
Interview with The Rule of the Games
I was recently interviewed by Alessandro Arena-DeRosa of The Rule of the Games, check out the article write up and/or full audio of the interview in the links below. Thanks Alessandro for being uber professional and keeping my tangents to a minimum! Article: http://theruleofthegames.tumblr.com/post/101312310722/the-frontier-of-video-game-research-an-interview-with Full audio via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/the-rule-of-the-games/the-frontier-of-video-game-research-an-in

"That, perhaps, may be my answer."
"...[N]othing is known about him. I was never able to find out what kind of a person he really was. But whenever they talked about him, they always had a slight smile on their faces. That, perhaps, may be my answer." So goes the concluding line of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War. I can't help but thinking that this is a reflection of what it means to look at how story and myth and their effects on people are investigated. As someone more astute than myself had once put it (pa

International Conference on Japan Game Studies 2013 Recap
May 24th~26th, 2013 This was a joint conference between Ritsumeikan University RCGS and University of Alberta, Edmonton, and a wonderful, insightful experience as a whole. 1) During the lunch break, we went to check out the "Super Mario Experiment" which was a room filled with a bunch of old consoles from the 80s and 90s. This seems to be a common activity that has been present at every conference I have attended so far. In this photo, Shuo Xiong, my fellow game researcher fr

DiGRA Japan 2013 in Kyushu Day #2 Recap
#acecombatzero #conference #digrajapan #trip #paper #ramen

DiGRA Japan in Kyushu, 2013 Day #1 Recap
Tomorrow morning I'll present my paper on Interactive Frame Narrative in Namco/Bandai's "Ace Combat Zero." This afternoon however, I had lunch with someone who had actually worked on the production team for that very game. And he is presenting in the same session. That's almost like doing a seminar on "Frankenstein" whole Mary Shelley is in the room. #acecombatzero #digrajapan #conference #japangamestudies #trip

DiGRA Japan Conference 2013, Pre-conference dayin Kyushu
#acecombatzero #conference #digrajapan #game #gamedesign #gamedevelopment #gamestudiescurrently #gradschoollife #japangamestudies #japanese #japanesegameindustry #masters #paper #research #researchers #trip

Japanese Draft
やっと、3月の学会の日本語の第一の原稿はとりあえず終了である。まだネイティブチェックされていないけど。先生に出した際にめっちゃ恥ずかしかったわ。「ちっちゃな子供っぽい日本語で書いたらしいと見えるかな」って怖い。10年前の教えた播南の生徒が英語のレポート、宿題などを出した気分と同じだろう。 My Japanese draft for my upcoming conference in Kyushu is finally done. I stress the word "draft" because it is a first effort and I am really afraid that it sounds like it was written by a little kid. This must be how all my Japanese students felt when they turned in their essays and assignments. #acecombatzero #conference #digrajap

Paper Accepted to DiGRA JAPAN 2012
Accepted for presentation at the DiGRA Japan Conference to be held in Kyushu in March. This time around, my focus is frame narrative in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War. What this means is that I will finally have the chance to try Hakata Ramen. #acecombatzero #accepted #conference #digrajapan #gradschoollife #institution #japangamestudies #masters #paper #research #researchers