This summer, as part of our activities with the Residual Media Depot, Alex Custodio and I are modding several videogame consoles while closely documenting our work. The goal of this project is to create a series of succinct, approachable modding guides that detail the tools and techniques needed for hardware modding. Game Boy Pocket Backlit LCD Installation Our first modding project involved...
Today, Mammoth Island Games debuts its Adventure Club! Each season of the Club offers a bevy of postcard-sized, system neutral, TTRPG adventures. The current season theme is Islands and features five entries. After Hearth & Blade and The Elephant in the Room, my brother and I shifted our focus toward smaller TTRPG projects. This is for three reasons. First, scoped-down TTRPGs allow us to...
This past summer, I had the privilege of working with Alex Custodio and lee wilkins on a trio of Game Boy workshops, leading up to our Solar Game (Boy) Jam on August 26th. The work was completed as part of the Milieux Solar Media Project, which explores the affordances of solar energy for digital communication systems. The three workshops invited guests to tinker with different aspects of the...
This is a conference paper presented at the 2021 Canadian Game Studies Association Conference. Iantorno, Michael. “Double Bootlegs: Reproduction Cartridges of Videogame Hacks.” Canadian Game Studies Association Conference, 31 May – 4 June 2021, University of Alberta, Canada. Held online due to COVID-19 pandemic. Hello, my name is Michael and I am a PhD student in Concordia University’s...
The Elephant in the Room v3.0 (Download) In 2018, my brother and I published a PDF version of our Pathfinder feat tree, designed to encapsulate and expand upon the modifications suggested in our original blog post. Entitled The Elephant in the Room: Feat Taxes in Pathfinder, the document features a re-imagined version of the entire feat section found in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core...
Ever since I first started talking about videogame hacking – back during my undergraduate degree at Ryerson University – the first question folks have asked me about my practice is invariably “have you played Super Mario Clouds?” Super Mario Clouds is, of course, Cory Arcangel’s famous art installation, which ostensibly strips away every single element from the NES...
This is a conference paper presented at the 2020 History of Games Conference. Iantorno, Michael. “Coded Canons: Videogame Alteration Practices and Negotiating Authenticity.” History of Games Conference, 21-24 October 2020, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. Held online due to COVID-19 pandemic. Hello, my name is Michael and I am a PhD student in Concordia University’s Communication program...
My master’s thesis, Sub-Versions: Investigating Videogame Hacking Practices and Subcultures, has now been released through the Spectrum Research Depository. Written between 2018 and 2019 under the supervision of Dr Matt Soar, Sub-Versions was completed as part of my MA in Media Studies at Concordia University. The abstract, citation, and full link can be found below. I’ve also written...