Picture a video game system (hardware,software,3d models, sound files, social cultural context,  etc) as a living thing, like a puppy, with all those different systems,subsystems, and superstructures all interplaying with each other to create something for you to play with . If your first reaction to that puppy is to want to learn its name, pet it, make friends with it, teach it some tricks  and then go off on magical adventures together exploring the affordances he provides you…..this is probably not the right place for you. Or at least there are far better places out there for discussing games and game systems as they are. If instead you immediately  imagine what could be done with that puppy, how it might be modified or hybridized with other puppies, how it might be enhanced with some simple hardware upgrades, how best to to dissect it to understand its operations to learn how to create your own army of robot puppies that you directly control with your mind then you might  find this relevant to your interests.

Code. Play. Kill. is a collection of resources for developers of open source gaming technologies maintained by Damon Loren Baker, Assistant Professor of Interactive Entertainment and Emerging Media Technologies Program Director at New York City College of Technology and video game reviewer at http://capsule-hotel.tumblr.com/. The goal is to collect resources from my teaching and research in the field of Human Computer Interaction With Virtual Worlds into one location for CUNY students and colleagues as well as for the development community at large. Eventually parts of this site  will be collected together into a book on game technology development that I am writing with the whimsical working title of “How to Kill LIke a Computer Scientist: A Violent Introduction to Interactive 3d Environments Programming using Python and Blender Game Engine”. This title is humorous reference to two books on computer programming:

• “How to Think LIke a Computer Scientist” by Allen B. Downey http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/
• “Common LISP: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation” by David S. Touretzky http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/

both excellent books and both available online for free due to the benevolence and hard work of their authors. While I do plan on publishing this at some point my primary goal is to share as much information as possible as freely as I can to help foster the development of open source gaming technologies to advance the state of the art in my field and to work for the good of my community. My naive altruism combined with my tendency to pick book/website titles that prominently feature the word “KILL” means I will almost assuredly alienate all potential traditional publishers. But I will have an army of brain controlled cyborg “puppies” so it works out in the end.

Very Important Note: All killing, mayhem, destruction, murdering, etc discussed on this site are of the virtual/simulated/pixelated kind. Games have a long history of tapping directly into the Id and the technologies we create are the tools by which we manifest our irrational desires in the world. In keeping with that there will be a considerable amount of examples that might upset people who don’t consider virtually murdering random people online to be a worthwhile pass time. The same technologies can be applied to a variety of ends and while not all of them include creating virtual cathedrals of erotic misery to wage endless imaginary mayhem in, I feel it is important to keep true to our roots. 

Important Note: While I may link to resources contained here in materials for my classes this is not the course site for any of my classes. That means if you are trying to turn in homework assignments for my classes, asking when labs are open, or otherwise trying to conduct class related business  by posting here you will be posting in the wrong place.

Less Important Note: I reserve the right to change the working title of my book if I can come up with dumb puns that involves the word “KILL” on

• “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” by Abelson, Sussman and Sussman http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

• “Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation” by  Shriram Krishnamurthi http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/2007-04-26/

but so far all I’ve got are “Structure and Interpretation of Smashing Everything in This Room with Computer Programs” , “Programing Languages: Application and Weaponization”, and ” Structure and Interpretation of KILL” which don’t really roll of the tongue they way I’d like.