex and confusing city. The people here tend to be coarse and sarcastic on the surface, but I’ve found deep down they are generous and kind. We New Englanders hate the weather but love the outdoors, and though we complain about our incomprehensible infrastructure, we’re secretly proud that we know how…
Make a Donation! Last year was the first time I participated in Extra Life, a 24-hour charity video gaming marathon to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Thanks to the generosity of many friends, family, and readers, we raised $1,962 for Boston Children’s Hospital, part of a record-breaking $2 million total raised by Extra Life…
Last week I took a wonderful 5-day professional education course at MIT titled “Game Development for Software Engineers”. After years of playing (and criticizing) video games, I figured it was finally time to get off the bench and see exactly how tough this game development stuff really is. For a while now I’ve been dabbling…
Summers here in New England are a frantic time, wherein we attempt to compress 12 months of outdoor fun into 3 months of nice weather. (And of course by “nice” I mean, “oscillating between frigid, torrential rain and humid, 100+ degree heat”.) I’ve never been to Old England, but I can only assume the weather there…
Earlier this month, I decided that if I wanted to keep calling myself a “fan of indie games”, it was finally time to join the cause and throw some money down on Kickstarter. Of the 100 bucks I promised to cough up, half went to the four projects I talked about in my last post.…
I’m sure nearly all of you have heard of the crowd-funding site Kickstarter, but since my grandmother reads this blog, please bear with me for a moment. Dear G-Dawg: (yes, we actually call my grandmother “G-Dawg”) Kickstarter is an amazing website where individuals can directly fund an exciting new idea, instead of sitting around on…
Earlier this month, we celebrated what turned out to be the most tragic Patriot’s Day in the history of the Commonwealth (except for, perhaps, the the original one). Then, eleven days ago, my quiet street here in Watertown was transformed into the closest thing I’d ever experienced to a war zone. By this past weekend,…
