GAMBIT

From the New York Times:

Few Americans had ever thought of Japan as a source for puzzles until a little more than two years ago, when sudoku suddenly took the nation by storm, flooding airport gift shops, and even rivaling crosswords in popularity. Now Nikoli, which publishes puzzle magazines and books, is widely regarded as the world's most prolific wellspring of logic games and brainteasers.

Mr. Kaji and the company have had a hand in creating and promoting most of the half dozen or so number puzzles that have taken off after sudoku. But Mr. Kaji says that Nikoli has at least 250 more puzzles like sudoku, the vast majority of them unknown outside Japan.

Chris Kohler from Wired News wrote up an article about our initiative! We haven't announced the new GAMBIT name yet, so he's still using our unofficial tagline (Singapore-MIT International Game Lab) but it looks like all the details are accurate. He also mentions a number of other new game programs around the US, all focusing intently on the value of actually making games on top of in-depth studies of the medium. Very cool.

Wired News: Today's Homework: Make Good Games