The shooter is one of the most fundamental design templates, and so one of the most fruitful to dissect. On the analytical end, see Kenta Cho, Treasure, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, and the Geometry Wars games.
Theta Games’ Ceramic Shooter – Electronic Poem, released about a month ago and slowly gaining attention, similarly takes advantage of the form.
So continues the slow drift of indie games to the mainstream download channels. Following the high-profile Wii ports of indie heavyweights such as Cave Story and La Mulana (and indeed the announcement of Diamond Trust of London for DS, several of Jason Rohrer’s early opuses will soon be bundled for play on the Nintendo DSi.
To editorialize a bit, anthology releases like this, rather like a collection of short stories or short subject films, may soon be an important consumer model for showcasing unusual design concepts. Witness the success of Valve’s Portal, a critical darling (itself based on an indie game project) that many would have overlooked if not for its inclusion in Valve’s Orange Box. With the strict pricing models and content expectations of the commercial market, it’s hard for a small, original title to hold its own. But arrange several games around a theme, or an individual voice such as Jason Rohrer, and you’ve got the basics of an intriguing package.
Having gained some renown, or perhaps infamy, with his dadaist La La Land series, Matt Aldridge (aka biggt) has unleashed a significantly more ambitious follow-up.
Compared to the La La Land series, Uin is rather more conventionally structured, if no less evocative. There is an inventory, and exploration, and in place of the sheer dream dump of La La Land, play involves a certain amount of skill or problem solving. There are even a couple of forced-scrolling shooter stages. Yet Aldridge still wraps it up in his typically baffling logic and atmosphere.
by [name redacted]
Originally published in, I believe, the October issue of Play Magazine.
A new study of gamer health, conducted by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory and Andrews Universities and published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, observes a correlation between extensive videogame use, obesity, and depression.
The expectation going in was that gamers would tend to have a higher body mass index, and “a greater number of poor mental health days” than non-gamers; after studying 552 adults in and around Seattle, that assumption looks pretty much true.
by [name redacted]
Originally published in, I believe, the September issue of Play Magazine.
Remember last year, when the newly-merged Activision Blizzard decided to shuck itself of properties unlikely to lead to a major franchise? Suddenly several high-profile one-off projects like Ghostbusters were left without a publisher. Though most quickly found a new host, Tim Schafer and Double Fine’s heavy metal adventure Brütal Legend was left grasping. In December the recently progressive Electronic Arts stepped up, and all seemed back on track.
Or maybe not.
by [name redacted]
Originally published in, I believe, the August issue of Play Magazine, split into a few blurbs across a two-page spread. I thought it rather worked in that format.
While everyone is freaking out about the economy, some trends are older and more reliable. Over the last decade, as the game industry has become big business and budgets have skyrocketed, yet everyone has continued to produce more less the same material, more and more groups and individuals have had to compromise.
Hey, a couple of the games I’ve worked on are out now.
Lost Empire is a grandiose space strategy thing. I rewrote most of the game text and the manual on a short timescale.
Penumbra is a… I’m not sure. I haven’t played it. Some kind of first-person Lovecraftian survival horror thing. I rewrote the manual, and I think some of the game text. Hard to remember everything I do; this was months ago.
Though I have no comment on the games themselves, I rather like their packaging. Nice, big no-nonsense logos. Understated cover art.
To note, there’s a silly typo on the back of the Lost Empires box. That’s not my fault; they didn’t run that text past me.
EDIT: Speaking of typos… I feel I must have rewritten the text in that Lost Empire trailer, yet those punctuation errors can’t be my own. So I’m not sure what’s going on there. Maybe they used an earlier draft? Maybe I never touched that after all?
by [name redacted]
A bit of reporting for Xbox Nation Magazine, which was actually printed in both the May and June issues. It seemed I had an in for writing more complex material — I notice a bunch of notes for further articles — but then the magazine folded. A shame.
As relative newcomer to the console scene, Microsoft arrived in the silence after the storm. Those who were present recall the trials of the mid-nineties, as Sony squeezed the industry through a macabre cleansing operation. Developers were forced to convert to 3D development or not only risk public dismissal, but risk disapproval from Sony. Without Sony’s OK, games go unpublished — and Sony has its own agenda. Crushing to many smaller houses, this policy continues even today.
Even so, some studios, like SNK, refuse to surrender.