The Flipside of Gaming
This is a video review of My Friendly Neighborhood played with a press key provided by the developer.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
I don’t remember, did a bundle with this theme happen before? It sounds familiar. Of course this is not intended to be an advertisement, I’m just getting the word out.
$8 gets you 374 items on itch.io, which is, of course, an amazing deal. 213 of them are computer games, and 103 of them are physical games, where what you get are rules and you construct the game yourself, and the rest are miscellaneous items like soundtracks and game assets.
When I get one of these bundles, I largely end up playing only play two or three things from it, but I feel like the option of playing so many things is what I’m buying, that and helping out a good cause. A standout in this bundle, right up there at the top, is Adam Gryu’s A Short Hike. I also spot Bleed 2, Anodyne and They Bleed Pixels.
I think it could be argued that the ultimate benefit of these bundles, while positive, is ultimately to help make up for the failures of our nations to fucking do something about it themselves, or even helping cause it in the first place. But it is something, after all!
We like promoting small indie projects we think are keen, and among those is the work of Keith Burgun. Way back in the @Play guys he made the wonderful (and sadly very difficult to play these days) cartoon roguelike 100 Rogues, and more recently he made the great quasi-roguelike Auro, which can still be gotten on Steam.
Lately he’s been experimenting with more physical kinds of games, and he has a Kickstarter going for a deckbuilding game called Spellstorm!
It’s an asymmetric game, with eight characters who each play differently from each other. And if you want to try before backing, there’s already a module available for it for Tabletop Simulator (it is here), and you can download a free PDF copy of the rules for more info.
As of this reporting the Kickstarter’s just gotten underway with 27 days to go, and is approaching halfway to its goal already. $40 gets you a complete copy of the game, and $60 gets you it another another clever little game Keith made called Dragon Bridge.
Why not give it a glance over, and good luck to you Keith!
This is a video review of the making of karateka played with a press key provided by the developer.
My interview with Digital Eclipse
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
I am frankly amazed that this is happening, that the company now calling itself Atari seems to be on a streak of good, or at least interesting, decisions, but in addition to releasing Atari 50 and buying Digital Eclipse, they’re making updated versions of classic Atari (and Stern) arcade games, and an upcoming release of theirs is a personal favorite of mine: Food Fight!
It isn’t even their only recent sequel to it they’ve made; another would be the also-upcoming FPS Food Fight: Culinary Combat for the (current) VCS. But that seems to be an inspired-by game with cartoony 3D graphics; this looks much closer to the arcade original, and made by people with a deep love for it.
I don’t know what’s inspired their warming up this particular old property, but Food Fight was a fine game that was sabotaged mostly by the classic US arcade crash. Charley Chuck is a kid out to eat a giant ice cream cone before it melts, but out to stop him are four chefs. Scattered through each level though are piles of food that can be thrown, by either Charley or the chefs.
Like the cone that’s Charley’s goal, the original Food Fight drips with character. There are so many clever touches, especially for a game from 1983. Charley’s large eyes look in the direction he moves; the analog joystick registers many more directions than the standard digital 8-way joysticks in common use at the time. The named chefs have different personalities, along similar lines as Pac-Man’s ghosts. Each kind of food has different properties when thrown. Charley smiles when things are going well, and bears a more neutral expression when they aren’t. Charley can bring along one piece of food from a previous level. If a particularly clever move is pulled off, the game will call for an instant replay. The level select screen lists a flavor for each ice cream cone, with higher levels having dual flavors.
This is how Food Fight played in arcades (7 minutes):
The new game supports up to four players around a cocktail table form factor, in a last-kid-standing scenario. Instead of just flinging food at the chefs, the other players are also viable targets.
The original Food Fight was one of the last arcade projects of early independent game developer GCC, who designed games for other companies to publish. They also made Ms. Pac-Man and Quantum, and they also designed the Atari 7800 console and many of the arcade ports that were made for it.
Here’s is Arcade Heroes’ post on Food Fight Frenzy. Arcade Heroes also did a nine minute video talking about the game’s creation, and the changing climate at Atari that resulted in its creation being greenlit, and that shows off the gameplay, which looks very faithful to the original!
People who want to hear quite a bit more about this upcoming release can watch/listen to episode 140 of the Youtube/podcast series Indie Arcade Wave (36 minutes).
This is a showcase of my favorite demos from the dreamhack beyond and gamescom online showcases.
0:00 Intro
00:21 Mechinus
1:25 Stellar watch
2:55 Prison City
5:07 The Fall of Aether Station
7:00 Odinfall
8:27 Aestik
9:54 Towerful Defense
11:16 Core Devourer
12:34 Destroy the Monoliths
14:30 Astrobit
15:48 I Need Space
17:53 Somnipathy
20:35 Complex Sky
23:09 Gift
24:31 Constance
26:33 Footgun Underground
27:53 Need for Cheese
29:25 Light of Atlantis
30:30 Turbo Shell
32:02 Soulslinger Envoy of Death
34:21 Bobls
35:47 Savant Ascent Remix
37:47 Selini
39:11 Spellcats Autocard Tactics
40:49 Terror at Oakheart
42:09 Kind Nature
44:38 Parry Nightmare
46:00 Afterdream
47:31 The Edge of Allegoria
48:50 Drova Forsaken Sin
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
For this Perceptive Podcast, I’m talking with Christopher Bischke from Daylight Basement Studio to discuss their game Rightfully, Beary Arms that just released on early access. We spoke about making their first rogue-lite and the challenges of balancing the elements there.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
The indie showcases highlight the many indie games we play here on stream, all games shown are either press key submissions or demos. Please reach out if you would like me to look at your game.
0:00 Intro
00:14 Overrogue
2:02 Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit
3:37 Wizordum
5:11 Only Lead Can Stop Them
6:41 VergeWorld
8:20 Biocrisis: Return 2 the Lab
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.
If you haven’t seen it before (it made a trip around the blogs and such back in 2001), you really aren’t prepared for Duelin’ Firemen. The version that people saw then was really low quality though; a few years back, as part of a documentary about its making that seems like it never really got off the ground, a somewhat better quality version appeared on Youtube. It is, um, really something.
Duelin’ Firemen was a cancelled FMV game, probably a music game, for the 3DO console. Right off the bat it shows you it means business: not one but two planes, one of them in fact the space shuttle Columbia, the other Air Force One, collide with the top of the Sears Tower. The trailer was made in 1996 so you can’t blame it for being inappropriate due to either of those things. You might still consider it inappropriate due to other things, but it’s not too much offensive, unless you consider its childish innuendo or gleeful appraisal of a city in flames offensive. It might just be waiting for a massive citywide conflagration to hit the media for people to tsk at it for that. Which, well, would probably be fair.
Let me not keep you waiting any longer! Here is Duelin’ Firemen, the video game intro trailer that got submitted to freaking Sundance in 1996. You won’t be the same person afterward that you were before. Because we’re all changed by our experiences, be they great or small. But it really is an experience. 7 1/2 minutes’ worth of one:
Recognizable people in it, behind all the poorly composited flames, include blacksploitation star Rudy Ray “Dolemite” Moore, DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Dr. Timothy Leary, Rev. Ivan Stang of the Church of the Subgenius, Steve Albini, David Yow, and no doubt others I’m leaving out or don’t myself recognize. I’ve never been great with pop culture figures, or music figures either. But you don’t have to know who any of them are to enjoy it, probably with the aid of the mind-altering substance of your choice.
If you want to find out more, there’s this promotional interview (4 1/2 minutes) from around the time, and other clips on the documentary’s Youtube page. Or you could leave yourself blissfully unaware. That’s fine too.
And hey! The website duelinfiremen.com has recently been revived, and promises an upcoming interactive comic!
DUELIN’ FIREMEN!
This is a double review of Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara and Super Catboy, both played with press keys provided by the developers.
0:00 Intro
00:18 Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara Review
4:36 Super Catboy Review
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
The indie showcases highlight the many indie games we play here on the channel. All games shown are either press key submissions or demos.
0:00 Intro
00:14 Tater Spud
1:50 Zor: Pilgrimage of the Slorfs
5:09 Recursive Ruin
7:31 Backpack Hero
9:58 Incision
11:55 Elementallis
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, but one thing I can post about today is Lexaloffle’s Picotron, kind of a successor to their Pico8, except instead of a fantasy console, it’s a fantasy workstation, with tools for making games that run under it. It’s currently about $12. Here’s Lazy Devs’ introductory video (one hour long):
That should be good enough for now. Maybe by tomorrow my brain will have unpacked enough to say more of interest!
