jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Is Super Mario Brothers More Immersive Than Call of Duty?

Jack and Rich are back with a new episode of Previously Recorded that discusses quick time events, cut scenes and game immersion. They note that when you drop instructions on screen to press buttons you remind the player they are playing the game instead of being the character on the screen. This is a good point and I think that it often gets worse when you are playing a PC game that asks you to press a button on a controller that you are not using.

What do you think, is Super Mario Brothers more immersive than Call of Duty? Do quick time events ruin game immersion? Are Jack and Rich horrible frauds?

Explore The New World In Pioneers

Pioneers is a brand new exploration strategy game in alpha development by Eigen Lenk. In Pioneers you take the role of an explorer leading a party to make a name for yourself in the new world. If you ever wanted to play a game where you could be Lewis and Clark, Francis Drake or Edmund Fanning this game is it. It also has a really unique painted pixel art style that I find really refreshing.

You can get Pioneers on itch.io now for as much as you want to spend on it on Mac and PC. If you play it let me know what you think of it in the comments!

http://eigen.itch.io/pioneers

"Pioneers is a turn-based exploration/adventure RPG where you lead a party of travellers in search of treasure-rich temples, new tribes and ways to go down in history - ways to go beyond the horizon. To achieve all that you complete quests building up your reputation to become a sought out explorer by kings and commoners alike.

You set out promising your father to become someone, to make him proud but not all goes like planned in life, does it? On the way you'll meet many interesting characters, solve challenging puzzles and face all that nature has to offer, be it finding and collecting food and building a shelter to survive harsh winters or facing against a pack of wolves in the densest of forests."

Sword Coast Legends Is An All New Epic D&D Adventure

"Set in the lush and vibrant world of the Forgotten Realms, Sword Coast Legends offers an all-new way to enjoy the time-tested magic of playing Dungeons & Dragons as a shared storytelling experience. With a deep narrative developed by a team of long-time industry veterans and a partnership with Wizards of the Coast, the single player campaign of Sword Coast Legends brings the world of Faerûn home like never before."

When I heard about the brand new D&D game Sword Coast Legends I was pretty excited. A few of us on Cheerful Ghost have been playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic as part of the Cheerful Games Club and i've really enjoyed the turn based D&D hack n slashing. We don't get a ton of games built with the D&D rules these days so it's really cool to see a modern game in that style.

If you are interested in getting in on the digital D&D goodness there are a ton of pre-order options on the developers website. Starting with the digital Steam copy and finishing with an epic $350 version, Sword Coast Legends is aiming itself directly at a hardcore D&D audience.

https://swordcoast.com/preorder

Broforce Gets Super Alien Update - Game Over Man, Game Over!

Broforce continues it's Steam Early Access domination in the form of an all new update featuring Zenomorph Aliens. Fight these iconic Aliens as Indiana Brones, The Brominator, Cherry Broling and the rest of the Broforce crew! Free Lives have treated the Broforce Early Access well and the great updates just keep coming. If they continue on at this rapid fire pace I imagine Broforce will launch some time this year!

Back To The Future Ending Scene Recreated In Pixel Art

YouTuber Mauri Helme has recreated the last scene of Back to the Future using pixel art. Contains some great moments all involving pixel art Doc Brown.

Jam Sessions Commercial Is Not Rated For Everyone

Jam Session is a Nintendo DS game that was released in 2007. The game is rated "E for Everyone" but featured the above commercial in an Australian ad campaign. The game may not have a classic, but this amazing commercial lives on,

Travel The Orion Trail With Warp Weasels In Space

Back this on Kickstarter!

Orion Trail is a new Kickstarter by Schell Games that mixes the classic Oregon Trail mechanics and throws them into orbit. It's no surprise that I loved the recent Oregon Trail with Zombies remake, Organ Trail and Orion Trail seems to continue the movement. Orion Trail sports some pretty pixel art as well as some really interesting in game encounters with Warp Weasels and SPACE DYSENTERY.

"Before you begin your voyage, it's important to know that bad stuff can (and will) happen. For example, an unexpected Singularity Fissure could open up in the Deck 12 Latrines, making for an unpleasant bathroom break. Maybe someone could accidentally leave an airlock open as you jump to light-speed, making the inside part of the ship the outside part. Or, your Away Team could inadvertently incur the wrath of a Grobulous Rex while exploring an alien jungle. We're not sure what will happen with that last one, but it's probably not good."

Like all modern Indie games I love, Orion Trail will ship on Linux, Mac and Windows.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 02/06/2015 at 06:19am

That video is funny! I first laughed when I saw that one of the captains was Grumpy Cat, then I noticed the Star Trek-looking bridge. I also thought it was funny watching the different Star Trek-looking crew members doing things, like dancing at the very end. I haven't played Oregon Trail in very many years. It's been so long that I think the last time I played it was on a Commodore 128D or an Apple IIC. I think an space-aged Oregon Trail makes sense and this game looks funny! I may have to keep my eye on this and figure out this Kickstarter thing.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 02/06/2015 at 06:20am

Oh, look! There's a demo!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/06/2015 at 06:25am

A demo? Awesome. I might check that out.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 02/06/2015 at 07:11am

Yup! Check out their official site. The link for the demo is in the upper-right hand corner for Mac, Linux, and Windows.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 02/06/2015 at 03:56pm

Is "Trail-like" becoming a genre now? :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/06/2015 at 04:20pm

Seems like it. "Trail clone"

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 02/06/2015 at 04:41pm

That said, I wish I have $500 to back this one!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/06/2015 at 06:36pm

"There's always room on your Visa."

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 02/06/2015 at 08:09pm

I played the demo once this morning and made it to the end.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/08/2015 at 10:32pm

I played the demo too. It's an interesting game and I hope they build on it for the final release.

Travis Admin wrote on 02/09/2015 at 03:57am

Huh, come to think of it, FTL is kinda Oregon Trail in space.

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Florian Working On Binding of Isaac Wrath of the Lamb Update

Florian Himsl is the incredible other half of the team that brought us the original Binding of Isaac. In a bit of awesome news he is updating the original Wrath of the Lamb update with even more content. Now that The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is out I wasn't expecting more content for the original, but I can't say I mind it!

This is one part of Indie Game Development I appreciate as it's fairly rare for this to happen on the other side of the house.

Star Wars Force Chokes It's Way To Humble Bundle

Recently GOG picked up a ton of classic Star Wars titles that were previously a bit hard to track down. If you were waiting to pick those up on GOG you might want to checkout the latest Star Wars Bundle. All the games come with Steam Keys with PC ports and Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy and The Force Unleashed are also available on Mac.

So far you can unlock all the games at $12 and more will be added to the bundle later, making this a crazy great value.

https://www.humblebundle.com/?starwars_bundle

vdogmr25 wrote on 02/04/2015 at 04:12pm

I want this, but if I have working copies of KoTOR again, I may never leave my room.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 02/04/2015 at 07:40pm

This is a great bundle. I wonder what the mystery game will be? O.o

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/04/2015 at 09:40pm

I hopefull it's GAMES and will be... Tie Fighter or Podracer.

Travis Admin wrote on 02/04/2015 at 09:58pm

I bought the big-ass Star Wars bundle on Steam in a sale ages ago for like $20, so this bundle means little to me, but it's a hell of a deal. Jedi Outcast alone is worth the price.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/05/2015 at 03:36am

SWEET. I think I missed that for whatever reason, I love that these bundles keep rolling. As far as I am concerned why not keep selling if people are buying?

Travis Admin wrote on 02/05/2015 at 03:51am

Definitely. And the Lucas games are generally really good. It's a guaranteed good value.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 02/05/2015 at 06:17pm

I might pick this one up because I've been wanting to get Kotor 2 on PC so I can install the missing content mod. I have Kotor 2 on Xbox and loved the game even though it was very apparent that it was an unfinished product.

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Super Mario World Completed in 3.07, New World Record

SethBling just posted the new world record for completing Super Mario World in an astonishingly quick 3 minutes and 7 seconds. The run takes advantage of getting the game into a strange memory state and then pausing to warp all the way to the ending credits.

Incredibly, who comes up with this stuff?

Travis Admin wrote on 01/31/2015 at 06:24am

I watched a video the other day, like a week ago, where this was exploited for a 6ish minute run. 3:08 is insane!

scrypt Supporter wrote on 02/02/2015 at 03:58pm

Is finding an exploit that takes you to the end credits what qualifies for completing a game these days?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 02/02/2015 at 08:08pm

I kinda agree with Script, but wow, that was interesting and impressive.

Travis Admin wrote on 02/03/2015 at 04:00am

These generally don't count for "legit" speedruns. There are various levels of speedruns. This one wouldn't compete with a more "legit" speed run.

It's kinda like Magic: The Gathering. Some cards are just too powerful and get banned from the game, even in Legacy, but there's always the all-in formats where nothing is off the table.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/04/2015 at 02:19am

I'd say that this does count for a speedrun in that you can do it in the game as you normally play. Your right in that it isn't a traditional run of going through it. Like Travis says there are more traditional runs and then these kinds of bugged runs.

Travis Admin wrote on 02/04/2015 at 03:08am

Yeah, it's not tool-assisted, so it's a legit speedrun, it's just not a "legit" speedrun. I couldn't think of a better way to put it! Traditional doesn't exactly describe it. I can't define it but I know it when I see it! :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/04/2015 at 04:12am

Glitch free?

scrypt Supporter wrote on 02/04/2015 at 07:58pm

But it's still an exploit, right? Hypothetically, if Super Mario World was another game released in today's market, it might likely be patched to fix the bug. Should exploits like this just be considered "part of the game"?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/04/2015 at 09:42pm

It is part of the game, yet not designed at all. So i'd say it's valid for this version of the game YET think that separating bugged from traditional is a good point.

There was a Zelda Links Awakening bug that if you did the magic right caused you to warp to the other side of the screen which meant you could easily clip and get past areas they didn't intend. They did release a patch to fix it in later karts so I imagine some runs are shorter because they don't have this exploit.

That said a traditional run wouldn't be impacted.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/04/2015 at 09:44pm

And since I had to bring back my memory of it, here is a video showing it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbs0bcg9U68

Travis Admin wrote on 02/04/2015 at 09:45pm

Every Super Mario Bros. speedrun uses glitches though. Little things like being able to stick to the wall if you hit it at the right angle and jump again. That's why I didn't go with "glitch-free" as a description because they're widely used. There's a line somewhere, I just don't know where!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/04/2015 at 09:49pm

I saw a Half-life speedrun that was using clipping like crazy. It seemed a bit out there but it seems the census it's legit if it's non tool assisted.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 02/05/2015 at 06:58pm

I'm by no means an expert, but I think there are four generally accepted types of speed runs: With glitches/bugs, Tool assisted, any percent, and 100% completion. I have no problem with someone using and abusing glitches/bugs for a speed run, especially since this sometimes requires a very deep understanding of how the game code works. But I do think there needs to be separate world records or whatever for people who do and don't use them. :)

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jdodson1

2762 Posts

Is Super Mario Brothers More Immersive Than Call of Duty?

Explore The New World In Pioneers

Sword Coast Legends Is An All New Epic D&D Adventure

Broforce Gets Super Alien Update - Game Over Man, Game Over!

Back To The Future Ending Scene Recreated In Pixel Art

Jam Sessions Commercial Is Not Rated For Everyone

Travel The Orion Trail With Warp Weasels In Space

Florian Working On Binding of Isaac Wrath of the Lamb Update

Star Wars Force Chokes It's Way To Humble Bundle

Super Mario World Completed in 3.07, New World Record