New Game Launched and Summer 2024 Research Review

Summer 2024 Review

Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces

• Click here to play the new Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces - Expanded Edition interactive project now on itch.io! This is a major expansion to my earlier Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces - Prototype project that I developed last summer.
• The interactive project is expanded with two new side view platformer worlds.
• Each new game world may be experienced in eight different visuo-spatial configurations.
• Each game world contains detailed information about the world and its visuo-spatial configurations with example game references.
• Added a new Main Menu (see above) to load different game scenes and access the credits screen and other information about the game.
• Added a music soundtrack of licensed music to better set the mood for each game in the project.

Charter on the Preservation of Digital Game Heritage

• I attended the Save the Games Symposium (21-22 Aug 2024) hosted by the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
• I met and discussed with numerous members of the game preservation and game academia communities and discussed my research with them.
• I attended some incredibly informative talks and presentations.
• I was given a private tour of The Strong's board game collection (notably, the Darwin Bromley collection).
• I got to play a working reconstruction of the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device (see above), a mysterious device patented back in 1947 that may be the earliest artifact that approaches being a "video game" (although, this device does not use a video signal). This device was nearly unknown except for its patent, and nobody knew if a prototype had been or could ever be constructed. Justin S. Barber and Volker Klocke have just created a working version and it works. I was one of the first to shoot down a target with my blip of a surface-to-air missile! Barber also showed a connection between the creators of this project and Willy Higinbotham, creator of Tennis for Two, another extremely early development in the "prehistory" of digital games. This is exciting stuff for game historians!