Independent Gaming

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

This week, Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw reviews Popcap's "Peggle".

So, who else thinks that Zero Punctuation is the best thing to hit game reviewing since the arsecast?

Some of Yahtzee's previous projects:
6 Days a Sacrifice
Trilby's Notes
5 Days a Stranger
1213 Episodes 1 2 and 3
Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment

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Posted at 12:29 PM by Anonymous

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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Interview with clysm (you know - that guy that made Seiklus)

New interview with clysm, Seiklus developer.

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Posted at 5:13 PM by Moshboy

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Braid for Xbox Live Arcade

Jonathan Blow has revealed that Braid will be coming to the Xbox Live Arcade in early 2008. According to XBLArcade:

Braid (Number None Inc.): Arriving in early 2008 on Xbox LIVE Arcade, Braid is a platformer/puzzle game. Journey across seven worlds to rescue a princess—in each world, time behaves in its own peculiar way. Cleverly manipulate the flow of time to solve puzzles. Braid aims to provide a mind-expanding, filler-free experience.

Mr. Blow has confirmed that a PC version is in the works as well.

- read the announcement
- XBLArcade article

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Posted at 12:45 PM by Tim

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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Play This Thing

Play This Thing (formerly Games Rule OK) is a new web site from Manifesto Games, created with the objective of featuring a special game each day - freeware, IF, mods and especially independent games.

All reviews come with meaty descriptions, and most of the articles are written by the head honcho himself Greg Costikyan (latest entry from Emily Short). If the promise of daily updates is kept, then this site is definitely one to bookmark.

visit Play This Thing
Manifesto Games

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The Indies

The latest edition of GameShark's The Indies is up. This bi-weekly feature is written by James Fudge, and focuses on a collection of complete (and incomplete) Sourceforge projects, casual games, shareware plus the occasional free stuff.

Also, free plug for them because they mentioned Independent Gaming.

There are fifteen issues worth of reading material so if the features index isn't already in your bookmarks then now is probably a good time to do a some catching up. How about a weekly schedule, James?

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Posted at 12:43 AM by Tim

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Sunday, September 02, 2007

PC Gamer's Top 100 2007

PC Gamer's Top 100 2007 is a list of the best one hundred games for the year 2007, chosen at random by ten journalists. Cave Story is nowhere in it, but here are a couple of indie games selected for prestigious mentions:

98. N
85. Uplink
75. Masq
51. Defcon
40. Peggle
35. Darwinia

Read page 1, 100 - 51
Read page 2, 50 - 1

Labels: ar0907

Posted at 12:27 PM by Tim

Recent Comments

Zero Punctuation: Peggle Who would trade sex for, well, anything. I love Zero Punctuation. Graham, is that you? Seriously, it sounds like graham! I think he gave up the arsecast, got himself a new identity and started doing this instead. He's just keeping it a secret from us! You'll see! Everybody else thinks so! Hoorah! Don't know arsecast, but hell, yes!

- Ben Blah - yet again someone forgot to make the pseudo-embedded movie open in a new window...

As to Yahtzee - if I were a woman I'd want to bear his children. :-D Haha this is incredible.

"Gun Battle Slap Fight" for Playstation 12 Gun Battle Slap Fight 37!
The original pales in comparison :P It probably wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the Arsecast, but I think Zero Punctuation is much better. Yahtzee also makes kick ass games, so I respect him big time. He's certainly a shitload more diligent than me, that's for sure. And yes, the visuals combined with the dialogue elevate it a lot. I just wish that The Escapist would buy him more new games so it was consistently topical rather than every other week. And anyhoo he sounds nothing like my voice. He sounds more like Dr Ashen's who did those reviews of crappy consoles. :P Quite enjoyable and very funny.. Graham, my ears are simple things, they think you all sound similar :(
It's not a bad thing though, its like the best accent ever or something. Ta'. It is particularly excellent for ordering a cup of tea and crumpets. ;) Adrian's Guide to 2007 Freeware Games WOW. Nice job, Adrian! Incredible stuff! Incredible collection... he got almost everything and that's a bloody lot! Fantastic, really.... Thanks for the tip Tim! Really nice list, but many of the games aren't from 2007. Doesn't really matter though, good to see people spread the indie goodness. Plasma Pong Removed Harsh! Sooo many pong remakes, yet they pick only a somewhat well known one to bust? Well who knows. Was it said it was removed due to a copyright issue? Lawyers suck. I guess Atari must be getting ready to release an amazing next-gen pong game ;) Stwelin:

It would have been removed by request of Atari lawyers. Their job is to find things like this that would infringe on their trademarks and get them to stop. No thought goes into whether or not the item in question is damaging, they just make sure things like this get removed. If he removed "Pong" from the name, there wouldn't be an issue. And the irony of it all is that Atari's Pong idea was initially stolen from someone else. Yep, two paddles and a ball...one hell of a concept. He should have called it tabletop soccer. Greedy lawyers. Maybe they could call it "Plasma Paddles"? Up plasma creek without a paddle...
It would be nice if a company that failed to release anything decent under a certain trademark in some years would lose all rights to it. But that could leave so many lawyers starving to death... With Atari's profile going down the drain I guess they need to do something to keep the name in people's minds. This is ridiculous.

I'm sure Atari just happen to have the rights to the name "Ping Pong"? Because I'm pretty sure Plasma Pong could be seen as a riff on the name "Ping Pong". Sounds incredible! I hope they removed it just beacouse it contains the name pong in the title.. otherwise they are crazy! Given the state of Infogrames finances for the past two years (fighting off their second NASDAC delisting notice, still massively in debt, reporting millions of pounds in losses AND unable to take out further loans) and their increasing reliance on the Atari name and IP it's not entirely unsurprising that they're resorting to C&D's.

T'aint going to make their problems go away though and considering the embarassing mess of their "updated" products, perhaps looking inwards might be a first port of call.

As to why Plasma Pong? Domain name or the fact it's had massive amounts of exposure. Depending on whether it's just the usual spiderbot job or someone really took the time to flag it and fire off a C&D. I know which one my money would be on though. Well I guess when you have a failing company going very much in the red you then have to start attacking anything you can hoping you find someone who resists so you can squeeze a few extra bucks out of them. You are also ocassionally asked to take stuff down when negotiating a distribution/publishing deal with someone who wants to sell what you are giving away for free. So unless confirmed, this is a possibility.
However, if Atari's lawyer's are on the warpath for Pong, that is regrettable. Atari should acquire and release Plasma Pong on XBLA: everybody wins! This is nothing other than absurd. Silly Atari, very silly...

I hope Plasma Pong returns in some other form in the future. Ehm, since when are game mechanisms patentable!?
Sorry (or not), the graphics, the sounds, the programming is all new, and the main priniciple is as basic as it can get!

There were hundreds of freeware Pong titles before, the most with some unique twist (powerups, you can rotate the paddle a bit,...).
No company sued before about a Pacman, Boulder Dash or Tetris clone.
I guess the makers are afraid of the costs that may come with a court case. Totaly agree with Ozzie (wait didn't nintendo and Tengen [i beleive tengen was a part of atari] fight for tetris and nintendo won), pong is so freicken basic, how can you say "it's ours bitch." what, evertime a ball bounces of a wall do they sue. Screw atari. last I recall, "pong" was a trademark. Nintendo can't sue companies over using "Super" or "Bros." in a game title & Valve can't sue companies over using "Counter" or "Strike" in a game name. Mac Games Thanks for this list. My cross-platform shmup (written in Fenix) should hopefully pop up on this list soon (Mac, PC, and Dreamcast). Yo Tim, according to someone on a forum I linked to this post:
>>>>>
The link to Doukutsu (Cave Story) in there was for the Linux version. I was pleased to find out that there's also a Universal (non-Rosetta Intel) version available.
Mac Download (universal) and the Mac Translation Patcher Thanks for the correction, much appreciated. :)

I'm sure there are more Mac games out there - apologies to the developers whose works I've left out from the list unintentionally. Anything open-source written in Java or SDL automatically is for Mac as well, no? It's a matter of compiling it on one, then playing it, but it's all there and as available as the open-source Unix games. Tim, you're a star and a lifesaver! Upcoming Indie Games I don't know if you are interested, but the Three Day Project has just judged the first competition.

http://3dp.jajproductions.nl

:) Is there a way we can get to play the entries? I can find the games' names on there, but no screenshots, no explanation of what the game's about or who made it, and no download link... Ah, found some small reviews... Tricky navigation system. Still, no screenshots or downloads, or even who made the game. IAC Acquires GarageGames *shrug*... Alright. Business as usual. QB Express: Issue #24 Videos Interview with clysm (you know - that guy that made Seiklus) Braid for Xbox Live Arcade in my experience, the people who have the most to say, especially about how wonderful their own game is, and how wonderful they are designing it, usually before the game is released, and usually saying how bad other games are, the game usually turns out pretty bad itself.
well have to see. i'm just very sceptical.
i mean, his game isn't even out yet, and he is already telling other people how to make their games. Eh, so far, I like what I see. Then again I like this sort of "boring puzzle thingies" anyway. Hi guys. You may or may not like the game, of course, and that's fine. I don't actually go around telling people this is a great game or anything -- but in interviews, I will definitely communicate the strong opinions I have about why I did things the way I did.

As for "telling people how to make their games" -- well, I do lectures and interviews and things like that. But I am only doing those things because I'm invited to give lectures, or asked to do interviews, by people who find some value in what I say. If you don't find that value, fine; but then just don't watch or read the material. There's no real reason to bust out the Standard-Issue Internet Negeativity (which is so easy and adds nothing). [Note: I have been in the game business for 12 years, so it's not as if I am some random indie making his first game and being very vocal about it. As sometimes happens.]

Braid hasn't been released yet but most of the people who play it like it a lot, and it won an award and etc. So that's something. Hopefully when you can play it, you will like it. If you don't, then hey -- not your game. Though the word 'only' reads wrongly to me; I do like doing lectures, etc. But the point is, people do find value in it. That's very cool that jonathan blow himself came here to defend the negative comments.

let me tell you, dispite xbox live arcade's "hey, we welcome all ideas and submissions for casual games" attitude, they are mean, picky nazis that reject everything. so making it onto xbox live arcade is an amazing feat in itself!!

Braid looks very cool, and I'm looking forward to it. It's kinda like "Klonoa" with a guy in a suit.

Jonathan, were the Klonoa games an inspiration for Braid? Inspirational games were:
Dojo Dan
Rise of the Robots
ET (Atari 2600)
Alfred Chicken
Vixen (Amiga) Well, I read this blog daily... it is one of my main internet hangouts. So posting is not that big of a stretch.

When I first started making Braid I went and played a bunch of platformers to get a feel for what was out there. A friend of mine told me that Klonoa 2 was like the greatest platformer ever made... so I played it and, uhh, it really was not for me.

As far as games go, the main influence is Super Mario Bros, which is obvious as soon as you start playing. Most of the other influences come from other media (Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities", David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr.", the music of the Dirty Three... and probably a bunch of stuff that I am not remembering right now.) Sorry guys, I won't be updating until this weekend at least. I'm having some serious problems with my PC hardware, so unless that's fixed I won't be able to try out any games for a while.

I will try and make a couple of posts here and there though... Jonathan,

Don't feed the trolls!

Congrats for getting your game on XBox Live by the way.

Bill I also had negative opinions about the game when I read about it. (I was probably jeallous about the huge hype it was getting.)

But after seeing one of mr Blow's lectures I completely changed my mind. It was the most interesting presentation I'd ever had the pleasure of viewing, and it cleared up a lot of things about developing games that I previously was unaware of. When seeing the ideas for Braid in motion, and hearing him describe how he had prototyped it, I could see it in a new light where the hype seemed very well deserved.

Hearing mr Blow list David Lynch as an influence is both confusing and exciting. I haven't noticed any connections between Mulholland Dr. and Braid, but Lynch has given me some of my life's most awe-inspiring moments. Game Maker for Mac Soon The slight hint towards the DS is pretty big - good news to us GM developers out there. Heh, you could also mention that the other amateur game creator, Multimedia Fusion 2, is getting Hardware Acceleration and an option to create Java executables thus making it available (to a point) for pretty much anything that can run Java :) - which I believe is quite a lot of things...

Of course it actually has to happen (ETA:Christmas) for this actually mean anything Both great developments; this will benefit developers and gamers alike in the long run. Wow i think it's a great news if there is some developer that plans for making some commercial game usingo the gamemakers..

In particular the java thing is very appetible, considering th mobile phone game is very good.. or not? Unfortunately it'll be another year or two at least before Multimedia Fusion is a good candidate for mobile games. They have incredibly strict limitations for memory and MMF applications squander resources. Metanet Interviewed Play This Thing The Indies Ooh, Gladiator Trials. Now there's a game I haven't played in ages. Kinda got boring as you continued, though. Still, it's worth playing. The mention of this site on there hit the nail on the head. I don't think any other site keeps up with everything that goes on as well as this one. Dare to be Digital Weirdly, one of the contestants got in touch with me completely independently of my games industry background or indygaming internetting, and asked me if he could use my t-shirt design idea for a game. Oh, looks like they didn't enter or something. Their game isn't listed. Holy foshizzle, they look good! Going to watch all those video trailers and try out as many of them as I can =D Bear Go Home is visually neat but the controls and sound will drive you up the wall after five minutes.

Kids, just say no to gesture driven physical characters! Free Play 2007 Videos PC Gamer's Top 100 2007 I played Peggle a while ago, and was surprised by how fun it was. Good game. N is also nice. Haven't played any of the others. I'm glad Planescape is still getting recognition. Despite NEVER being included in compilation sets (Including the BlackIsle collection which contained every single release and expansion -except- it) it's always a fantastic game to go back and play. Probably the closest an RPG has ever come to being a perfect balance of Game and Interactive Fiction.

And well, N is just fantastic reall. Oh there is no Dwarf Fortress :( !!!

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