NLGD conference report:

Swag haul: sweet fisheye camera, sisal friction mitt, two new T-shirt ideas, another Euro plug adapter, Smints, biros.

New big ideas: control and freedom are opposites; puzzle and strategy games are the same genre; creativity is best enhanced by limiting tools not increasing raw materials; games are disproportionate feedback loops.

New English words: aboutness, enculturated, Spornography.

New Dutch words: bluff (bluff), zwanger (pregnant), burgervader (mayor), success (good luck), slagroom (whipped cream).

Life-changing top tip: the thing that plugs into a MacBook adapter is secretly just a vanilla figure-of-eight cable, so if you’re feeling brave you can leave cable *and* country-plug-adapter at home, and just cannibalise something in your hotel room.

Unforgettable moment face off: discovering I’m exactly the same height as Ralph Baer vs popping my Rock Band cherry on a gold dump truck in the town square.

I’ll post slides and transcripts and stuff shortly, but for now, here are the games from my talk on Wednesday (links for playable stuff, fun for offline stuff):

God Hand (silly)

September 12th (solemn)

Braid (small team)

GTA IV (large team)

Cat On A Dolphin (rudimentary)

Bioshock (lavish)

Gravitation (emotional)

Dual N-back (abstract)

Perfect Cherry Blossom (reacting)

Advance Wars (planning)

Metal Gear Solid 4 (creator led)

Spore (user led)

And here are the del.icio.us tags I’m using to keep track of all the games, books and sites people recommended to me while I was there:

NLGD2008readinglist

NLGD2008playlist

NLGD2008linklist

Thanks to the NLGD team for running such a slick event and looking after us all so well. And thanks to all the exceptionally nice people who I got to drink and talk and think with.