If you’re seeing this post at ludusnovus.net, you may have noticed that I’ve changed the page’s theme. With the new year, I felt it was a time for a change. The theme I used before was Barthelme, by Scott Wallick. It served me well, but there were a few things that I wanted different; there was a bit too much white space, and it didn’t feel like it reflected me. Well, this is an entirely custom theme, unique for Ludus Novus, and lovingly hand-coded in PHP and CSS by yours truly. Here’s a list of the new features that you might care about.
Monthly Archives: December 2008
Opposing Goals in Minotaur China Shop
My latest piece has gone up at GameSetWatch. It’s called “Opposing Goals in Minotaur China Shop,” and it’s about how that game balances difficulty and player interest by offering two opposing player goals.
Achievement Unlocked
I love digital games that play with the oddities of the medium. Metal Gear Solid shows psychic powers by reading your memory card, and Karoshi 2.0 joyfully breaks the rules of gaming. And now we have a game that pokes fun at the phenomenon of achievements: “Achievement Unlocked.”
TIGSource Commonplace Book Competition
The TIGSource Commonplace Book Competition is in voting right now. It’s a competition where developers are asked to make games out of entries in H.P. Lovecraft’s scrapbook. I’ve gotten around to playing the games, and here’s a few I found interesting. If I didn’t mention a game, that doesn’t mean it’s not good; these are just the ones that jumped out at me.
The Eye of Boccob
The Eye of Boccob is a prestige class for Dungeons & Dragons Edition 3.5. I used it for a creepy NPC in a campaign I am running, when I realized that I needed an NPC that was capable of teleporting large numbers of people. It grew from there into a character that my player loved to hate. If you intend to use this prestige class in a campaign, keep in mind that it was designed to be a non-combat NPC; I make no guarantees regarding game balance or feasibility of this class for PCs. However, it could prove to be a useful utility class for a group that desires heightened abilities of surveillance and transportation. The full class description follows.
Necropolis Fix and Unit Testing
The attention that “The Majesty of Colors” received has caused a small increase in the plays of my previous game, Necropolis. As a result, I got a bug report from a Kongregate user on Necropolis that let me track down a bug that had eluded me for months. I feel dumb for causing the bug in the first place, and it’s a perfect example of where unit testing is very useful.
The Undeath of Uru Live
Myst Online: Uru Live will soon be immortal. Cyan Worlds is releasing the ill-fated MMO as an open-source project. This is great news; Uru always had more potential than its codebase and its funding allowed. However, it’s also terrible news, as it seems likely that Cyan will not be creating new content themselves for quite some time. Still, with the likes of Andrew Plotkin among the game’s fans, I feel confident that at least some quality content will emerge.
Hope for the Future
Premier video game industry news site Gamasutra just released their top 5 indie games of the year. Number one is Daniel Benmergui’s wonderful “I Wish I Were the Moon,” which I’ve mentioned before. Number two is “Everybody Dies,” third-place winner in the 2008 Interactive Fiction Competition and a game I’ve yet to play. These two selections give me a great deal of hope for the future of interactive entertainment.
The Majesty of Colors Released!
I just released my latest game, “I Fell in Love With the Majesty of Colors.” It’s a pixel-horror game that puts the player behind the tentacles of a titanic, writhing sea creature. “Majesty” is a tale of love, loss, and balloons with five different endings.
Puzzle Quest and the Best of Both Worlds
Over at GameSetWatch they just put up my latest column. It’s called “Puzzle Quest and the Best of Both Worlds,” and it’s about genre fusion in the world’s first match-3 RPG.