So from my perspective, the “thing” in this one is me going off on Csiksentmihalyian (that one’s almost as good for pronunciation fun as oeuvre) “flow.” I want to continue to explore the relation between flow and gamespaces, and so we will–June’s symposium topic will be “What if flow isn’t what makes a gamespace engaging? or, Where flow was, there should ruleset be.”

On this episode: Roger Travis, David Carlton, Dan Cox, Patrick Holleman, Steve Gilham, and Eric Swain.

Edited by Dan Cox.

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We have an iTunes page now, too!

Even though it’s not the last week of the month, we’re playing Minecraft this Thursday, so we’ll be able to play Demon’s Souls on May 31st as its servers shut down. The usual time and place: Thursday 5/24 at 9:30 pm EDT / 6:30 pm PDT, the server is minecraft.bactrian.org, and we’re using Skype for chat this time. (Please add ‘davidbcarlton’ if I’m not already on your contacts list.)

The School of Athens goes floating, more or less. I don’t know about you, but I think this has everything to do with “What is a gamespace?” Play whichever of fl0w, Flower, or Journey strikes your fancy, or play nothing, but come prepared to have it out about whether Csiksentmihalyian flow and immersion are the same thing. To put it another way, what does difficulty have to do with a possibility-space?

I’ve promised David that I’m going to create an aphorisms page, which will at least include definitions of “game,” “play,” and “gamespace”; I’ll hope to have that done by the time of our playversation.

We’ll be on Mumble, to facilitate recording; comment if you need the info.

On this episode: Roger Travis, David Carlton, Dan Cox, Patrick Holleman, Steve Gilham, and Eric Swain.

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We have an iTunes page now, too!

Dan has some wonderful de facto show notes on his blog.

For this week’s gaming session, we’re going to play the iPad/iPhone adaptation of the deck-building card game Ascension. I’ll be happy to play either with or without the Revenge of the Fallen expansion; it’s possible that the second expansion (Storm of Souls) will be out by then, too. Just make sure you have all the updates applied to the game (even if you haven’t purchased the expansion), sometimes I’ve seen people unable to play together if one has updated recently and the other hasn’t.

I’m davidcarlton on Game Center, feel free to add me. (And leave your own Game Center IDs in the comments thread so other participants can add you, too – we may well split up into multiple games.) We’ll be talking on Mumble this week, leave a comment and I’ll e-mail you the connection info if you don’t have it.

(Administrative note: this month’s Minecraft session will be on 5/24 instead of 5/31.)

We’re playing at the usual time: Thursday 5/10 at 9:30 EDT / 6:30 PDT, hope to see you there!

It’s the first week of the month, which means that it’s time for another VGHVI Symposium! To my mind, we acquitted ourselves well when trying to define “play,” so it’s time to move on and try to define “gamespace.” (No, you’re not experiencing déjà vu: we tried last month, and it didn’t quite happen; I have higher hopes for this month!) It’s worth noting that Mattie and Steve G and I had a friendly Twitter dust-up about authorship and games, in which Mattie used the phrase “authored space.” That’s going to be my way in, with the questions still looming about Mass Effect 3 and such things as authored spaces and player performances.

We’ll be on Mattie’s Mumble server. Comment here with contact info for a missive from me with details, or find me on Google Plus, which should be easy enough.

EDIT: Because it’s always nice in these sessions to have a windmill at which to tilt, here’s my starting definition for “gamespace”: range of performance affordances created by a practomimetic ruleset, conceived as one or more of a variety of spatial metaphors readily afforded by human consciousness.

Some very minor spoilers for Journey.

On this episode: Roger Travis, David Carlton, and Eric Swain.

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It’s Minecraft time! You know the drill: Thursday 6:30 PDT / 9:30 EDT, server is minecraft.bactrian.org. We’re doing our Minecraft conversation over Skype these days, so add davidbcarlton if you’re not already on my Skype contact list.

David and I are really looking forward to getting a chance finally to talk about this remarkable gamespace. We’ll be going spoiler-free as much as possible, and would very much invite participation by those who haven’t played Journey. We encourage participants to play as they converse, but it’s by no means a requirement.

9:30pm on the usual Mumble server; comment with contact info if you lack the necessary login facts.

Was it my lack of galactic readiness that killed Liara? If so, I shall fight all night, and rage against BioWare, and consider investing the many hours it would take to save her. Discussion will be on XBL unless players on other platforms post here to comment.

9:30 Eastern.