A profile of Tarn and Zach Adams, creators of the computer game Dwarf Fortress:

Dwarf Fortress may not look real, but once you’re hooked, it feels vast, enveloping, alive. To control your world, you toggle between multiple menus of text commands; seemingly simple acts like planting crops and forging weapons require involved choices about soil and season and smelting and ores. A micromanager’s dream, the game gleefully blurs the distinction between painstaking labor and creative thrill.

On the shift from the “triple-A video-game production cycle — the expensive development process, in other words, by which games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted, and BioShock are unleashed upon the world” towards the simpler pleasures of gaming on the iPad.

Duke Nukem 3D made its creators filthy rich. Trying to complete its sequel nearly destroyed them.

On LA Noire and the gaming paradoxes presented by pairing nuanced storytelling with a player’s free will.

A field trip to the video gamey world of the modern trader.

Inside the most ubiquitous distraction of its era.

On how 21st century culture shifts killed the nerd and what lies ahead.

A profile of video game artist Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Super Mario Bros.

How the mind behind Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto plans to push gaming further.

A new strain of educational thought (and practice) involves embracing the technology of the moment - which means bringing video games into the classroom.

Movies about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed to connect with viewers, but video games on the topic have broken sales records.

How Madden NFL went from a programmer’s childhood dream to a $3 billion business.

Are video games capable of emotion?