"The first team invited to The International are the returning champions, Invictus Gaming. Twelve more teams will be announced over the coming days. Just like in last year’s event, the winners of the East and West Qualifiers will each receive an invite. As you’ve probably noticed, that only adds to 15 teams. Right before The International begins, the Wild Card event will determine the final spot in a match between the runner-ups of each qualifier.

The West Qualifier will be hosted by GDStudio from May 13th through the 19th and the East Qualifier by BeyondTheSummit from May 20th through the 26th. All matches will also be available for free through DotaTV."

I am SERIOUSLY interested in watching this event. Since I don't watch Basketball or more traditional sports, this peaks my interest. During PAX Prime 2012 I really enjoyed watching the League of Legends tournament a lot. It really peaked my interested in eSports and since I <3 DoTA 2 I am naturally very interested. Ill be watching the matches on DotaTV for certain but I am seriously considering attending the final matches in Seattle.

Do these kind of eSports events interest you? Will you be watching the DoTA 2 International this year?

http://www.dota2.com/international/announcement

Shovel Knight is the awesome retro styled 2D sidescroller that was recently catapulted to Kickstarter success blowing by its initial $75k level to land on a cool $350k. The fans of this upcoming game spread the message far and wide and as such gained some awesome stretch goals such as Linux & Mac ports, playable boss characters, a gender swap mode(woot), challenge mode and a 4 player battle mode.

Since I am very interested in dispensing shovel justice to evil in 8-bit I decided to reach out to the Shovel Knight team. They were awesome enough to respond and what follows is the historical accounting of that conversation.

Oh and for all of you wondering, we did talk about United States law enforcement policy as well as dirt patents. Your welcome!

jdodson: Shovel Knight was recently funded on Kickstarter! What are your thoughts on how the response to Shovel Knight has been?

Sean Velasco: We are totally overwhelmed by the support we've gotten. Our lofty expectations capped out at about half of what we ended up with! Our Kickstarter caught fire and the rally at the end was unbelievable. Now, we'll be able to develop even more great content for Shovel Knight, in an office, instead of out of our apartments.

jdodson: Where did concept for Shovel Knight come from?

Sean Velasco: We wanted to build an NES-style game around a central mechanic, and we settled on a Zelda II style down thrust. This move led to us thinking about other moves: flipping, slashing, and digging. Eureka! A shovel! It was a goofy idea that we really liked, so we went with Shovel Knight. It especially seemed fitting for an 8-bit style game, where the themes were generally less serious.

jdodson: For $100 Kickstarter backers they will receive very special hand signed Shovel Knight dirt. What magic does Yacht Club Games use to sign dirt and did you patent the method?

Sean Velasco: The dirt-signing method is patent pending. We lay the first out in a thin layer of top-quality dirt, then run our pens through it, meticulously photographing the process. After that, we gather the dirt into envelopes and send them out to our loyal customers.

jdodson: How has Shovel Knight development process been moving along?

Sean Velasco: During the Kickstarter, things slowed down a lot as we were inundated with questions, updates, and media requests. We are now starting to get back into the swing of things, but we have lots of groundwork to do now: accounting, office space, businessey type stuff. We're hoping that in the next couple of weeks we can get back into full development, because that's what we love doing the most!

jdodson: Shovel Knight is styled after the 8-bit awesome games of the past. As I look at the overworld map screen, I am reminded of a few of the Super Mario games and am wondering about level progression. Many retro games allowed you a series of warps to speed dash to beat Bowser at the end. Does Shovel Knight allow this?

Sean Velasco: We are probably not going to have warps that let you skip to the end, but there will be lots of secrets and shortcuts. We're intentionally making sure that this game will be good for speed runners, and we'll be running it by some of our favorite speed runner friends to make sure it is ideal in that regard.

jdodson: As you have been play testing Shovel Knight, I wonder for you what part jumps out at you as something you really love about it?

Sean Velasco: I really love Shovel Knight's mobility. He feels weighty without feeling slow, and the bounce of the shovel is just right! We spent a lot of time thinking about and tuning the character mobility, so every time I get my hands on the game, it just fits like a glove.

jdodson: Does the game story explain the relationship between the Shovel Knight and the Enchantress?

Sean Velasco: Yes, the story will explain the relationships of all the characters, including the mysterious Enchantress! We aren't ready to talk too much about the story, but just know that we're planning on something a bit more emotionally complex than your typical "save the princess" game story.

jdodson: As I watched the Kickstarter video I noticed Shovel Knight nab a more epic shovel from a treasure chest. As Shovel Knight makes his way to the Enchantress how many power-ups does he find and do they change how you play the game?

Sean Velasco: We want to have a wealth of upgrades and subweapons for Shovel Knight. We're collecting lots of gems and loot, so we have to make cool stuff to spend it on! The subweapons will be things like the wand from our PAX demo, which shoots a fireball across the screen. We're thinking that you'll be able to upgrade those into more powerful items, as well as augmenting your health, magic, armor, etc. However, this is all in the planning stages, so nothing definite quite yet!

jdodson: If you look at the data, The United States has made huge strides in lowering violent crime in many large metropolitan cities since the 80’s. I wonder if you think we might see an even more dramatic downturn if we employed “Shovel Justice?”

Sean Velasco: If you have ever watched the hard-hitting documentary "Mystery Men", you would know that Shovel Justice can work, and has worked in the past. Maybe it's time to repeal our concealed shoveling laws!

jdodson: I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me today, is there anything you want to say before we wrap things up?

Sean Velasco: We're all about our fans and community! If you like what we are doing, follow us on Twitter or Facebook. We do lots of updates, contests, and live streams, so join in on the fun!

twitter: @yachtclubgames
twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/yachtclubgames
FB: https://www.facebook.com/YachtClubGames

Every time I watch a new Hearthstone video I get more excited about playing it. I will dump all my thoughts to the video as I watch it so prepare yourself...

• Right away the player is dealt a pretty poor hand and is allowed to redraw cards with no penalty. This is noteworthy because games like Magic: The Gathering penalize you for a Mulligan. Or so the official rules say, when I play with my friends we don't observe that rule. :D


• The player gets a "Leroy Jenkins" card. Hat tip to the designers, this kind of thing is awesome to see.


• One nice UI bit of polish I like, when the opponent card is played you can see it with all of its abilities.


• There are a ton of sick cards played, for instance one was just played where if you summon a creature you take one damage. Blizzard really has designed a game that is pretty strategic. My only question is how hard will it be to get these epic cards?


• The Leroy Jenkins card has a "Charge: Battlecry" ability but the downside is that it summons two minion Whelps for your opponent. Funny, but if you needed to jet something out there and do some damage quickly you could deal a killing blow to your opponent right away. Given the right situation that card could be very good.


• Leroy Jenkins card was just played, summoned two whelps that got bigger because of an opponent effect. That said, Jenkins had no summoning sickness and smashed the opponent for 6 damage. I don't think I would have played the card that early but the player didn't have much on the board at the the time.


• Cairne Bloodhoof is a sweet card summoned by the opponent that on death summons his successor. Awesome mechanic and when the player played a boardwipe, the opponent summoned Cairne's successor. Awesome card.

Really looking forward to playing Hearthstone when it drops!

Last night I went to OMSI After Dark. The After Dark events up the age restriction to 21 and serve some local beer and wine as well as some local delicatessen selections. They also have an area dedicated to local the local Portland gaming scene.

Last nights event featured a wall of retro games sponsored by Ground Kontrol and the upcoming Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Also showing was Guardian Games as well as the Portland Indie Game Squad. I was able to play a few awesome Indie Games from local PDX'ers such as Clobbr, Major Magnet and PewPewPewPewPewPewPewPewPew.

Clobbr

The video featured above are peoples reactions to playing Clobbr. TOTAL SELF PROMOTION WARNING I am the guy featured in the video from 0:20 - 0:21 playing on the tablet with the zelda shirt and messenger bag. So if you ever wanted to see me in 2 seconds of video, your time has come.

Clobbr is a very cute mobile game where your monster is attempting to solve a puzzle such that you can knock out the evil Cats. I laud Clobbr for taking Cats, one of the most beloved of Internet memes and making them the villans. Clobbr was quite fun and I was able to figure out some of the more complex puzzles in a few "ah-ha" moments that harkend back to moments I had with Portal 2. When Clobbr launches, expect to hear about it as it is on my radar as a really cool upcoming mobile puzzler.

http://clobbr.com/

PewPewPewPewPewPewPewPewPew

PewPewPewPewPewPewPewPewPew is a really unique XBox game where you must use two rock band microphones to control the game. Using your voice and the recommended "pew" one microphone controls the players direction and the other microphone shoots the gun. What ensues is hilarious to watch. I took a turn controlling the gun and found that making more of a breathy noise fired the gun in a much more even way than my attempt at a "pew" approximation. If you have a few Rockband microphones and an XBox you should try PewPewPewPewPewPewPewPewPew!

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/PewPewPewPewPewPewPewPewPew/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550818
http://www.indiegames.com/2011/02/trailer_pewpewpewpewpewpewpewp.html

Major Magnet

Major Magnet is a fun new iPhone game by PagodaWest Games. Needless to say the game is very awesome and well worth the 99 cent price of admission. I plan on doing a more formal review of this game in the upcoming days so stay tuned! Until then, if you own an iPhone and have a dollar, you need to checkout Major Magnet!

http://www.majormagnetgame.com/

I want to thank OMSI for letting me hang out with them and recommend it if you are looking for a fun way to experience OMSI. Ill admit, I spent most of my time in the Video Game area but the rest of the Museum is open and I had an organic peanut butter cookie that was extremely noteworthy!

http://www.omsi.edu/afterdark
http://pigsquad.com/

Chasm is an awesome new "Metroidvania" 2D fantasy RPG that is currently on Kickstarter. It is a really interesting mashup of 2D RPG side-scrollery and as such wanted to talk to Jame Petruzzi of Discord Games about it. I want to thank James for taking the time to talk with me and am looking forward to the new beta that should be coming out very soon!

jdodson: What prompted you to decide that you wanted to strike out on your own and bring this game to the world? It seems like you have done everything you could to bring the game to this point, did you consider an eventual Kickstarter or did that evolve later?

James: I was pretty much done with the corporate world, and wanted to do something on my own. Luckily we did pretty well off Take Arms, so I was able to self fund everything so far, and prove that concept of Chasm will work. I knew there was no way I’d be able to fund the whole game, but I took a risk in making a full-on playable prototype of the first area that could be used for either a publisher or Kickstarter. After we spoke with some publishers it became clear we were better off to stick to getting this thing done ourselves.

jdodson: I wonder what you plan to add to the game before its final launch? Will more NPCs be added or the town get a bit larger?

James: We’ll probably end up re-imagining a lot of the world. Everything so far is a rough draft just to get an idea of how everything is going to work. So after the Kickstarter, we plan to take a fresh look on the whole thing and redesign what we need to before getting started on the real deal.

jdodson: I know this might seem odd given the games name and all, but do you anticipate any kind of overworld exploration and adventuring for Chasm? I’ll admit, i’m a sucker for forests.

James: We’ve got you covered with the temple’s Overgrown Gardens! Your adventure will be strictly subterranean, but once you breach the temple far under the ground, expect to find some weird stuff!

jdodson: Recently I have been thinking a lot about what kind of super ability would be awesome to have. I am set on some kind of cross between Nightcrawler and the guys from Jumper. Its hard to set in stone though as I am not sure how they don’t materialize inside a dumpster or person that just happens to be standing or walking where you want to go. I am not sure this is a question.

James: We love acrobatics, so we’ll be focused on bringing awesome special abilities to your character like double jumping, wall jumping, ledge grabbing, and more. These abilities will help you traverse to previous inaccessible areas ala Metroid.

jdodson: Ianuarius has made some pretty awesome weapon art on the forums. Have you considered using any of the fan art in the final game at this point or are you pretty locked in with your current art direction?

James: While we love fan art, we’ll be sticking to 100% in-house assets for the game. Not only perfectly matching the art style, but there’s also the questions of rights, credit. etc. that complicate things. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of fan mods though!

jdodson: I played through the Chasm demo and really enjoyed the challenge. I recently saw that you are adding difficulty levels to the game and I am curious how they stack up with the current demo difficulty. Is the current demo difficulty what will become normal?

James: It’s more game modes than different difficulties in the traditional sense. Hardcore mode brings permadeath and scoring to the game, while the Time Trial only scores you on total time to reach the end of the demo. Everything about the game otherwise is still the same.

jdodson: Will I be able to be killed by a Grue? Frankly I missed the whole Zork thing and feel a bit left out. Actually playing Zork is entirely out of the question!

James: Haha, we will probably add a bunch of nods to older games like Zork, Rogue, and the rest.

jdodson: I am curious what kind of unique weapons we will see in Chasm? Will any of these new items take the player beyond the Sword and magic tone? For instance, if one found a buried spaceship one may find some special gear not made by the town Blacksmith :D

James: We’ll definitely have unique item drops from enemies and other creatures that can’t be obtained anywhere else. As to the specifics, can’t comment yet ;)

jdodson: Thanks for answering my questions! I wonder if there is anything you want to leave us with before we wrap things up?

James: Please check out both our Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns! We really need help now to secure development for the rest of the game, and doing what we love most!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/discordgames/chasm
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=116879147

Whew, did anyone buy own a Neo Geo or 3DO? I remember totally thinking it looked like hot shit in the store but I can't think of any game people really raved about on those platforms. What impressed me most about the 3DO was that it could play video in a game, that totally blew my mind. Come to find out just slapping some video in a game didn't really make it awesome but then again how else would we get games like Sewer Shark?

I picked up a PS3 well after its launch and on a pretty awesome sale for $250. It came with Guitar Hero III and a $50 Best Buy gift card a very good deal. Now I am wondering how much the PS4 and Next Box will ship for on launch day?

Sean Hogan one half of the awesome duo that brought us Anodyne recently posed a question on Steam I thought was pretty interesting in regard to adding a fairly simple level editor to Anodyne.

"Would anyone be interested in this?

The thing is, Anodyne wasn't coded with it in mind, so it might be hard to pull off. But if I did, it would be pretty basic:

- No doors between different maps. Maybe doors in the same map.
- No NPCs or dialogue (possibly the rocks with a single "chunk" of dialogue)
- One and song per map.
- Maybe bosses.
- Likely most enemies/dungeon things"

I am totally down for this idea. I really enjoyed plunking out a few maps in Portal 2 and loved the process. Would you be interested in seeing a simple Anodyne level editor? Sound off on the Steam community thread:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/234900/discussions/0/810922320220339724/

"This collection covers over a decade of groundbreaking work by the chipmusic bands 8 Bit Weapon & ComputeHer. After 14 years, 5 tours, and countless studio albums between them, 8 Bit Weapon & ComputeHer has amassed a healthy body of work. This album represents the best of their combined efforts in chipmusic."

If you love chipmusic and want to check out some good stuff you may not otherwise be familiar with I recommend the recent collab album by 8 Bit Weapon & ComputeHer called "Chiptopia." It is over at Bandcamp and you can pay what you wish for the music. Really enjoyed this on my first run through.

http://computeher.bandcamp.com/album/chiptopia-the-best-of-8-bit-weapon-computeher

Ratchet and Clank the movie is set to hit the big screen in early 2015. This makes sense as the game is quite cinematic already and in the "Pixar quality" realm.

https://www.facebook.com/RatchetandClankMovie

Are you interested in watching the new Ratchet and Clank film or are you holding out for the next Bob Hoskins & John Leguizamo Super Mario Brothers 2 film?

I mean they are both Bowser's minions, sooner or later something like this was going to happen? Right?