Around 2010 I noticed the emergence of an iconography tied to the buzzword monetization. Zynga and the Appstore were blowing up and a new parasitical industry began to promise shortcuts to commercial success. Their offers involve selling users, proposing bizantine revenue sharing systems, manufacturing ratings and other sketchy marketing services. One visual trope was dominating […]
Author Archives: paolo
Molleindustria’s Highlights from 2013
2013 has been not only a great year for independent games but possibly the first year in which many excellent independent titles have been recognized by mainstream gamers and press. Mature and meaningful works like Kentucky Route Zero, Papers please, the Stanley Parable and Gone Home are in many “Games of the Year” lists along […]
Experimental Game Design – Alternative Interfaces
Selected students’ works from my experimental game design class at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Art. A hands-on game design course focused on innovative and expressive forms of gameplay. In this installment of Experimental Game Design the emphasis is placed on the interface: inputs beyond mouse/keyboard/joystick/touch, outputs beyond screen/speakers, playing contexts beyond the suburban living room […]
Molleindustria Manifesto (2003)
Ten years ago, in December 2003, I launched this website along with three small games: Tamatipico, originally released in Spring 2003, Tuboflex and the Orgasm Simulator. Molleindustria was meant to be a short-term tactical project in line with the alternative media experiments happening in Italy at the same time (pirate TV street and Indymedia above […]
Designing Games to Understand Complexity
This is a transcript of a workshop I conducted together with Liam Burke at the Allied Media Conference in June 2013. The workshop is meant to be a very basic introduction to system thinking via games targeted toward grassroots activists. It uses a simple fishery simulation available here as example.
The Fishing Game
The unimaginatively called “Fishing game” was designed for the 2013 Allied Media Conference. It’s meant to be played, discussed and modded in a interactive workshop context. The companion presentation can be found here. In order to play the game you need: .Exactly 4 players .About 30 money bits – decorative marbles will work .About 30 […]
Allied Media Conference Games Lineup
Next week I’ll be in Detroit at the Allied Media Conference. The conference track “Imagining Better Futures Through Play” looks dense and exciting, with a strong focus around DIY gamemaking and inclusivity. You still have 5 days to back our indiegogo campaign, the proceeds will cover travel and lodging costs for the presenters Here are […]
Notes on Tax Evaders
I’ve been asked to design and develop a small game for a Space Invaders-themed campaign against corporate tax evasion. The result is Tax Evaders, an iteration of the original arcade classic with excellent Amiga-era pixel art by James Biddulph and sound design by Ashton Morris. The week before Tax Day (April 15) the game has […]
Videogames of the oppressed vs oppressive games
This is my second post on Empyre, a longstanding discussion list for artists, programmers, and curators of new media art. The theme of the month is “Videogames and Art: Incite/Insight”. You can check the March archive here. Here I talk about Molleindustria in relation to the context in which it started (almost 10 years ago) […]
Art cred and videogame advocacy
For the first week of March I’ve been invited to be a guest of Empyre, a longstanding mailing list for artists, programmers, and curators of new media art. The theme of the month is “Videogames and Art: Incite/Insight”. I’m re-posting some of my discussion starters here, for the rest of the world. You can read […]
Radical Game Makers: We Want You!
The Allied Media Conference is a yearly gathering of independent and activist media makers from all over North America. We gather in Detroit to share strategies on how to create sustainable social change through media. This year’s conference is June 20-23 and I’m honored to be one of the coordinators of the game-oriented track along […]
Molleindustria’s Top Games of 2012
In no particular order.
An old school game for a brave new sport
Don’t expect a political punchline: there’s none. Arcade Bike Polo was created for Fuck This Jam, a friendly game making competition organized by Vlambeer‘s Rami Ismail & Panoramical creator Fernando Ramallo. Gameplay and graphics were completed by the end of the week-long jam but I decided to take some extra time to add sound, menus […]
Toward Independence – Indiecade 2012
This is a slightly edited transcript of a short talk I gave at Indiecade 2012. It was part of the panel “Let’s Play With the World: Games, Art, Activism and Other Subversions” organized by Johannes Grenzfurthner. I added a few minor passages that got cut due to time constraints.
Fucking polygons, fucking pixels: On procedural representations of sex
Arse Elekronika (not to be confused with the similarly sounding, slightly more established new media art festival in Linz) is the most important conference investigating the intersection of sex and technology. The past six editions revolved around themes like porn as innovation driver, sexuality in science fiction or body enhancements. This year the emphasis was […]
Indiecade 2012: my highlights
Like in all good conferences, at Indiecade most of the fun happens outside and around the programmed events. The lectures, the exhibitions, and the goofy award ceremonies are only frames for a multitude of fluid interactions around dinner tables, in the waiting lines for beer, during improvised logistical negotiations, after tense game sessions. That’s the […]
Fantastic Arcade 2012
Soon people will stop referring to Fantastic Arcade as “The best indie gaming event you’ve never heard of”. Integral part of Fantastic Fest (Über-hip arthouse sci-fi and horror film festival), happening in sunny Austin TX just a couple of weeks before Indiecade, the 3-years-old, 4-day-long festival, seems destined to become a fixture in the calendar […]
Gatekeeper and the rise of the Total Apple Consumer
Somewhere in UK, a dialog box pops up on the screen of a Mac computer. The user contacts me asking for an explanation I can’t quite provide. The same file (a downloadable version of Phone Story) works perfectly on my machine, also a Mac. It turns out the “file damaged” message is produced by Gatekeeper, […]
A COMPUTERLESS VIDEOGAME MODDING WORKSHOP
Here is a recipe for a rrradical game design & literacy workshop I had the chance to organize together with Una Lee, Toronto-based activist, designer and all-around awesome person. It was presented at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit in June 2012 but you can try it at home, with your own class, club, organization […]
Molleindustria’s fake Apple Store in South Korea
Last summer I was invited to participate to the Gwangju Design Biennale in Korea. Apparently it’s a big deal for designers down there, with over 5,000 daily visitors from all over the world. The art/design section was co-curated by Chinese bad-ass artist Ai Wei Wei, who didn’t actually have the chance to curate that much […]