jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Site Tech: Upgraded To Bootstrap 3.0

I just pushed a new update to the site upgrading it to use Boostrap 3. As with any upgrade, some site breakage may occur so if you see anything amiss let me know.

That said, the site should look much better on phones, tablets and desktops now.

http://getbootstrap.com/

Travis Admin wrote on 09/16/2013 at 02:13pm

Things look a little smoother in places, yeah. It's nice!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/16/2013 at 02:16pm

Yeah, it should be. Plus the site should be a ton better on Tablets in both orentation modes.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/16/2013 at 05:42pm

Green notifications!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/16/2013 at 05:44pm

Ha, yeah. They discontinued the purple for some reason. Oh well.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/16/2013 at 05:50pm

I like the green. Works well with the leaf.

Blue_Element wrote on 09/16/2013 at 06:50pm

Wow, the new font is pretty nice. And the site does look better overall.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/16/2013 at 07:41pm

Awesome, glad you like it!

hardeyez wrote on 09/16/2013 at 08:24pm

Yes, it's definitely nicer... The posts fill the screen better on linux and android (i.e. chrome and chromium on linux, and chrome on android 4.2). In fact, android is much better all around. Nice!!

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The Firehose: Anodyne Remixed, Eldrich & Crawl

Jon & Sean from Analgesic Productions released a Anodyne Remix Album on Bandcamp under the "name your price" model. I love the Anodyne score and this remix album compliments it well.

http://seagaia.bandcamp.com/album/anodyne-remix-album

Blizzard has collected the winners of the Blizzard Gamescom 2013 cosplay contest. The winner this year was Ralph Z, a male Barb.

http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/10737565#best

Eldritch is a interesting new 3D Lovecraftian FPS from two former EA developers. The has a very unique style and has been making some waves in the indie community.

http://www.eldritchgame.com/

Crawl is a neat 2D retro styled Zelda/Ninja Turtles hack-n-slash with some interesting elements, one being that your friends can control the dungeon monsters. If you have been itching to play against your friends, this may be your chance.

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

Treasure Adventure World

Treasure Adventure World is the follow up to the free PC game, Treasure Adventure Game. Featuring hand drawn art and a large open world, Treasure Adventure World looks to up the ante considerably.

This game is being published by Chucklefish, the creators of Starbound and will initially ship on PC only.

http://treasureadventureworld.com/pre-order/

Hyper Light Drifter

Back this on Kickstarter!

"Explore a beautiful, vast and ruined world riddled with unknown dangers and lost technologies. Inspired by nightmares and dreams alike.

Hyper Light Drifter is a 2D Action RPG in the vein of the best 8-bit and 16-bit classics, with modernized mechanics and designs on a much grander scale.

Visions for this game have been fluttering in my skull for ages; something dark and fantastic, with giant forests to navigate, huge floating structures to explore, deep crumbling ruins to loot, massive throngs of enemies to rend, and behemoths both flesh and mechanical to overcome. I want it all to be as beautiful as possible, forging color with the dark and eerie wastes and intimidating landscapes. It plays like the best parts of A Link to the Past and Diablo, evolved: lightning fast combat, more mobility, an array of tactical options, more numerous and intelligent enemies, and a larger world with a twisted past to do it all in."

This project was quickly funded on Kickstarter because of it's awesome gameplay, visuals and Disasterpeace score. It has sailed past the majority of it's Stretch Goals and still has 27 days left to fund. Interested in picking this up when it drops.

Legend of Dungeon 1.0

Robot Loves Kitty just dropped Legend of Dungeon 1.0 today after a great beta period. The game has really improved over the last few months of refinement and I think it is well worth a look if you peeked early or haven't yet.

Legend of Dungeon is a new Indie Game that is reviving the Rogue-like in a fresh way. They are planning a few more large content updates after 1.0 in terms of a in-game pet system and player classes. I talked with Alix and Calvin a bit about this at PAX and what they have planned sounds very interesting.

You can nab the game for Mac, Linux and Windows for $15.

http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/buy.php

Dishonored Game of the Year Edition Ships Oct. 8th

http://zmi-cdnstatic.s3.amazonaws.com/bethblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/disgoty_3D_stacked_osleeves.jpg

Been waiting for the Game of the Year Edition to pick up Dishonored and it looks like Bethesda is finally releasing it. Game of the Year Edition comes with the base game, The Knife of Dunwall, The Brigmore Witches, Dunwall City Trials & Void Walker’s Arsenal.

I don't typically get stealth games but I have heard good things about this one and want to give it a shot.

Dishonored Game of the Year Edition ships October 8th on PC, PS3 & XBox 360 for $40.

http://www.bethblog.com/2013/09/12/dishonored-game-of-the-year-edition-announced/

Will There Always Be Violent Video Games?

"Ah, bashing video games for their senseless violence. It's a time honored tradition... at least since the 80s. But is this violence really a VIDEO GAME issue? If we look at other games - sports, even board games - we'll see echoes of these violent game mechanics. In our complex competitive world, we may need these simulations to help us learn and train for the unexpected. So are violent video games possibly more helpful than harmful? Watch the episode and find out!"

Jamin Warren gives a good history of violent video games with Arcades, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Postal 2 & Night Trap. He notes that our culture over time has become less violent but that it's not entirely obvious.

What do you think? Will we always have violent games? Does it matter?

I Completed Fez

I completed Fez on Mac after the Mac port came to Steam yesterday. The game plays beautifully and picks up my controller such that the game feels just as polished as the Windows version. Another rad feature is that Steam syncs your saves. I started the game on Windows and played it a bit on Linux and completed it on Mac.

You can unlock the final area with 32 cubes collected and I achieved that in about 6 hours of total play. I have many more cubes to collect and plan on doing that here and there over the next bit. The ending sequence was really interesting and I don't want to say much to spoil it but I will say that it was unique and thought provoking.

After you complete Fez you can create a new Fez+ game that starts the main campaign over again but allows you to pick up where you left off in terms of collecting things. I many areas left to explore and cubes to collect. Some of the puzzles in Fez are fairly complicated and I am not really sure how to complete them yet. That said, I have many areas left to explore and sometimes exploring an area tips you off to how to complete a series of puzzles you didn't have the key to earlier.

Fez is great and is currently part of the Humble Bundle 9 and I seriously recommend you play it.

https://www.humblebundle.com/

Wind Waker HD: Side by Side Comparison

"How does The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD's graphics and visuals compare to that of the original GameCube version? We pitted the two side-by-side in a head-to-head comparison to find out just how much better the Wii U version looks!"

Press play and crank up the resolution and watch Wind Waker side by side Wind Waker HD. Looks like Wind Waker HD brings some really crisp visuals to the table. Does this look compelling enough to nab on Wii U?

Timogorgon Member wrote on 09/12/2013 at 05:24pm

I'll admit that when Wind Waker came out at first... I hated the cell shaded graphics. However, seeing them in HD makes them look MUCH better.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/12/2013 at 08:33pm

This looks really cool, and I've never played Wind Waker, but I can't justify a U just for this game.

It does look great though!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/25/2014 at 10:23pm

Wow! Unlike WhiteboySlim, when I got Wind Waker when it was released, I was very impressed, I thought it was gorgeous! Now seeing both versions of the game side by side, I notice how smooth and gorgeous the HD version is and how I must have overlooked some of the aspects of the original version that make it not as beautiful.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/25/2014 at 11:41pm

Well, the original Wind Waker was played more on the old SD TV's and if you played the game on that, it looked great. BUT hooking up the old version to an HD TV is pretty rough so the HD version really sort of fills the chasm there.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/25/2014 at 11:52pm

Yeah, that makes total sense. It does seem pretty sweet that the game looks much better and more polished now.

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Cheerful Ghost Roundtable Ep. 4: Grab Bag

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable Episode 4 takes a bit of a different turn as @Travis, @CapnCurry and @scrypt are away with bubonic cancer. @WhiteboySlim and I talk about some really interesting game news bits and show off what we are playing!

show notes