Ludus—Ludeme Last month, I mapped a working definition of game (ludus) and ludeme (conceptual units of a game and play) in preparation for an upcoming article on ludemes and programming video games. I went through many of the better known attempts for a definition and asked myself where my own perspective differs and what my approach needs to express.

In the past few months I have been engaging in the exegesis of source code from the 1980ies and -90ies. Serendipity towards the end of last year brought me in closer contact with the concept of ludemes, in which I found a fitting perspective on these magic moments of translation. David M. Berry outlines this processes through the computational image, Hartmut Rosa approaches it through his theories on resonance, Karen Barad talks about inter- and intra-actions, and Luhman also has an opinion on the topic. Either way, ludemes have been utterly fruitful in reading source code against a techno-deterministic grain, and as a lens into programming practices of the past.

I was increasingly unhappy with mypublishing strategy (or the lack thereof), but also increasingly worriedabout the state of the internet, especially the aggressive scrapping ofcontent by AI bots. So, I reconsidered my approach.

I have finally found the time to produce two (extremely dense) abstracts for the next paper (on Source Code and Ludemes).

In which I’m reflecting on critical code studies, distant reading source code and my recent workshop at the DHd 2025.

A few notes on the moment of translation between epistemologies and ontologies in software.

Inspired by the silly inquiries of Any Austin and the concept of relational playworld by Melos Han-Tani I figured I’m going to spend some more time in Alba, after I finished it for the second time.

A few quick notes on thinking theory through metaphors.

I tried to learn assembly, but didn’t find the energy. But I had a inspired times anyways.

I was chewing on the concept of ludemes lately and needed to map it out, conceptionally. Especially from the perspective of code and programming, there are terms that overlap and differ.

Writing this first paper felt grindy. But I enjoyed working on something for that long of a time. I also learned a lot, again.