I spent this past weekend at Funspot, the classic arcade that hosted much of the King of Kong documentary that recorded and exaggerated the rivalry between two contenders for the Donkey Kong world record. The film cast underdog Steve Wiebe and reigning champ Billy Mitchell as hero and villain, and the appearance of a new champion has done nothing to diminish the perceived fervor between the two master gamers. It's a heated battle that threatens to consume the entire globe, endangering us all. We must act today to prevent a future that must never happen:

(Hat tip to Game Culture)

Anyone looking for quality entertainment software for their computers should take advantage of these two limited-time offers.

The first is the Humble Indie Bundle, which packages together six games: World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru, Penumbra, and Samorost 2. All six games are available for PC, Mac, and Linux, making for 18 unique downloads. Customers can name their own price and even determine the proportions by which it is divided among three recipients: the bundle's six developers; Child's Play, a charity that supplies children's hospitals with games; or the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Child's Play is a favorite charity of mine, so the opportunity to benefit them and receive something in return is a win-win.

Of the six games, World of Goo alone is worth the price of admission. In October 2009, its developer, 2D Boy, conducted a experiment similar to this bundle in which gamers could pay whatever they wanted for Goo. The results are extensively documented and, like the current Humble Indie Bundle findings, reflect that those who use a free operating system tend to be the most generous with their monies.

If donating to charity for a half-dozen games isn't your thing, then how about just one title for free? Portal, Valve's first-person puzzler that has won multiple awards, is a free download through the Steam service through May 24th. It's part of a promotion of Steam's availability for the Mac, launched this week. Any Mac games you previously bought for PC can be downloaded for free, but whether or not you're an existing customer, you can now get Portal for either platform by signing up for a free Steam account.

Portal is a groundbreaking game in its own right, and with Portal 2 coming out later this year, now is a good time to catch up on what you've missed.

A college student joins his campus's game development group. They decide to have a 48-hour programming competition. The kid's father, an alumnus of the school, asks if he can enter the contest, just for fun.

Who wants their dad tagging along for the weekend? Pretty embarrassing, right? Maybe not when your dad is Sid Meier, founder of Firaxis Games and creator of such legendary franchises as Civilization and Pirates! That's what happened to Ryan Meier and Wolverine Soft, the video game development student group at the University of Michigan.

Such limited-time programming contests are nothing new — Pangea Software got their start with a series of 24-hour games on the Apple IIGS, and I myself have entered the HackFest competition under similar constraints. Neither Ryan nor Sid were eligible for Wolverine Soft's competition, though, as both were serving as judges. Sid entered just for the fun of it, apparently having never performed on such a tight deadline.

The experience was encapsulated in a 24-minute video that alternates between the history of Meier's gaming career as well as his and the students' progress in the 48-hour programming marathon. The difference in output quality between the amateur and the professional programmers is astounding, which lends some credence to one observer commenting that programming comes so effortlessly to Sid, "He must have a function: 'build game'".

Elsewhere, Sid Meier recently spoke about game psychology, morality decisions, and social networking. The latter is something in which he has a personal investment as Firaxis explores ways to bring the Civilization franchise to Web 2.0:

When you're in the world with your friends, you want a different kind of gameplay experience potentially than if you're playing against people you don't know or if you're playing by yourself. To allow all these different things in the world of Civilization — competitive play, cooperative play, individual play, or synchronous and asynchronous play, where you're playing at the same time as somebody else, playing at a different time as somebody else — those are fascinating problems to me as a designer. That was the challenge of Civilization Network, to take this brand new technology, this new way of playing games, and take what's cool about Civilization and marry the best of those together and come up with something unique.

Civilization Network, a Facebook version of the game, will launch in 2010.

(Hat tip to Slashdot)