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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication was referenced in “The Slow-Game App is the New Smoke Break” for The New York Times.
Excerpt:
While the shiniest, most successful phone apps are designed to push our competitive buttons and light up our pleasure centers with quick rewards, slow games seek access to a different part of our brains. They soothe rather than excite. The author and game designer Ian Bogost has referred to this genre as video game Zen, the mobile equivalent of running a tiny rake across a desktop Japanese garden. David OReilly, the filmmaker and digital artist who designed Mountain, calls these games “relax ’em ups,” a clever play on their departure from the ubiquity of first-person shooters. ThatGameCompany, the studio behind slow games like Cloud and Journey, strives to create “positive change to the human psyche.”
For the full article, read here.
