Column: 'Blogged Out: From Hugos To _Mono_mania'

In another of today's main features, regular columnist Jim Rossignol presents this week's 'Blogged Out', a news report that looks at the world of developer blogging and the conversations being had with the community at large. This week, the column looks at multiple subjects, including the new game category for the Hugo awards and abstraction in games as it relates to indie title Mono, which GameCrits and Rossignol reference as follows: "The [GameCrits] piece continues [regarding Mono]: "I'd much rather play an abstract game of geometric combat then one in which your piloting a ship against overwhelming alien hordes or some other implausible event. It's easy for a critic of gaming to put them down for having inferior stories, but it's just as easy to remove that target if it's unnecessary." Which is a point that goes for all games made nowadays - why not just go for the abstract route? If your game is about the mechanics, why drape a story about faeries or gangsters over the top? Somehow there's a sense that abstract games are somehow 'retro', but I rather think that they're actually just stripping away our 'product-orientated' pre-suppositions and delivering what games really are." You can now read the full Gamasutra column on the subject, which also includes more information on both conversation subjects (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).