After months of blog silence, I emerge from my internet hibernation to unleash upon you a flurry of articles about video games. I’ve been quiet around these parts mostly because of all the writing I’ve been doing elsewhere – and the venue I’ve poured the most into finally launched today. PocketNext presents reviews, previews, interviews, and features on free mobile games (but their new Features Editor is kind of a big nerd).

We’re launching with a bunch of reviews already up, with plenty more on the way. I’d especially like to draw your attention, however, to some of the commentaries and features I’ve been working on over the last few months, including pieces on…

• what roleplaying games look like when they don’t involve playing roles;
• game controls in a world without buttons;
• some lessons learned from Glitch;
• the evils (and some of the good!) of cool-down timers in game design;
• an argument in defense of pointless games;
• and the ethics of “freemium” as a business model.

I’ll have more to say soon about some of the other venues I’ve been writing for. For now, though, I’m too excited about this project finally seeing the light of day to share this space with anything else!