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Nathan Altice

@altice

Game designer, researcher, and archivist. Synth destroyer. Makes old things new. Teaching Professor of Computational Media at UCSC. Wrote I AM ERROR.

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30.12.2023
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Latest posts by Nathan Altice @altice

check out this procession of unfuckable dweebs

08.02.2026 18:03 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
A Keynote slide that reads 'Data management' with an illustration of the Star Trek character Data.

A Keynote slide that reads 'Data management' with an illustration of the Star Trek character Data.

Look, I have no special affinity to Star Trek, but this visual pun seemed too good to pass up for a game programming topic slide.

19.01.2026 01:04 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Game Poems #1 An online literary magazine publishing short-form videogames directly in a playable format. Issue #1 features interactive works by international artists and game designers.

I'm excited to share that Game Poems Issue 1 is now live at www.gamepoems.com/issue01

A new online literary magazine dedicated to exploring the artistic and poetic potential of short-form videogames by publishing new games directly in a playable format.

Thanks for playing and sharing!

13.01.2026 13:20 ๐Ÿ‘ 240 ๐Ÿ” 112 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 6 ๐Ÿ“Œ 19
Pac-Man running from the horde of ghosts

Pac-Man running from the horde of ghosts

PAC-MANIA
NAMCO 1988
ARCADE

21.07.2025 23:14 ๐Ÿ‘ 365 ๐Ÿ” 88 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 5 ๐Ÿ“Œ 13

Spotlight Golf contained very state-of-the-art technology for its time, which enabled it to create a unique gameplay experience.

According to the Australasian Golf Museum, this tech qualifies it as the "first computer game" and maybe the first electronic computer.

Let's investigate this.

14.11.2025 22:41 ๐Ÿ‘ 39 ๐Ÿ” 13 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 4
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Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collectionโ€™s current iteration.

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.

OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

06.09.2025 06:31 ๐Ÿ‘ 11938 ๐Ÿ” 9834 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 225 ๐Ÿ“Œ 734
The book cover for Paul Virilio's Lost Dimension (1991). The graphic design is a nightmare: fish are swimming around a red torii in inky blackness. The title and author text have a fold effect and gradients that look like shit.

The book cover for Paul Virilio's Lost Dimension (1991). The graphic design is a nightmare: fish are swimming around a red torii in inky blackness. The title and author text have a fold effect and gradients that look like shit.

You all can stop searching, because I found the worst academic book cover of all time.

09.09.2025 00:21 ๐Ÿ‘ 5 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Quite possibly one of the best/unfortunate typos from an academic text I've ever run across. (From MacKenzie's Human-Computer Interaction 2E textbook.)

28.08.2025 19:34 ๐Ÿ‘ 5 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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AGAINST AI

teachers!

excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.

take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com

15.08.2025 17:39 ๐Ÿ‘ 738 ๐Ÿ” 420 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 38 ๐Ÿ“Œ 57
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We've acquired the historic game magazine Computer Entertainer.

As in, we got the rights. We own the magazine. And we're putting it into the Creative Commons for anyone to use for free.

Learn more: gamehistory.org/computerente...

06.08.2025 14:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 3834 ๐Ÿ” 1161 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 44 ๐Ÿ“Œ 93
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This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting Iโ€™ve ever seen.

By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

04.08.2025 21:52 ๐Ÿ‘ 4535 ๐Ÿ” 3270 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 169 ๐Ÿ“Œ 409

what strikes me about ai music is how it reproduces a particular style of mainstream engineering/production. not surprising since iโ€™m sure most folks donโ€™t recognize that part of the artistic equation, but iโ€™m still frustrated that music is decomposed into genre/lyric/instrumentation only

18.07.2025 18:15 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
ROMchip ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories is a platform designed for the advancement of critical historical studies of games.

๐ŸŽฎ๐Ÿ“œ Itโ€™s that time of year game history friends! ๐Ÿ“œ๐ŸŽฎ

The July 2025 issue of ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories is HERE! ๐Ÿ•น๏ธ๐Ÿ“– www.romchip.org ๐ŸŒŸ get cozy, get reading ๐Ÿ“šโœจ

SUBSCRIBE: eepurl.com/crCul1
DONATE: bit.ly/3ve1oqZ

๐Ÿงต below!

03.07.2025 15:32 ๐Ÿ‘ 58 ๐Ÿ” 28 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

Look at this beautiful screenshot

04.06.2025 22:36 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Donate to Support UCSC Dining Hall Workers' Strike on May 1st!, organized by Riley Pickenpaugh Our chapter of YDSA is raising money to help support our campusโ€ฆ Riley Pickenpaugh needs your support for Support UCSC Dining Hall Workers' Strike on May 1st!

UCSC dining hall workers need support for their May 1st strike. Their goal is a modest $500, so please kick in if you can. gofund.me/03fde845

30.04.2025 18:14 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
A picture of the first screen of the Cherry Cough Syrup level 'Membrane.'

A picture of the first screen of the Cherry Cough Syrup level 'Membrane.'

I'm hoping to have Cherry Cough Syrup finished by summer. All mainline levels are in place. Brand new UI. Lots of quality of life improvements. Now all the hard work of wrapping up loose ends.

27.04.2025 03:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

This would be both a great look and a great sound design approach to a motorcycle racing/traversal game.

25.04.2025 21:41 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

eerie how close our lists are, though blue jay way is my #1 and i really like the anthology version of tomorrow never knows

24.04.2025 22:14 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Neither am Iโ€”only our books are.

14.04.2025 22:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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I'll also add, somewhat immodestly, that I'm on some next-level bullshit with my class slides.

14.04.2025 22:16 ๐Ÿ‘ 6 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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I'm using this design to illustrate how Bogost structures the book, i.e., bookending individual examples of game criticism with an opening and closing argument about what game criticism is (and could be).

Ten years on, it's also a nice snapshot of what games were in conversation at the time.

14.04.2025 22:09 ๐Ÿ‘ 4 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

A big part of this class is teaching students how to read and analyze difficult texts, whether they be academic papers or magazine images or YouTube videos. But I'm also trying to *demonstrate* the production of arguments using those same media, especially the medium of graphic design via slides.

14.04.2025 22:06 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
A title slide reading 'How Do We Talk About Video Games?' incorporating an image of the game Florence.

A title slide reading 'How Do We Talk About Video Games?' incorporating an image of the game Florence.

A slide that provides a subway map-style layout of the chapters in Ian Bogost's How To Talk About Videogames.

A slide that provides a subway map-style layout of the chapters in Ian Bogost's How To Talk About Videogames.

At some point, I'll share more about my new class, Games as Technical Culture (now on my second iteration), but for now I'm excited to finally have a class that incorporates @ibogost.bsky.social 's How to Talk About Video Games as a means to talk about culturally-informed game criticism.

14.04.2025 22:06 ๐Ÿ‘ 11 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

It's CHARITY MEGABUNDLE TIME! And there's some absolute gems in this one, including Tunic which is just an all-timer and everyone should have it in their library.

So let's do a little thread showcasing some of the games, and also the tools you might find handy to navigate this & other Itch bundles.

27.02.2025 20:24 ๐Ÿ‘ 260 ๐Ÿ” 153 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 6 ๐Ÿ“Œ 3
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ROMchipJournal - Twitch Tinahacks Runs Super Mario World All Castles! | ROMchip Journal Fundraiser 2025 | !donate !schedule !raffle

Itโ€™s the @romchip.bsky.social fundraiser stream today!! 12 hours of game goodness streamed by various cool people to raise money to keep ROMchip going and open to everyone. Watch and donate!

twitch.tv/romchipjournal

22.02.2025 17:32 ๐Ÿ‘ 8 ๐Ÿ” 8 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Evocative posing, detailed line work, great colors. Really nice work!

21.02.2025 07:02 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Exceptionally thoughtful writing about exceptionally interesting games. ๐Ÿ‘‡

17.02.2025 03:35 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Kendrickโ€™s boldest move mightโ€™ve been bringing back ragged boot cut jeans with the early 00s wash.

10.02.2025 01:46 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

we can and should be candid about what it means if someone says that they want to accumulate and centralize (and therefore validate or invalidate) the entire world in the form of data. what does that kind of central authority describe? on its face we're describing systems of authoritarian nature.

26.01.2025 18:46 ๐Ÿ‘ 55 ๐Ÿ” 9 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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I've developed a new slide design style this quarter that I'm really happy with. It has a touch of 90s editorial graphic design.

20.01.2025 03:08 ๐Ÿ‘ 6 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0