The other day I picked up Junk Jack on iOS after hearing it was a good Terraria clone for the iPhone. After playing it a bit I didn't really see the appeal. The last mobile game I played quite a bit of was Spaceward Ho on the iPhone.

I am interested in checking out interesting Mobile games but don't find the iTunes top rated games to be interesting enough to warrant an install, even the free ones. Because of that, I am wondering if you have been playing anything you might recommend?

GOGcom is launching is summer sale with a pretty impressive lineup including giving away Torchlight for free for the next 48 hours.

http://www.gog.com/news/nodrm_summer_get_torchlight_free_for_48_hours

Lots of retro and indie titles marked down and worth checking out.

http://www.gog.com/NoDRMSummer

**UPDATE**

A few games you should nab while you can:

RollerCoaster Tycoon Deluxe

RollerCoaster Tycoon plus both expansions and the game score. Only $2.99 with no DRM. Holee shit this is a great deal.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/rollercoaster_tycoon_deluxe

Many of us picked up Capsized with the recent Humble Bundle 8. After crushing pretty hard on Awesomenauts and completing Hotline Miami I decided to play Capsized next. From the Humble Bundle 8 video I was very interested in playing it as it reminded me of a moment in Super Metroid where you find the crashed alien space craft. That said, the game was a quick download and I had it up and running on my Windows PC in a few minutes.

Capsized starts off with a story board intro that conveying the games premise. You are a crew member in a ship traveling across the stars and your ship crashes on an alien planet. The first mission is a good primer to how to play the game and uses a kind of way point system to teach you. Capsized is similar in style to Metroid but is different in that you start the game with a full compliment of awesome gear. You start the game with: A Jetpack, Basic lazer weapon, Gravity Force Gun, Energy Hookshot/Gravity Gun and the ability to wall jump. Over the course of the first few missions you get access to more weaponry to make you even more powerful.

The basic gameplay of Capsized is straightforward in that you must complete the objective of each level. In one such objective I had to find a stranded crew member. Each level is comprised of things that want you dead and things you need to move or get around to complete a level. The energy beam/gravity gun is really useful to reach locations your couldn't otherwise or move a rock or stone to form a bridge or clear something in your path.

The play control takes a bit to get used to but it never felt awkward. Compared to other more tightly controlled side-scrollers Capsized is fairly loose. This is often nice but sometimes my ingrained 2d sidescrolling reflex burned in from Mario games came to bear in unfortunate ways. That said, its nice to play something that approaches this genre differently.

One really impressive aspect of Capsized is how well the score works in the game. Sporting an amazing electronic and etherial score, Capsized really brings you into the games feel like few games can. From your first steps on this very alien world, the music really helps ratchet up the wonder I felt exploring this VERY strange and beautiful planet.

I have only played a few missions of Capsized and I am really enjoying myself. I recommend you check it out and let me know what you think. I might post further as I continue on with the game as I am only a few levels in so far.

"Firmly sticking to the Half Life 2 formula, Deep Down is a new entry in the story of Alyx and Gordon as they continue the hunt for Combine Advisors in the area surrounding White Forest.

Combine Forces, Zombies and Antlions lay between them and the brooding menace deep below the earth that will test both their skills further than ever before.

If you miss the Half Life 2 formula and are tired of waiting patiently for Episode 3 then this mod is for you. Featuring new gameplay elements, fiendish puzzles and blistering action, Deep Down will provide your Half Life 2 fix (well some of it at least)."

Whereas I am not as crazy about Half-Life 3 as some, I am more than ready for it. Even if Valve just said "hey you know we are like 3 years out on it" I would be happy. Just to know people are working on it and the game is coming.

But, since we can't get that right now Deep Down looks like the next best thing :D

http://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-2-deep-down

More information is coming to light about Duck Tales Remastered with E3 game footage. The game will be released on Steam, 360, PS3 later this year, "Woo oooh!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckTales_(video_game)#DuckTales:_Remastered

This just in the "hmmmm" category, it seems the World of Warcraft Movie has started filming. I am curious to see how Thrall and company translate to the big screen.

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/13/06/04/1257241/world-of-warcraft-film-shooting-begins-early-2014

If you are a game developer and are having a hard time coming up with a game name, let this website do all the work for you. Because "Star Wars Manlove of the Blood God" won't get you in ANY trademark troubles at all...

http://videogamena.me/

RollerCoaster Tycoon was released about 14 years ago but it still lives strong on my modern gaming computer. My wife bought the game and both the expansion packs at a garage sale for me many years ago on a lark. She generally doesn't do that so it was a nice surprise. At first I set aside the game because it looked like a game for pre-school kids. After a few months of it kicking around the house I decided to install it and was immediately hooked on it.

RollerCoaster Tycoon takes the Sim concept and mixes it with the awesome mechanism of running a theme park. The game consists of scenarios, each you must complete to unlock the next. I believe on of the latter Tycoon expansions opens up a "open sandbox mode" but the main game focuses on completing scenario objectives. Many of them start you with some kind of park and require you to build it up to a certain point. Others focus on your "fixing" something wrong with the park but they all seem to need you to get to a certain park rating with a certain number of guests in attendance.

I pull the game out every so often and play a scenario and always have a good time. The game is quite old but still runs on Windows 7. I don't look forward to the day when the game isn't playable on Modern Windows but until then, it works just fine.

Some news surfaced recently about the game getting a modern port to phones and I am pretty excited about that. Hopefully with its renewed interest it may get the PC HD treatment for a release on Steam with all the bells and whistles.

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/RollerCoaster+Tycoon/news.asp?c=46026

The screen shot above is of a recent replay of the first scenario Forest Frontiers.

After launching Cheerful Ghost over a year ago I have been very happy with how the site has taken shape, most notably with how awesome it is to play and talk about video games with everyone. The site focuses on the games we love so we can talk about and schedule events with our friends.

One thing I wanted to do soon after I launched site Memberships is design and print some cool Cheerful Ghost swag to hand out to Members as a thank you for supporting the site. It may have happened much later than I anticipated but I am happy to finally announce..

The Cheerful Ghost Pack

The Cheerful Ghost Pack is a collection of all new Cheerful Ghost swag that will be shipped for free to all the current site Members for their awesome support. Since I want to keep the pack exclusive to Members it won’t be for sale on the site.

Lets see what’s included in the pack!

• 2 Cheerful Ghost High Gloss Stickers



• 1 Cheerful Ghost Game Token



• 1 Cheerful Ghost Fridge Magnet



• 2 Folded Letter B&W Cheerful Ghost SECRET RETRO Short Posters



• 1 Exclusive Cheerful Ghost Pack Trophy Award. [This will be awarded when the pack ships]

I know some of you might feel left out and may also be on the fence about getting a site Membership. To help you out, we will be shipping Cheerful Ghost packs for the next 10 new site Members. So if you have been thinking about a site Membership and want the pack, become a Member and you will be able to join in the new hotness too.

Members get a lot of other awesome benefits too so check into that too:

http://cheerfulghost.com/membership

I want to keep making the benefits to site Membership better over time and the Cheerful Ghost Pack is a continuation of that goal. Adding new features exclusive to current Members and shipping exclusive swag are some ways to do that but I have more ideas I am excited to unveil over time.

Thank you for making Cheerful Ghost the awesome game community that it is and I hope you keep remaining an important part of it.

a bit of the “fine print”

If you sign up for a monthly Membership i'll ship you the pack after your 3rd membership month. I am just trying to avoid someone nabbing the monthly membership, getting the pack and then cancelling right away. Get a yearly and ill ship it out as soon as they go out!

This is my first foray into making fridge magnets and as such some of the Ghosts have discolored white pixel beads. Its not a huge deal, but some of them are a bit yellow. That said, you can be assured this will separate your Ghost from later runs as I will try and not recreate this unique attribute.

If shipping to your country or house is an issue, i'll contact you so we can sort that out. My goal is for everyone to get the pack shipped to them hassle free.

I'll be emailing Members collecting their shipping addresses and start sending out packs over the next couple of weeks. If there are any unforeseen delays i'll let each of you know individually. Its my goal to get you the awesome as soon as possible!

Gamespot got a showcase of Terraria mobile shown by David Welch of Re-Logic Games. The video shows off how the mobile version is setup and a few changes they made to make it feel better on mobile.

Fairly certain this is a day one purchase for me because Terraria is one of my most beloved games of the last few years and I would enjoy just a "fairly decent" version on mobile. From the video it looks like this might be a fun game to play on your phone but we will see how well it translates.

Unity is the game engine and set of tools that is widely becoming the game development platform of choice. If you have checked out many of our Cheerful Ghost interviews, Unity is quite popular in new Indie Game Development. Since Unity is becoming a cornerstone of how games are made I decided to contact Unity Technologies and ask them a few questions about what they were up to. I was put in contact with Aurore Dimopoulos the Unity Community Manager.

Since Unity is a engine used by game developers I asked a local game designer to help me with the interview. Clifton is the lead designer of Clobbr, an upcoming mobile puzzle game written in Unity.

jdodson: Unity is an awesome set of tools to help people build games that run everywhere and has been particularly embraced by the Indie community. I wonder how you look at this success and how it has impacted the next steps of Unity itself?

Aurore Dimopoulos: We are truly humbled by how warmly Unity has been embraced by the development community, Indies in particular. We have such a large and wonderful community of developers who report bugs and request a wide range of features, that we have a dedicated area of the community site just for feedback. As a result, we have been ramping up our capabilities by employing new staff across all departments, signing exciting deals with technology partners such as Nintendo, Sony and BlackBerry and adding features that are highly requested by our community. Our community’s passion for their craft is what drives and inspires us to create a better overall product.

Clifton: Nicholas Francis just announced that he’s stepping down from the CEO of Unity to become a game developer, and after helping make Unity one of the greatest game platforms, he’s going to start making games. Are others on the Unity team making their own games as well?

Aurore Dimopoulos: Generally, the people working at Unity are pretty excited about the technology and love games. There are more than a few that do play with Unity to make their own game projects.

Clifton: What would you say is the single greatest Unity tutorial out there, either for beginners or advanced users?

Aurore Dimopoulos: We’ve actually just opened up a new Learn area on the Unity website. For now, beginners will find a lot of awesome tutorials and example projects to help them understand the basics of developing with Unity. You can find the tutorial on our website with intermediate and advanced lessons on the way soon. http://unity3d.com/learn

Clifton: Unite, the annual Unity3D event, is happening August 28-30 in Vancouver. What would you say to people who are on the fence about attending this year? Is it geared mostly toward developers, or would gamers get much out of the event?

Aurore Dimopoulos:Unite is definitely an event geared towards developers that are already making or intend to make interactive experiences, games or otherwise, with Unity. It’s designed to be an incredible environment to learn more about Unity, not only from Unity employees but from developers who are currently in production or have released titles. It’s about seeing the practicality of development from all angles like engineering, design, art, marketing, and monetization.

Clifton: What would you say to someone who’s interested in getting into games? What other tools would you encourage them to look into alongside Unity?

Aurore Dimopoulos:It’s always good to find the tools best suited for a project or development need but we’re pretty proud of the fact that Unity is suitable for so many of them. We also think that Unity, while a very complex program with a deep set of development tools, is the most approachable thanks to it’s elegant design and friendly community.

jdodson: As you are looking forward I am wondering what the next steps for Unity is? Any though to support the current and next gen consoles?

Aurore Dimopoulos: As you probably have seen, we already have announced support for Nintendo Wii U and all of Sony’s current and next generation platforms. These are exciting platforms for developers to be sure and we’re happy to help make the path a little bit clearer to getting their games onto them. We also just announced that basic deployment tools for mobile devices are free starting with iOS and Android. This year’s going to be a big one for us so keep your eyes out for lots of news!

Hotline Miami was the main reason I picked up the Humble Bundle 8. I heard good things about it, but for whatever reason didn't pick it up till it came with the recent Humble Bundle. I think I can describe Hotline Miami best as "The Drive move video game." I don't mean that in a negative way, Hotline Miami is excellent as is the Ryan Gosling film.

The story is really interesting and like some indie games, doesn't lay itself out in a way that is easily accessible. Since the games story isn't entirely straight forward you can interpret it in a number of ways. The Hotline Miami story is a kind of 80's movie where the main character appears to be schizophrenic. At least, that's how I looked at the masks you unlock and the story breaks where the Horse , Rooster and Owl Mask characters talk to you. They are just the main character talking to himself from a different part of his personality.

If you take this way of looking at the game to its end many things happen in strange ways that hinge on the character being insane. I am not entirely sure viewing the main character as schizophrenic works, its just made to me. That all said, the game is amazingly fun along side the unique story.

Hotline Miami is a 2D top-down GTA style kill-em-up where the goal is to kill everyone on a floor. The later levels have many floors and the games floor design is really great in that the challenge keeps ratcheting up as you progress. One other element of Hotline Miami is that __you will die a lot__. I can't stress that enough, you will die a ridiculous amount of times in this game and that's all part of the fun.

You need to evolve some strategy to win the game OR you will hit a brick wall with it. A few things I learned to stay alive:

• Knives are amazing, learn to find and use them. They are fast attack and if the enemy doesn't have a gun and you use the knife right you will always kill them.


• You can charge into a room with two gunmen and kill them quickly if they are close.


• Running into a room and immediately running out cause guys to follow you, so you can hit them when they go through the door. Lie in wait and kill when they are close.


• Typically speaking, get better at using hand to hand weapons because somehow I found them to be typically more useful than guns.

The game soundtrack is very well done. If you are interested in listening to the games unique score, check it out here:

https://soundcloud.com/devolverdigital/sets/hotline-miami-official

Over the last few days I have sunk a few hours into it and just beat it a few minutes ago. The game took me about 6 hours to beat start to finish. This is one of those games where beating it feels like an accomplishment because of its difficulty and unique flavor.

If you have it, I seriously recommend you play Hotline Miami. I do want to warn you though, the game is odd and filled with horrific violence and other disturbia. Which, you know, is part of the fun.

This Starcrafts video was released in tandem with the recent Starcraft II spawn support.

Also wanted to let you know that Tomorrow a few Cheerful Ghoster's and I are playing Starcraft II and if you want to join us feel free. You don't need to buy the game as you can download the Starter Edition and play with us that way.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/events/22

Explore, survive and discover are some of the only words that are featured on the new site for Below, the upcoming collaboration between Capybara Games and Jim Guthrie. The released video looks very cool and seems to evoke a rogue-like element featuring the Capy style fused with Jim Guthrie's amazing music.

One point of note is the site mentions XBox One as the only platform listed. I hope, as with Sword & Sworcery this game will make it to PC and Phones/Tablets. Whereas I would cringe somewhat if this were a XBox One exclusive hopefully it would be ported to PC and other stuff later. That said, the game looks great and I am looking forward to more information as it becomes available.

During Nintendo's E3 event today they dropped the news that Wind Waker is coming to the Wii U in HD. The visuals in the video looks incredible and the remastered version looks great. This is a nice addition to the Wii U and for people that love this game and have the console could see this as a must buy!

After reading caffo's post about Gunpoint a few weeks ago I waited for the final release and then noticed there was a demo available to try. Gunpoint is a 2D stealth based action game where you play a secret agent of sorts that goes on missions of increasing degrees of difficulty. A game I have played recently that it feels like is U R Not A Hero but Gunpoint doesn't feature a frenzy of gunplay.

The game has a interesting story that you experience through reading messages sent to your phone. When you first start the game you are seemingly thrown from a window and land on the ground and are immediately called by someone in a building. She is murdered while you are making your way to the top of the building to talk to her. As you flee the scene you are contacted by someone that wants to help you by having you wipe information from servers that link you to the crime.

I played through the demo and at no point did the character I play shoot anyone, which was refreshing. To accomplish missions you have a pretty wide jump, climb buildings and cling to walls to make your way through each building. Each building has security guards and you can use a few tactics to take them out so you can find computer terminals to hack. To take out a security guard you have to jump on them and punch them once to knock them out. The game features a fun sense of humor and after I repeatedly punched a security guard in the face over a hundred times it started mocking me and counting the number of times I had punched him. These bits of humor are sprinkled through the game and its story line and offer a really fun style to the game.

If you are interested in Gunpoint there is no reason not to check it out as the demo is available for download on Steam right now!

http://www.gunpointgame.com/

Typically I don't nab a console for one game but Destiny looks so good I might make an exception to that rule. Since I have never owned an XBox I haven't played any of the Halo games and Bungie's next game seems like a re-visioning of that universe.

With the Steam Console being on the unknown horizon and the PS4 seeming to support the Indie scene as well as it claims, I might get a next gen console much quicker than I thought.

What do you think, does Bungie's next game look interesting to you? If so how do you plan on playing it?