In a recent interview with PCGamer, Blizzard talked about a bunch of game related bits and one that stood out to me is that Hearthstone has amassed 30 million players. They mention this is due to launch on mobile. I dived back in after the phone launch and it seems I wasn't alone.

During the interview a question was also asked in how Blizzard gauges the effectiveness of new cards.

"For me, my main goal is not actually to get cards into decks permanently, but to have people experiment with new ideas a lot, which is slightly different. So, for example, Flamewaker caused people to try out decks with tons of spells in them. And some people had some success with that, but more importantly they experimented with it. So even if the Dragon decks, after a month of experimentation, don’t end up being the best decks—as long as people have had a lot of fun trying things out, then we've succeeded in one of our main goals."

They discussed a few new cards but I wanted to highlight one part of the interview about Grim Patron. It was a new card in Blackrock Mountain which is a 3/3 that costs 5 and when it survives damage another one is summoned.

http://media-hearth.cursecdn.com/avatars/198/0/14435.gif

Blizzard said this when they were asked if the card is a problem:

"We’re always watching the meta game and Reddit and the forums, but it looks totally fine to me right now. It’s pretty healthy, it’s powerful, it’s a new deck type, it’s fun. One week it’s like “wow, Grim Patron decks are the strongest this week”, but the next week it’s like “Oh… a totally different deck is really strong right now.” So I think there’s enough variety right now that it’s not actively something we’re thinking about."

It's a great interview and they talk more about Grim Patron, Dr. Boom and more.

http://www.pcgamer.com/hearthstone-interview-grim-patron-dr-boom-balanced/#page-1

One thing I have been focusing on is getting cards by unlocking gold playing daily quests. It's a legit path but it takes time and patience. I found a good strategy for trying to get the most gold you can from daily quests by strategizing when you reroll them. It's a great strategy and was also useful to know that you can reroll your quests at all!

"Reroll all 40 gold quests. Don't finish 40 gold quests. Finish 60/100 gold quests as soon as possible, unless they require finishing a 40 gold quest. Finish a quest if you can't reroll and you have 3 quests."

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1wck6c/maximizing_gold_from_you_daily_quests/

If you are wondering how you reroll your quests, check the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J35B1FfHNUg

In a recent email from Nintendo they dropped some news that they are bringing back the Nintendo Wold Championships. The Nintendo World Championships was a competition in the 90's that kids took part in so the best Nintendo gamer in the world could be crowned. If this all sounds familiar it is because this was the basic plot for the 90's classic film "The Wizard." Nintendo is bringing back the World Championships at this years E3 and I am happy they are making a live stream available to watch.

"For the first time in 25 years, some of Nintendo's biggest fans will get to go head-to-head in a gaming showdown for the ages. Join a worldwide audience by watching the live stream on Sunday, June 14.

Want to compete? Get ready for qualifying competitions coming May 30."

So far those are the only details about the competition but if you are ready to go head to head with other Nintendo gamers I encourage you to break out your NES gamepads and start practicing!

http://e3.nintendo.com/?eid=email_860778610_862064380_33625ed2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_World_Championships

Rich and Jack are back at it talking about Shovel Knight. Rich seems to be hung on if Shovel Knight is a great game or a game that falls back to nostalgia and retro feel in place of actually being good. Rich and Jack both loved the game, it just seems that Rich isn't sure if the game stands on it's own.

After playing Shovel Knight it is true that the game is a NES dream come true but I think it holds up well for modern gamers.

When I got the email from Steam that Starship Rubicon was Greenlit on Steam I immediately called Wick and left him a message. A few minutes later we were gleefully talking about it and basking in the glow of joining the games accepted to Steam club. As the Greenlight campaign was still a significant way from the top 100 (though we had an awesome approval percentage!) it appears Valve works in mysterious ways!

Wick has been hard at work on a big Rubicon update that will feature a Linux port, a raft of bug fixes and some really awesome new features that we will talk about as we march closer to a Steam launch. We wanted to personally thank everyone that picked up the game and wanted to let you know that if you Kickstarted the game, bought it from our website, the Humble Store, Desura or Itch that when the game launches on Steam you will get a copy to unlock on Steam.

Thank you to everyone that voted for the game on Greenlight and I hope that when we launch on Steam that more people are able to check it out!

www.starshiprubicon.com
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=331311253

The Hotline Miami Story is a cool new documentary about everyones favorite ultra violent 2D action game. The documentary features the creators of Hotline Miami Jonathan & Dennis as well as people on the publishing side at Devolver Digital. If you have heard of the game and are interested in learning more about it or a hardcore fan, I recommend you watch The Hotline Miami Story embedded above.

"In October 2012 independent video game developers Jonathan Söderström and Dennis Wedin dropped Hotline Miami, a surreal and violent 2D PC game inspired by iconic filmmaker David Lynch and the 2011 film Drive. In just a few months it became the surprise hit of 2012, selling more than 100,000 copies and earning widespread critical acclaim. It would go on to release on Linux, OS X, and several Playstation platforms and spawn a sequel released in March. All of this despite, or maybe because of, how damn difficult the killing missions could be."

Summer is coming up and with it a ton of game related conventions. I usually have a Cheerful Ghost booth at a few Oregon cons and this year we will keep with that tradition. This year will be a bit different as we will have a Cheerful Ghost booth that we share with Starship Rubicon, our first published game. After the rebranding of the site I've really wanted to get the new Ghost art on some new swag and wanted to show off the new Cheerful Ghost button. Pin this on your bag to show the world you visit a website they never heard of(hipster points for everyone)!

We will be showing Starship Rubicon and have the new Ghost swag sticker, button and more stuff I can't talk about right now at our booth at this years Portland Retro Gaming Expo (Portland) and Indie Game Con (Eugene).

If you haven't seen it yet, the new sticker:

http://i.imgur.com/ASPzRpx.jpg

We all love awesome speedruns and I recently read an article that collected some of the best i've seen yet. The video linked above is of a incredible Hotline Miami speedrun that completes the game in 20:07. This is a pretty interesting speedrun as they seem to only exploit a game glitch once to complete a level.

• Skyrim in 39 minutes? Yep and I didn't see them use Fus-roh-dah once. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20JHgEvUeM0


• Doom 2 Hell on Earth in 23 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8j2zj-A5tE


• This Fallout 3 speedrun is completed in 18 minutes and uses a ton of clipping bugs and walking. But mostly walking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR6a1iQD2fs


• Surprised to see that it takes 1 hour and 32 minutes to speedrun Half-life 2. I guess Valve did a good job requiring cut scenes to play out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D67JeiSJTU


• Portal in 8:31. It's not a long game but drinking a coffee takes longer than this speedrun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC47O6mKHJY


• Quake is the grand daddy game that started the speedrun movement and the quickest someone has completed it is in 14 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpiNDxssUL0

Check PCGamer for the full list and a few more games I didn't mention. Has anyone considered putting in the time to get good at beating a game quickly? As a kid I enjoyed beating the original Super Mario Brothers quickly and with warps and such I could do it in about 15 minutes or less. A quick Google search shows me the world record it 4:47. Incredible.

Link's Awakening is my most beloved Zelda game. During last years Portland Retro Gaming Expo I finally broke down and repurchased it as our family copy was lost to time or sold. I have it on my list of games to replay and hopefully I can do it this year. That said I found this Imgur album of a few collected facts on the game and though I would pass it along.

http://imgur.com/gallery/CXPIw

And for extra credit, here is the ballad of the wind fish on YouTube. That song is still one of the saddest songs I can think of from the 8 bit era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dhzm7HJiMA

When I first got into NES games I begged my parents for a subscription to Nintendo Power. Nintendo Power was a monthly dose of magazine crack that kept us all updated on all things Nintendo. New YouTuber Shawntendo64 has a fun series called "Nintendo Power Recharged" where he talks about Nintendo Power an issue at a time. His first video on the topic covers Nintendo Power 1 and is a good summary of what's included. If you were part of the Nintendo Fan Club you received this issue for free as an attempt to get you to opt for the yearly sub.

I remember reading this issue cover to cover but due to the ignorance of youth never held on to the large stack of Nintendo Power Magazines I had. I always wanted Nintendo to release a Nintendo Power digital PDF bundle something I would buy in an instant.

Shauntendo64 has a few more videos in this series that cover issues 56 and 82. I wonder if he will review them all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0IxoiTR_Xw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOUbueJIKxU

The Indie Game scene is bigger and more vibrant than ever. Steam has over 7481 games and DLC available, a large percent of those games being made by Indie developers. As large studios continue to release the same kind of shooter or fighting game Indie developers often branch out with unique titles like Besige, The Talos Principle & Kerbal Space Program. GameLoading: Rise of the Indies is a new documentary that explores aspects of Indie game culture as seen through the stories of developers.

Since GameLoading derives it’s story and flow from the developers and games they are building occasionally the pacing suffers as it breaks out of a personal story in favor of a focused topic. The biggest instance that nearly threw me off entirely was in the start of the film when they talked about adults and play. I don’t mind documentaries that focus on an idea but it breaks out of the personal stories of developers that are the most engaging part of the film. That said, after GameLoading starts focusing on the people and the games they make the film clicked with me.

The developer stories GameLoading features are Rami Ismail of Vlambeer, Davey Wreden of The Stanley Parable, Zoe Quinn of Depression Quest and a few more. The inclusion of a wide mix of developers is good as I hadn’t heard of some of them or the games they released before. In my experience not all indie developers are “camera ready” and to the credit of GameLoading they don’t shy away from this in whom they feature.

If you love documentaries and want to consume all things gaming, you should check out GameLoading: Rise of the Indies. It doesn’t quite achieve the incredible heights of Indie Game: The Movie but it it’s a good film that shows a community of people making what they love.

http://www.gameloading.tv/