• Niantic Labs, Ingress, Pokémon Go, and What Are All These People Doing on My Lawn?

    Or: How location based gaming can make the world a better place.  About three years ago, I found a postcard in the Davis Square T stop that said “Join the Resistance.” Well of course I’m going to take that card. It was the beginning stages of Ingress, a location-based game created by Google’s Niantic Labs,…

  • University Librarians Talk Gaming!

    2016 problems. University libraries have an unusual task in introducing library literacy to incoming freshmen, some of whom have only ever done digital research. Tasked with introducing new millennials to the world of taking out books, doing research and finding paper-based content, libraries are trying all sorts of new solutions, like games! I spoke to…

  • 3 Great Presentations on Creating Engaging FYE Programs from LOEX 2016

    To university libraries and beyond!!!! LOEX2016 was a fantastic conference with lots of ideas on how to make library instruction more interactive and YES, even game-based! Three in particular stood out for me, so here’s an overview of how three different university libraries used three different methods and got different- but all successful- results. 1. ACTIVE LEARNING…

  • Games in Theater- Pulling People Through the 4th Wall

    Theaters making games. Gamer designers making theater! 4th walls coming down… and not really coming down… so many cool things happening. Here I review three different game/theater experiences I had in NYC and list a bunch of cool other ones. Plus- announcing CLUB DROSSELMEYER in Dec. 2016!!  What makes a show interactive? What makes a…

  • How Do You Make an Idea into a Thing?

    It’s 2016- new resolutions, new projects, new ideas!! Maybe this is the year to make that idea of yours into an actual thing!! GDL is running Design Thinking Workshop with yours truly on Jan 16th and 17th at Lesley University in Cambridge and if you live anywhere in the New England area, you should come! But…

  • Riddles, Games, and Tricks for the Holidays!

    It’s the holiday season, which means wonderful food and a constant stream of swing music on the radio but it also means you’ll probably have to chat with people over egg nog. So here’s a Green Door Labs holiday gift to you: a few casual, simple games that you can play anytime and throw into any…

  • What is Integrated Media?

    How does the Peabody Essex Museum so consistently produce such cool and meaningful interactive tech? I sat down with Ed Rodley and Caroline Herr of the Integrated Media department to figure it out.

  • AR/VR Primer

    Ev’rybody’s talkin’ bout AR: Augmented Reality and VR: Virtual Reality. It’s the hot thing for nonprofits and mobile tech these days so I thought I’d take a couple blog posts to delve into it a bit. What is it? How do you build it? Who’s doing it? Does it work and how much does it cost? …

  • A Mysterious Telegram Awaits.

    Dearest Adventurer, As is written in The Green Door, “True adventurers have never been plentiful -(STOP)- They who are set down in print as such have been mostly business men with newly invented methods -(STOP)- They have been out after the things they wanted–golden fleeces, holy grails, lady loves, treasure, crowns and fame -(STOP)- The true adventurer…

  • LARP and Cosplay: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

    I’m really interested these days in where LARPing and ARGs and games connect. LARPING is Live Action Role Playing Games where you play a game with very set rules and inhabit a character- sometimes for days at a time. Initially the word LARP made me think of “Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!!” But it’s…