Boy do I ever want to go play Dota 2 Right This Moment. Which is unusual, really, because I’ve never been able to get into any of the games spawned by that groundbreaking mod.

Still, it sounds intoxicating by Quinns’ account:

Then there are junglers, nukers, initiators… never mind the thrill I’m getting from learning how we all work together. It’s intoxicating to hear yourself speak in terminology that, five days ago, would have been another language.

I’m having more fun with this than I had playing Diablo 3, and we’re not even fighting humans yet.

He says a lot of interesting things in this first piece…here’s hoping there are a couple more instalments. Click the title of this post to go read his diary…the diary of a madman.

Quintin Smith blogs about analog games and the advantages they offer, from a design perspective, over video games. He emphasizes his point with what he calls “lossless game design”, in which the creator can produce a game with a minimum of resources.

There is no shark pit. When you buy a board game, what you take home and play is the original concept precisely as it was in the designer’s head. That’s the mecca for video games. For board games, it’s the norm.

Smith, Quintin. “Hard Copy, pt. 1” (April 17, 2012) <http://videosgames.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/hard-copy-pt-1/>.