My latest column just went up at GameSetWatch. It’s called “Scale in Katamari Damacy,” and it’s about how Katamari Damacy uses scale to highlight the advancement that’s inherent in just about every game, and how it can be applied to games that aren’t about rolling up everything in the world.
The Depths of Spelunky
I’m behind the game on this one, but Derek “Tigsource and Aquaria” Yu has pre-released a game called Spelunky, and it’s the best roguelike I’ve ever played. Yu bills it as a cross between La Mulana and Nethack, but it’s fairer and more fun than either. The procedurally-generated levels and swift death is balanced by an incredible depth that has helped me finally grok what the whole roguelike thing is all about.
I Fell in Love With the Physics of Crayons
I’ve been playing Crayon Physics Deluxe, Petri Purho‘s fully realized version of his startlingly fun 7-day prototype, “Crayon Physics.” The game lets you draw any shape, which then reacts with appropriate physics to help get a ball to a goal. It’s fun and creative, and it comes with a fully-featured level editor. Now, I’ve had something on my mind recently, so when I tried out the editor, I made a scribbly crayon version of “The Majesty of Colors.”
Learning to Read Aquarian
I’ve just completed Aquaria, the excellent underwater exploration game by Bit Blot, which is another name for Derek Yu of TIGSource and Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo. Besides making a gorgeous and atmospheric game that rivals Super Metroid for exploration goodness, Yu and Holowka did something interesting: they included an entire constructed alphabet with no explanation.
Postmortem: “(I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors”
In place of my usual column at GameSetWatch, I was requested to do a general postmortem of “The Majesty of Colors” this time. I’ll point you that way if only for the inclusion of my initial design sketch for the game. It was an interesting experience writing the piece; usually, this sort of evaluation involves more than one person, so it’s easier to pick out successes and failures. When everything is your fault, it’s tricky to pick out specifics.
Because of the forum of GSW, I left out a few points that I was tempted to include. Here are a few of them.
Continue reading Postmortem: “(I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors”
1UP Show Out of Lives
Word is spreading across the net that Ziff Davis Media has sold the 1UP family of properties to UGO Entertainment, and that UGO promptly fired most of the 1UP Show contributors, as well as a bunch of other folks.
New Year’s Resolution 2009
I’ve been thinking about a goal to set for the new year, and I’ve come up with a good one. Here it is: release at least one new game each month for the year of 2009. I’m pretty sure I can achieve this; in the worst case scenario, the games for some of the months will be small in scale.
The satisfaction in releasing a game and knowing that people have played it and enjoyed it is incredible. At the moment, “Majesty of Colors” has been played over 700,000 times. I don’t know if I can duplicate that kind of success, but I know that I can put more of myself out there for people to enjoy if they want to.
So expect something by the end of January, and something each month after that, at least through December. Sometimes it may just be a little piece of IF, but I have bigger ideas in the works, too. Wish me luck!
New Theme for 2009
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.
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.”