As you may or may not be aware, January 18 is the worldwide internet “blackout” to protest SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) that is currently in the US House of Representatives and PIPA (Protect IP Act) in the US Senate.  These broad and confusing pieces of legislation will change the face of the internet.  How?  For starters, like sites like YouTube and Facebook — or any site with user generated content — will have to self-police their sites for any copyright infringements.  So all those retro-commercial for I’ve posted asking “remember …

This article was written for the Games for Educators December newsletter, you can see it HERE. 

Maybe.  The Biblical Magi, or Three Kings, were said to have visited Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh shortly after the reign of “King” Herod the Great, who ruled from 37-4 BC.  They are said to have come “from the east” and it’s disputed whether that means that they were Babylonians, Persians or from Yemen, but that’s all basically the same general area when we’re talking about games at that time.
So regardless of …

I can’t express enough how social media has taken me to new and crazy places —  places I’d never dream I’d be.  For example, this month Fast Company magazine (a magazine I love) and has an article just on me and the “tools of my trade” (which is really just some of the interesting stuff I use to do my job).  Amazing!  Here’s a screen shot and a link to the article (and the one without typos is in the Dec/Jan print issue, page 84):

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/161/kim-vandenbroucke-game-inventor 
Okay, I’m tooting my horn right …

I can’t tell you how often it’s happened in my career that I show a concept to one company’s inventor relations representative and they give me less than glowing feedback, but the I show it to another company’s inventor relations representative and they can’t wait to bring it in.  This always blows my mind – how one person can react like I showed them something that smelled foul and the next is as giddy as a child on Christmas morning.  You’d think it doesn’t make sense that two people who …

This article was written for Global Toy News (July 22, 2011) and can be viewed with comments HERE. I’m adding it now to keep all of my game development advice articles all on my site under the same tag to make it easy for any aspiring or new inventors to access them.  Click the HERE to see them all.
 
While I was writing my last article on boxes that last, I did a very informal poll on The Game Aisle’s Facebook page and Twitter account to see what everyone’s pet peeves were regarding packaging.  Here …