Indie Gamer: Archive

GravityBone

Ah, one of my favorites. Short and sweet.

Feb 23rd

1 tag

“Wired: Okay, The Last Guardian. Where’s The Last Guardian? Yoshida: First, let...”

– http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/02/shuhei-yoshida-dice-interview/

Feb 22nd

While looking up information for IndieCade 2012

I found another Jonathan Blow presentation. Sweet. Oh, and it’s Oct 4th - 7th. I really want to try and make it this year. Time to get a hotel room in Culver City. PAX Prime is the month before, Aug 31st to Sept 2nd. Sweet. And I wonder if I can get into IGF on March 5th to 9th…. I may have to ask around for this one.

Feb 17th

Oh, is it Valentine's Day?

Then it must mean this is out.

Feb 14th

Take my money NOW, part 2. →

A new point-and-click from Double Fine? Ship me the goods nao.

Feb 9th

TAKE MY MONEY. →

So… Psychonauts 2 anyone?

Feb 7th

Hawken Beta Signup →

Yesssss.

Feb 7th

Watch

Uh, no comment.

Jan 24th

Excited?

Maybe. Possibly Dear Esther. Looks like I know what I’m doing on Valentine’s Day.

Jan 18th

CES

And wouldn’t you know it… I somehow got to go to CES. But it wasn’t the gadgets or the “new” tech that excited me. Whilst roaming around the Sony area, in the middle of the PS3 area with many blockbuster titles set up, there stood: Journey. I’ve been looking forward to this title for a while, ever since I played Flow and Flower, and so I naturally gravitated...

Jan 12th

All Quiet On The Gaming Front

My focus is definitely elsewhere these days. Even when another insane Steam sale occurred during the holidays, I didn’t go too hard into games, except for some coal hunting. Not too many games I’m looking forward to this year from what I recall, other than Fez and if somehow The Witness gets finished this year. What, Diablo III? Pfft.

Jan 10th

Dec 28th

5 Years.

Fez took 5 years to make. Wow. And it seems as though Fish really really struggled through all those five years. Been meaning to read this for a while, but just haven’t had time to devote to my Kindle until today. Definitely worth the read, for any indie dev, games or not.

Dec 20th

Bastion: Flip-flop Upgrades

It wasn’t clear in the beginning if I had to select a certain tech tree to climb, and if I would need to get an ability in the first tier to get the next, and if this wasn’t the case, if I could save up my shards for the next upgrade. Turns out: Yes, previous tiers are required, but… you can change you upgrade, free and easily. More games need to do this. This encourages...

Dec 7th

Bastion: Timing Games

Ever since Mario RPG, I’ve loved timing attacks. Made all the combat that much more active. But even in a non-turn based game like Bastion, I still love it. It’s like the reload mechanic in Gears of War: Just makes the action that much more frenetic and skill-based. And I wonder… is the full health bonus from Zelda? Was there a game that did that before Zelda? Pew pew pew.

Dec 7th

It's Another Indie Sale!

Hooray… I already own all the games I want out of this pack. :-)

Nov 18th

Liked Super Meat Boy and/or VVVVVV?

Try Flywrench.

Nov 6th

Why Aren't You Playing Uncharted 3?

Oh, you don’t have a PlayStation? I guess that’s fair. But if you do… you have no reason not to at least rent the thing. U3 is just U2, but bigger and louder. And I mean that both in good and bad ways. Maybe I’m remembering things a bit differently, but U2 felt more puzzle-oriented and U3. Take whatever cinematic/interactive experience in U2 and then triple it, and...

Nov 4th

Big Fat Ugly Henchmen

Ugh. These battles are the worst. Repetitive and boring. There’s a reason why there tends to be only one of these at most in a typical action movie.

Nov 3rd

Initial Load Times

Very little load time issues at all in U3, but the initial one… Makes me not want to start up a session unless I am to spend hours and hours in it.

Nov 3rd

Hand Holding.

There is none of it. Very sparse. If this was a modern game, I wouldn’t be able to fall off certain types of ledges. This was just the way it was back then, I guess. To fail, and to learn, and to try again. Makes for a frustrating experience on one hand, but on the other, even more satisfying if you happen upon the solution yourself. Or, in the case of clicky adventure games,...

Nov 3rd

Outhinking the Game

I really thought I had to smoosh the miniboss between crates. I really did. Turns out… I was wrong, and let down. Sad. I really do feel, though, it’s been too action packed. It’s becoming a bit monotonous. Or, I think I might just have to refer to my previous post. I think I’m just becoming dull of the awesome. So, to break it up, here comes Ico.

Nov 3rd

Setting the Bar High

As I play through U3, I realize… how much of a bar U2 has set. One moving train? Try dozens of barges, in the rain. Holy hell. And I actually had to think about how incredibly hard it probably was to create, because how crazy immersive all of it were.

Nov 3rd

I hate must-fail scenarios.

It’s okay if a set of successful moves lead into the fail-state, but I’m talking more about the situations where you could have just given up immediately and moved on with the rest of the game. Of course, you won’t know this until you’ve spent time, resources, ammo… whatever.

Nov 2nd

Market in Yemen

Definitely a different feel, with the following certain sequence of awesome. Love the ‘square’ animation. No handshaking this time, but still loving the alternative animation.

Nov 2nd

Definitely seeing some bugs...

I had to restore to a recent autosave. Hmm, it’s always the problem with games these days… so big that it’s so hard to test for everything. Can you imagine galaga shipping with bugs?

Nov 2nd

"Mate, those contracts are a complete rip-off."

YES. SO TRUE. THIS IS WHY I DON’T HAVE A CONTRACT. So apt… tee hee.

Nov 2nd

Callback

Is it just me, or did anyone else feel that tiny bit of callback to U2 with dropping the ladder? I’m shedding a tear at how great that game was.

Nov 2nd

"Nah, keep the silencer kid."

I love little details like this. Also love: character animation details. Hands come up against walls, little tumbles as you jump longer distances.

Nov 2nd

Chase Sequence Failures

Always, not just in U3… Definitely not as enjoyable unless you, the player, was smart enough to figure it all out as you went along. If you fail, then you get to start again, no consequences. This… needs work in games. I wonder how… hmm…

Nov 2nd

Uncharted 3 and Assassin's Creed

AC does it much better overall, but of course, for U3, most of these building-climbing ledge-jumpy parts are one-offs, with extremely slick camera angles that induce excitement. Not liking the glaring invisible walls in Drake’s childhood sequence, but I’m beginning to like it.

Nov 2nd

Uncharted 3

Feels like an Uncharted game… but I’m hesitant already. The uncanny valley of actual gameplay mixed with cutscenes is confusing things. I’m not sure if I just failed a sequence, or if I was not going to be able to hit the big beefy guy in the face with a chair. What really bugs me is that half a second when you realize, oh, I need to move now, because I’m not on rails...

Nov 1st

PBS Arts talks about Video Games →

Bioshock’s choice system was stupid dumb. No. NO. It’s a good game, but don’t even… But yes, the video is a nice intro to many indie or creative games. If you can name all the games in the video, then… it’s a nice review of games you’ve played already. And we should be friends.

Oct 27th

Nov 1 Cannot Come Faster...

Uncharted 3. I must prepare mentally and physically for this run-through. Trying to figure out how to capture the awesome here… as opposed to how retarded that Final Fantasy crap was.

Oct 27th

Oct 18th

NOTGAMES-FEST2011 →

Oct 12th

IndieCade 2011 Keynote →

I seriously need to go to one of these while I’m close. Next year… next year…

Oct 12th

Eliss is Free →

For those of you with an iOS device…

Oct 7th

Please don't tell me you still go to GameStop. →

Oct 7th

Gears of War 3

Perfect example of a game I need to not play for a while. More of the same. Nothing stands out, especially the final battle. All noise. All brown. All the freaking time.

Oct 6th

Oct 3rd

Humble Bundle 3.

I’m a bit disappointed with this third bundle. How can you call it a bundle when you’re including just one game, Frozen Synapse? And only recently has it achieved bundle status for me with Trauma getting added into it. It was a bit confusing with them also upselling the “Frozenbyte” Bundle, when the main bundle also has the word “Frozen” in it. At least...

Oct 2nd

Now with that eSports thing out of the way...

Completely removed SC2 from my hard drive yesterday. Some of it was rage, but a lot of it was because I realized it’s not something I want to spend my time on. I want to sip the fine wine of indie gaming, study it and help others to enjoy it. Not to say that what the pros of StarCraft 2 does day in and day out is not art on its own, I realize now that I will only be able to appreciate...

Sep 30th

Thoughts on an Indie Gamer Show

I wonder if I should start recording these adventures of mine, and start commentating as I go. Maybe even stream it while I’m doing the first run through, and start shortening and editing them for YouTube consumption. Hmm.

Sep 20th

NightSky

One thing I already don’t like too much about NightSky is the lack of coherence. One level after another after another: They’re all building up from one another, mechanics-wise, and I love that quite a bit. But there really isn’t anything connecting each level together. Sometimes it goes dark, sometimes it becomes colorful; sometimes you lose a powerup, sometimes you gain a...

Sep 20th

NyxQuest

I was soooo excited to see that NyxQuest might pull a Braid, and start just as the game loaded. But I was let down by a save slot screen. Boourns. More games just need to slip straight into the action. First impressions are so important in the indie world, since there are so many freaking titles out there, as well as the lack of marketing. Make it simple at the beginning, and start ramping it...

Sep 20th

NightSky

Thanks to the Midweek Madness Indie Bundle sales over at Steam, I was able to snag NightSky and BIT.TRIP. NightSky reminds me a lot of Limbo (the black and white, although with just a hint of color) with a helping of Gish (with controls that actual work 100% of the time… I really did not like that game). A quiet, serene puzzler. A good departure from the recent StarCraft II I’ve...

Sep 20th

Hah. Molyneux. →

Sep 16th

Minecraft

Wow. I remember when I first heard about this game, and just messed around with the free alpha. I bought the game, shortly right after during the prebeta sale, mostly because of the indie love that people seemed to have for this game. I didn’t really understand the appeal. Until tonight. Being on a server with three other friends, and somehow playing for hours and hours without a...

Sep 15th