MeFi Projects

Learn about the videogames you should play and how to think about them! Have You Played is a free weekly newsletter for novices and experts alike, written by an award-winning game design and journalist. Every post starts with a simple description of exactly how the game works and what you do in it, then explores what makes it uniquely good or flawed. I've covered games including Pentiment, Season, Terra Nil, Cyberpunk 2077, Honkai: Star Rail, and many more!
posted by adrianhon on May 24, 2023 - 3 comments

My book about gamification is out! You've Been Played (Bookshop.org, Goodreads) examines how points, badges, and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life as tools for profit and coercion. It’s a critique of gamification, sure – but by an actual game designer, games journalist, and former neuroscientist. And it goes far beyond the usual suspects like Fitbit and Duolingo to look at the historical roots of gamification. Foucault, Lewis Mumford, Skinner, medieval indulgences, Taylorism, ARGs – this book has it all! Reviews, talks, and excerpts inside... [more inside]
posted by adrianhon on Oct 9, 2022 - 2 comments

I thought to myself, what was the least zeitgeisty thing we could create in this year of our frog 2022? As a result, me and a couple of friends have started a new gaming blog, called Set Side B! I was inspired by the final loss of the archives of old GameSetWatch, where I wrote @Play long ago. You can still find it on the Wayback Machine, but even so, that site hasn't been updated since 2011 anyway. Set Side B is our effort to do something about its loss. I will be writing on a bunch of topics there, both shortly and longly, but mostly shortly. Including roguelikes. Please enjoy our overbearing randomess!
posted by JHarris on Apr 10, 2022 - 1 comment

It feels like there's a Wordle clone for everybody nowadays. But I decided to go in a slightly different direction when I made DNDle, a game in which you try to guess the Dungeons & Dragons "monster of the day" by assigning values to its attributes and being told where you've got them right. [more inside]
posted by avapoet on Feb 16, 2022 - 2 comments

Watch out! Listen! BAD GUYS FROM VIDEO GAMES somehow joined up to form a 90s boy band. I just wrote, composed, arranged, and produced their entire debut album. In Big Bad Bosses - Power Overwhelming, caricatures of Bowser, Ganondorf, Sephiroth, and Dr. Eggman sing honest, soulful songs about how even their terrifying fury can't protect them from the big questions in life. It's been #1 on the iTunes comedy charts for a week, and I couldn't wait to post it to MeFi Projects! [more inside]
posted by jake on Jan 1, 2016 - 3 comments

A fast-action scrolling maze game for Android, intended for tablets. Guide an octopus through a huge maze, collecting eggs and avoiding sharks. Consume "mega eggs" to attack the sharks back. Intended as a riff on classic Namco arcade maze games of the 1980s, including Pac-Man and Rally-X. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jun 19, 2014 - 12 comments

1990s video game magazines are (rightfully, perhaps) remembered with little more than ridicule. But those of us who grew up with them still love their overly aggressive, poorly layed-out and sometimes puerile charm. Tune in for erudite commentary hilarious one-liners, found vaporware footage and more!
posted by griphus on Aug 27, 2012 - 9 comments

Listen to and submit personal renditions of memorable video game themes. I've had some contributions by the fine people at Mefight Club. You can submit something elaborate [this version of the SMB3 airship theme] or simple [Contra, Stage 1]. [more inside]
posted by demiurge on Feb 16, 2012 - 1 comment

Mapstalgia is a new blog collecting people's drawn-from-memory maps of video game worlds and levels. Zeldas and Marios; detailed Final Fantasy cartography and sketched Contra recollections; crayon Kings Quest and graph paper Castlevania. Submissions are open, draw something yourself and send it in! [more inside]
posted by cortex on Jan 10, 2012 - 6 comments

Super Mario-style flash fun! Bride and Groom are happily heading down the aisle when pieces of their wedding are scattered by the mischievous Mr. X. Can they find their food, friends, and decorations and save the day? [more inside]
posted by erinfern on Jun 21, 2011 - 2 comments

Eye-gouging! A fist-fight with the Pope! Helicopter thieves! Key plot points in big budget video games, retold to emphasize their ridiculosity.
posted by Sibrax on Mar 21, 2011 - 0 comments

As a burnt out, cynical, bitter programmer from the games industry, this is the site I _wish_ had been around when I started out looking for work all those years ago. It's a combination of scraped and paid-for vacancies, covering a whole bunch of games companies and recruitment agencies from around the world.
posted by bcampbell on Mar 10, 2011 - 0 comments

My secret project for three-and-a-half months, Mayflight is a procedurally-generated platform game (Windows only, unfortunately) with billions of screens, surreal algorithmically produced graphics, and a hectic pace. You could explore it for hundreds of years and still never see all of it.
YouTube playlist depicting a demonstration game - one of the more hectic parts. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Sep 11, 2010 - 4 comments

This is a small, highly filtered list of what are, in my opinion, the best iPad games available. I plan to add to the list as I come across the rare new entry for the list. I figure it might be helpful to people to see a short list of reliably good games rather than a ton of variable-quality games spread out over many pages, like most sites do. (I also maintain a list of Web games and iPhone games via the tabs available on the top of the page.)
posted by mark7570 on May 20, 2010 - 0 comments