With the workload finally relenting somewhat, I got to go to a talk by
Eric Zimmerman, a game designer,
among whose accomplishments is the massively popular
SissyFight.
He talked about the nature of games, the interaction of rules, play and the
culture of games, and about games using digital media in particular, and
showed some examples of games he has designed, both computer-based ones
(such as the aforementioned SissyFight and a cute arcade game with rave-flyer
graphics and 303 squelching sound effects) and traditional ones (my favourite
being
Suspicion,
a role-playing card game played surreptitiously in an office).
It was a most interesting talk; Zimmerman is definitely someone to keep an
eye out for...