There’s a very interesting post over on Wonderland. It’s a loose trascription of Raph Koster’s keynote at the 2005 Game Developer’s Conference, and covers such ground as the continuity between entertainment and art, the value (and peril) of interactivity, and what makes things fun. The latter was of special interest for me: while I like games a fair bit, I also often get tired of a game before I’ve reached the end. Raph points out that much of the fun of a game comes in mastering something new — when a game stops giving you new things to learn or mechanics to master, it quickly pales.

Anyway, there’s enough good stuff in the keynote that I’ve added Raph Koster’s book to my list of things to read.