PopCap just released Plants vs. Zombies 2 on Android and I serious recommend you pick it up if you have an Android device. PvZ 2 is a freemium game but it isn't annoying. Where as I would have preferred to pay for it all and not have to spend time unlocking things, I never needed to pay for anything and the games increased challenge was a welcomed addition.

If you nab it on Android give it a go and let me know how it goes!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ea.game.pvz2_row

"All Mae wants to do is run around with her friends, break stuff and hang on to a life of aggressive aimlessness. She dropped out of college and returned home to her crumbling old mining town to do just that, but she's finding that nothing is the same anymore. The old town seems different. Her old friends have grown in their own directions. Mae herself is undergoing some sudden and unexplained changes, giving her mysterious abilities that grant her access to a side of town she never knew existed. The world is changing, things are ending, and the future is uncertain. Up behind the park at the edge of town, back in the trees by the old mine- there's something in the woods. And it could mean no future at all."

Night In The Woods is a new project that just dropped on Kickstarter a few days ago that blew past its initial funding levels. Mixing up some great art and story themes the game really seems to take the gameplay into a sort of indie movie style. According to the Kickstarter they have a very early gameplay prototype being built and are looking for funds to flesh it out and polish it up for release.

"What we’re attempting here is kind of ambitious. We want to create the feeling that the player is actually visiting another world full of unique and well developed characters. This involves combining gameplay elements from a few different genres with a lot of handmade content, including a great deal of unique character animation and environment detail."

Can't fault them for being ambitious but hope the scope of the project is something that can be finished reasonably. That said, what do you think of Night in the Woods?

In The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable Episode 7: Halloween Special we take a bit of a break to talk about horror themed games we have played that have had an impact on us. @CapnCurry drops a story during our roundtable about "Gonzo the Norn" that is a must hear. It's a really interesting tale about an experience he had with a particular Norn in Creatures 2. Experience the story that prompted us to spontaneously clap when he was finished.

We also polish off the episode by going over games we'd like to see come to Valve's upcoming SteamOS and Steam Machines. Come for the video game discussion stay for us dressing up strangely!

• Terraria 1.2 Server: http://cheerfulghost.com/events/39


• Doom 3: http://cheerfulghost.com/game/13039


• Amnesia: http://www.amnesiagame.com/


• Creatures 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatures_2


• Final Fantasy XI: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml


• SteamOS: http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

Like many of you guys I am really excited about SteamOS and Steam Machines. So much so that I have been creating a mental list of games i'd love to see ported. I don't hold out hope for many of these, but if by some chance it were to happen but one can dream right?

terraria

I'll admit, this is kind of a cheat answer. It's not so much that I want to play Terraria on a console as much as I want to get Terraria off Windows. If Terraria were on Mac or Linux it would make my life much simpler and SteamOS would be an awesome benefit. That said, Terraria tops my list and if it were to be ported I would be elated.

skyrim

Getting a solid triple A game that people love ported to SteamOS would really give the platform some solid footing. Not to say every Valve title isn't enough already, but the more the merrier and Skyrim is a game we should have access to on modern platforms until... forever. Plus, I am certain i'd play this more if I could play it in the living room and sync my saves between the PC. My Dovakin needs a new home on SteamOS.

borderlands

The original Borderlands was nothing short of incredible and I hope this classic gets ported to SteamOS. By rights Borderlands 2 would be ported first, if any Borderlands come at all, but because of my affinity to it i'd love a port of the original. I have been wanting to head back to Pandora and would love to do that when SteamOS drops.

destiny

I can't help but want to play Bungee's next game because it looks so great. The world looks compelling, the story looks good and the shooting looks top notch. It's basically the most non-Halo Halo sequel in the works and would love to give it a spin. Bungee hasn't ruled out a PC release going forward so that may open the door for a possible SteamOS release given when Destiny launches in relation to it's PC port and release of SteamOS. It feels like a long-shot, but one can certainly dream :D

super meat boy

Super Meat Boy was made to be played on a console with a great controller and I would love to break in my new Steam Machine with it. Super Meat Boy runs really well on Windows and has a great Linux port that is currently not available on Steam. Hopefully Team Meat can shore up some resources to get it on Linux on Steam at some point. Since SteamOS will be based on Linux and allow some kinds of modification, I imagine installing Super Meat Boy would be possible. That said, having a fully integrated experience would be better and because of this I hope Meat Boy comes to SteamOS.

torchlight ii

Torchlight is a great hack-n-slash game that could work very well with a controller in your living room. The original Torchlight was ported to Mac and Linux on Steam and I am holding out hope that Torchlight II can make the jump as well.

fallout 3

Fallout 3 is one of the most "stand out" bad-ass games of the last 5 years. The story, game play and tone are superb and I am chomping at the bit to head back to the vault to be born again. I am curious to see the outcome if I take the "dark path" as I did my best to be good during my first play through. Wanting a port of Fallout 3 seems like a huge stretch to me but, again, it would still be awesome.

So that's my current list as it sits with me right now. So what do you think, what games would you want to see ported to SteamOS if anything at all?

We will be recording the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable Halloween Special this coming Wednesday and I was wondering what everyone was playing this Halloween? For instance, one of the games I play that reminds me of this time of year is Doom 3. It's creepy jump scare element really make this time of year seem more enjoyable.

If you have such a game or games you play, chime in the comments, i'd love to read them off during the roundtable!

"Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is a single player or co-op heist game. Assemble a crack team of thieves, case the joint, and pull off the perfect heist."

Monaco recently came to Linux on Steam so Pocketwatch Games could bring the game to SteamOS. Not only is it great to see games ported to all the platforms, but its awesome to see publishers target SteamOS in particular. I hope this is a trend I see continue.

Pocketwatch Games is celebrating the recent Linux release by marking the game to $5.99 and after hearing it get a great review from @WhiteboySlim I picked it up. I can't wait to dive into this one!

If you have any experience with this game or picked it up for the first time, drop your thoughts in the comments.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/113020/

"I'm pleased to finally announce my new source filmmaker project. End of the Line. This has been in production since January. With a planned release around the end of the year. The full film is around 8 minutes long and I've saved the best for the film itself. Some of the shots have been altered for this trailer to take out jokes so they won't be spoiled. Special thanks to all those involved in the production who helped get this done."

I have been waiting for someone to take the Source Film Maker and release something like this for some time. Very interested in seeing this drop when it goes live at the end of the year.

Now if someone could just remake Star Wars with the Source Film Maker....

It's hard to write about Super Meat Boy as it has been cover by the press and was given some major treatment in Indie Game: The Movie. That said, I found this fast facts video pretty interesting, if not a bit short.

I've been playing Super Meat Boy a bit at a time over the months and am currently pretty far into the salt factory. Currently the Steam Mac version is broken and the only Linux version of Meat Boy was released with the Humble Bundle. That said, I do plan on finishing this one but I hope it is ported to Steam on Linux so it can be played on the Steam Box.

All that said, how far have you made it through Meat Boy? What is the furthest you have gone in the game?

A few weeks ago Escape Goat came to Steam and like many people I decided to give it a go. Escape Goat is a pure puzzle platformer and offers really fun mechanics that will keep you playing "just one more level." The Steam version supports Mac, Linux and Windows out of the box and I found the controller support to be superb. After getting hooked in by Escape Goat's retro charms I wanted to ask its creator Ian Stocker about the game and if there will be more Goat adventures coming up.

jdodson: Escape Goat was recently released and was just Greenlit on Steam. Now that people have played it I am curious what your reaction to the launch and peoples responses have been?

Ian Stocker: The Steam launch and GoG launch both went great, they were profitable and introduced the game to thousands of new players. It was great to see the Steam forums light up with comments and feedback on the game.

jdodson: Escape Goat has a really awesome premise. I am curious how the concept was born and when you decided to start working on it?

Ian Stocker: Escape Goat started as a new project, with no existing code, on January 1, 2011. The working title was Bastille, and it was going to be a single-screen puzzle game that would take place in a prison. The goat theme was added later, when some friends and I found a Reddit thread on the best misused English idioms. Escape Goat was the top voted answer, and that's when I decided to adopt it as the title and theme of the game. That was probably about three months into development.

jdodson: Is the Goat a witch and does the her purple color factor into her magical-ness in some way?

Ian Stocker: This is up to the player to determine! He does have a lot of magical properties though...

jdodson: What games have you been playing recently?

Ian Stocker: I haven't played a lot of new games, but I do dip in on Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, a classic roguelike you can play on the web. It can devour whole hours of time without you realizing it, though, so beware!

jdodson: Escape Goat is a really tight platformer with some unique concepts. How did all the different aspects of the platforming come together? Did you start with a grand vision or just put in elements and work with them until they worked?

Ian Stocker: It was built up piece by piece, with only some vague concepts of what I wanted to see in the game. I knew I wanted it to show the whole room at once, with no scrolling, like classic puzzle games (Adventures of Lolo, Solomon's Key). And I wanted the controls to be similar to Mega Man, Alucard from Symphony of the Night, and Robot Unicorn Attack. The concept of machinery and mutable environments was discovered early on when I put stacking blocks and laterally moving gearblocks in the game. As soon as I saw them working, I knew this had to be the hook for the game. It took six months to get it bug-free though, since I had never done any physics programming before, and this game needed a unique physics implementation.

jdodson: Escape Goat is out, curious what’s next for you? Escape Goat 2 or some game updates?

Ian Stocker: Yes, I'm finally able to resume work on Escape Goat 2 now that EG1 has been handled on Steam. I still need to push updates to the DRM-free marketplaces, and there will inevitably be a few more support requests, but now I am able to spend a significant amount of time finishing up EG2.

jdodson: I want to thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Before we wrap things up, is there anything you’d like to leave us with?

Ian Stocker: Thanks for covering my game and interviewing me, and if you check out my games, be sure to let me know what you think: www.magicaltimebean.com/contact

IGN recently released a new website cataloging the history of Mario. Starting with his early roots in the game Donkey Kong, IGN new site is an fun jaunt down memory lane. IGN parented with HTML5HUB to create the Museum of Mario entirely in HTML5, so if you are flash adverse this is your jam.

http://mario.ign.com/

Speaking of doing awesome things in HTML5 with Mario someone recently recreated Super Mario Brothers in HTML5 and released it as Open Source on Github. You can play each level from the original game and also play a special random world mode where each level is procedurally generated. Check it out.

http://www.fullscreenmario.com/
https://github.com/Diogenesthecynic/FullScreenMario