Gaming has always involved players doing the same thing, over and over, but now designers are experimenting with circling time as a narrative device — There is tragedy in the Danish palace: the untimely deaths of the entire royal family, the king’s advisor and both of his children, and the prince’s friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But for Ophelia, the advisor’s daughter, death is not the end, as she awakens in her bedchamber four days in…

Why do people love to roleplay as a hacker, and what do these games teach us? — Dave Kennedy once broke into a bank vault with a password he found in a worker’s desk drawer. The desk was locked, but picking it was trivial, and it took about 30 seconds to get the code that would give him access to safety deposit boxes and bags of cash…