Blizzard is a company like few others and are showing that style in it's latest foray, Azeroth Choppers. Azeroth Choppers is a reality TV web show focusing on the Horde and Alliance building competing motorcycles. The first episode is pretty interesting and ends on a typically reality TV cliffhanger. Whereas the geek in me likes the premise of the show I was really turned off by the reality TV aspect of it. The ending cliffhanger seems invented and kind of broke some of the magic.

That said, they plan on doing a whole run of shows online for your YouTube viewing pleasure. The next episode of Azeroth Choppers will launch on YouTube April 24th and keep the week release clip until it's episode 8 finale.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/choppers/

This world runs on money and taxation, so why shouldn't death be the same? Skullduggery takes a firm stand on the afterlife in what looks to be a really awesome jaunt into the afterlife. In Skullduggery you play a skull HELL BENT on collecting the unpaid debts of criminal deadbeats.

I first heard about Skullduggery from Hagen, one of my friends working on the game.

Skullduggery will launch this year on iOS and Android and I am excited to fling my skull around to collect debts. Because, you know, that would be totally awesome.

http://departmentofskullduggery.com/

Crawl is a top down chunky pixel hack-n-slash co-op rogue-like. You take your turn playing as the bad guys and when you turn comes, you can play as the lone hero. After contacting Powerhoof games I was able to land a press copy and brought it to a PIGSquad meet up and played it with a few people. I had a great time and after emailing Dave and Barney at Powerhoof they were kind enough to agree to do an interview. I wish them well to a speedy launch and hope you you create a special place in your heart for playing as evil incarnate in Crawl when it launches.

jdodson: Couch co-op seems to be making a comeback in the Indie scene. Some of my best memories in gaming are of a bunch of my friends huddling around my TV playing Mario Kart and Goldeneye. I am curious what couch co-op games you love and if any of those experiences influenced the design of Crawl?

Dave: I only had a PC when I was growing up, so my childhood memories are mostly of being huddled around a keyboard playing stuff like the Simpsons Arcade game or Liero. A lot of games weren’t even multiplayer, but we’d come to some sort of “I’ll drive, you shoot” arrangement, or just debate strategy and what to name cities in a shared game of Civilization.

Barney: Haha I did that “I’ll drive, you shoot” thing a lot too- I remember shooting in Captain Comic just involved pressing the spacebar as fast as possible the whole time! We still had a ball so that’s a pretty good indicator local multiplayer was bringing a lot to the table.

I grew up with a lot of kids around my age, so we played a lot of NES, SNES, N64 and arcade machine multiplayer. Gauntlet, Goldeneye, Street Fighter and the original Super Mario Kart (still so much better than the sequels) were always happening, with sporadic obsessions with Bomberman and those D&D “Goldenaxe-like” games. Crawl is really just an outlet for my nostalgia over those experiences, with some modern stuff thrown in just to make development difficult :)

Dave: More recently we’ve really liked playing Castle Crashers together, which is definitely an influence along with the asymmetrical nature of games like Left 4 Dead which Barney and I played every lunchtime for ages. There was definitely a dry patch for local multiplayer where there really wasn’t a huge amount out there and we’d fallback on old Mega-Drive and N64 games. That was when we decided to try making a bunch of local multi games in a little game-jam then get together to play them all, which is where Barney came up with the format for Crawl.

jdodson: Crawl on Steam Machines seems like a totally awesome fit. Are you considering releasing the game on any other platforms that are “native living room” devices like the Ouya, Fire TV, Playstation or XBox?

Dave: Crawl makes so much sense on consoles, so we’re definitely keen to release on anything we can in the living room. At the moment we’ve got plenty on our plates with early access for PC, Mac and Linux, it’ll be a while before we look at other platforms.

jdodson: If you had to release Crawl on a planet dominated by Apes, I am curious what changes you would make the game to easier for them to play?

Dave: We wanted Crawl to be a game where you could pass a controller to someone at a party and they’d be able to get into it without being an avid gamer. So the controls are really simple, just two buttons, and the depth comes from learning the characters and their special abilities and knowing when to use them.

Barney: I’m pretty sure if they can dominate the planet they can play Crawl- it’s pretty accessible :) I might slide a few banana puns in there but you can’t go crazy with that stuff- apes don’t want to be talked down to. I’m assuming this scenario involves us developing from a cage while the apes throw in scraps of food and we poop in a bucket… I think I’d be more focused on making sure Dave got the side of the cage with the bucket.

jdodson: What other games have you been playing when you’re not working on Crawl?

Dave: Neither of us have been playing any big blockbuster games recently, although we’re both eager to find the time to play Dark Souls 2. I’ve been playing tonnes of indie games recently, especially rogue-like-likes (or procedural death labyrinths, or whatever we’re calling them now). Nuclear throne, FTL, Desktop dungeons, Teleglitch, Binding of Isaac... I find I can come back to any of them after not playing for a while and they still feel fresh. I keep blowing my self-inflicted games budget backing things on kickstarter, so I feel like I’ve got a lot of great stuff coming.

jdodson: I’ve really enjoyed the press copy of the game. One thing I noticed is that it seems like the game is very punishing the single player character at times, which is fairly on par for a rogue-like. Are there any balancing changes coming that might give the main character some love?

Barney: Yep, we have a lot of tweaking to do! Balance really is the hardest part of development on Crawl- to make sure it isn’t frustrating for the hero or the monsters. There are a lot of possible ways to even the playing field a little- I’m eager to try the hero collecting autonomous helper items which float around him and attack/defend, to make the monsters have to be more cautious about approaching and stop him being swamped. I’d love to try out fodder pet-type creatures as hero followers too, not to mention all the delicate health/stat tweaks that can make all the difference. There are so many possibilities, Steam Early Access should be super fun- putting in new items and ideas and seeing how people take to them and how they alter the balance will be awesome.

jdodson: What are you guys working with the game right now? Any aspect of development proving to be a bit trickier than you anticipated?

Dave: I’m working on getting some bot AI to play against when you don’t have a full compliment of friends. That’s been quite interesting. Doing AI that’s supposed to seem human is very different than normal AI you do for monsters in games. Instead of trying to make them look intelligent themselves, you need them to look like they’re controlled by someone intelligent. Instead of balancing their difficulty by making them run slower or do less damage, you need to give them the same flaws a human player would have. So I have to program in human traits like poor reaction times, not having perfect judgment, and being inaccurate with their controls.

Barney: I’m doing some boring stuff at the moment- putting in clear explanations for our mechanics- clear HUD feedback, tutorial text, etc, but I’ve also got some awesome stuff in the works… I’ve revamped some less-fun monsters and now they’re totally awesome :) I’ve been working on magic weapons, tweaking the spells so the non-dodge ones are equally fun and viable to use.

I’ve been working the on design for a fatality system which would allow you to use an enemy as a short term powerup if you kill it in the right way- ride the blobfish or rat as a steed, cut off an enemy head and throw it at another guy etc. Also we’ve been planning to finish off a “grapple” mechanic, allowing me to put in moves where characters grab and throw each other- then I can finalize some of the really huge monsters I haven’t been able to finish yet :)

jdodson: After the trailer for Crawl launched and the Interwebs seemed to explode with excitement(I know I did). The voice acting, art, music and pacing worked really well together. How did that all come together and how long were you all working on it before you dropped it on the world? Also wondering if the voice actor in the trailer will be doing any work on the final release of Crawl?

Barney: The trailer took me about 4 weeks. It was a real balancing act- we wanted to explain the gameplay concept clearly, but we also wanted to set the atmosphere and kind of Lovecraft tone. Those things fight against each other- writing for the tone wants more complex wording, but writing for clear explanation wants extremely straightforward wording, so there was a lot of back-and-forth on how to describe things- in the end having the simple on-screen text explanations allowed us to keep more tone in the narrator but still explain things quite clearly.

I spent a lot of time playing against our early bot AI to try and record the footage, and those guys do not cooperate! I’d be just about to capture the shot I wanted, then a bot would kill me or run off and buy a powerup and I’d have to restart!

Through most of the time working on the trailer we had our own voices in there as placeholders so I could re-record on the fly when I had a wording or timing change. It wasn’t until right at the end that we did the final recording session with our narrator that we started to get a sense that it all might work out!

We definitely intend to use voiceover in the game, and we have some fun ideas for where and how to insert it, but we haven’t prototyped that stuff yet- it all has to wait until the core gameplay is a little more developed.

jdodson: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! Any final words before we wrap things up?

Dave: Just that we’ve been thrilled with the reaction, and that people are excited about the game! We’re really looking forward to getting it in people’s hands and continuing to add cool stuff to it!

http://www.powerhoof.com/crawl/

In this epsiode of The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we discuss what we have been playing as well as Android's new Fire TV. After that we talk about the new FTL: Advanced Edition update and after the show ends we spend some time unboxing our versions of Diablo III.

Your welcome!

What We are Playing & Drinking

• 0.24m WhiteboySlim: Diablo III, FTL: Advanced Edition & Ocarina of Time 3DS


• 2.10m Travis: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls


• 3.35m jdodson: Emoji, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition, Hotline Miami & Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Part 2

Amazon's Fire TV

• 8.40m Amazon's new Fire TV is out. What do we think about it? Will we pick one up?


• 14.50m Amazon's Game Studios first release is Sev Zero.


• 18.00m What market does the Fire TV serve?


• 20.10m Google is rumored to be releasing an Android TV.

FTL: Advanced Edition

• 28.50m FTL: Advanced was a free update for PC and came out for the iPad.


• 39.00m Why didn't they charge for the expansion? Will we come back and play FTL classic?

DIABLO III: REAPER OF SOULS UNBOXING

• 44.10m The unboxing seriousness commences


• 51.55m WhiteboySlim unboxes regular Diablo III

Show Notes

• Emoji we support on Cheerful Ghost: http://www.emoji-cheat-sheet.com/


• Amazon's Fire TV http://www.amazon.com/fire-tv-streaming-media-player


• Google's new Android TV http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/5/5584604/this-is-android-tv

Redletter Media is a unique video production company out of Wisconsin. I learned about them a few years back when the Star Wars Phantom Menace review made it's round on the Internet. The Star Wars Phantom Menace review is not only an amazing tear down review of the film but it introduced me to Harry S. Plinkett, the main character reviewing the film. Come to find out, there were a ton of Plinkett reviews that Redletter Media made before that and many have come since. Redletter Media hasn't stopped at Plinkett reviews and went on to create such awesome web shows as Half in the Bag and Best of the Worst. All of the shows they have created are are great and I seriously recommend you check them out.

Redletter Media has launched a new show featuring Jack and Rich Evans. Rich Evans is the guy that plays "fake" Plinkett and is the main actor of a new upcoming Red Letter Media film called Space Cop. In the first episode the guys talk about the Indie game, Risk of Rain.

Can't wait for future episodes as I hope this becomes a regular Redletter show.

http://redlettermedia.com/

If you haven't seen it yet, treat yourself to the Star Wars Phantom Menace Review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI

"At Heart Forth, Alicia's core is an ode to the classics. Remember the electrifying gameplay of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the expansive worlds of the Zelda games, and the rich, engaging story of Xenogears? This game is crafted in the spirit of those great adventures of the '90s.

The story unfolds amidst the repercussions of centuries worth of struggle, strife, and bloodshed between cultures, races and worldviews. But above all else, it's an epic Metroidvania RPG that combines timeless 16- and 32-bit gameplay, modern mechanics, and a set of unique, intertwining stories to take you on a fantastic journey."

Heart Forth, Alicia not only is an awesome name but it also seems very focused on it's narrative, which seems really interesting. I am not sure if weaving live action video elements works in a video game but I am very intrigued to see it in action. Heart Forth, Alicia is a new game being published by Chucklefish, the creators of Starbound.

Heart Forth, Alicia is currently 1/3rd of the way to their funding goal and will launch on PC, Mac and Linux depending on what funding goals they reach.

Have you ever wanted to put some Emoji in a comment on Cheerful Ghost but couldn't? Well now, you can. Instead of rolling our own special Cheerful Ghost flavor of Emoji code we incorporate a standard dialect common on many popular websites such as Github, NodeBB, Trello, Campfire and Basecamp!

If you are curious what Emoji we support, checkout the site below and try it out in the comments on this post.

http://www.emoji-cheat-sheet.com/

:godmode: Enjoy!

This speed run is pretty incredible and even if you haven't played Half-Life before this is a pretty fast walkthrough.

"Starting back in the summer of 2010, the estimated time for this run was thought to be roughly 27 minutes. However, after almost four years of painstaking planning, theorycrafting and execution, we have arrived at our final time, smashing all of our wildest expectations."

"Hearthstone’s highly anticipated single player Adventure Mode has been officially announced today at PAX East! Curse of Naxxramas: A Hearthstone Adventure!"

What, a single player campaign for Hearthstone? Wow, that sounds great... tell me more!

"The ancient necropolis Naxxramas, a base of operations for the powerful archlich Kel’Thuzad and his plague-bearing undead host, comes to Hearthstone in a single-player Adventure that anyone can undertake. Progress through each of the five unique wings of the dungeon and gain new cards for your Hearthstone collection by defeating the iconic bosses you’ll face along the way: the oversized arachnid Maexxna, the fungal horror Loatheb, and the shambling abomination Patchwerk are just a few of the horrors awaiting you. Each boss has its own unique cards and hero powers at its disposal to challenge even the most seasoned of card-slinging adventurers."

Getting a single player campaign to Hearthstone sounds really great and is something I didn't expect to come to the game. Hearthstone is a really fun CCG that simplifies the traditional Magic The Gathering CCG formula and adds a bit of its own style to the table.

Hearthstone is available for you to play right now on your Mac, PC and iPad for free on battle.net.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/13665269

If you were worried about the follow up to Dennation Games super-hit, Hotline Miami wouldn't be awesomely violent, this preview video should set your mind at ease. Featuring the first two levels of the game, this mini review/story recap really shows off the new rad Hotline Miami brings to bear.

I consider Hotline Miami to be a nearly perfect game in terms of tone, story, music and game length. If Hotline Miami 2 just brings more of the awesome, it should be amazing.

Hotline Miami 2 will ship on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, PS3, and Vita sometime later this year.