"Guard dogs have arrived! You can now hire dogs from the staff menu, and they come as a team with a dog handler. Dogs will sniff any nearby prisoners and hiding spots, and can smell drugs and other forms of smelly contraband from several squares away. Assign your dogs to patrols within busy parts of your prison to have them sniff everyone during the day.

Dogs can also sense escape tunnels, although it isn’t quite as easy as that. They will scratch at the floor and bark a bit, but you need to keep an eye on them to notice this and perform appropriate searches within your jail. If they happen to be scratching the floor when there is an actual prisoner digging directly under them, the prisoner is rumbled and the whole tunnel is revealed. We suggest you create long patrol routes around the perimeter of your jail and assign dogs to these, to keep a handle on your escape tunnels."

Prison Architect is quickly becoming my most favorite game of 2013. I picked it up back in Alpha 13 and recently figured out how to build a sustainable prison. Introversion just dropped the new Alpha 14 update that added Dogs and the ability to sell your prison. These really add on to the game in important ways that I appreciate. Before, the only way to detect stuff was with a metal detector but that won't find drugs. Now you can have Dogs sniff out contraband and also be alerted about tunnels.

I can't wait to add the kennel to my prison and replace many of my guard patrols with dog handlers. I also think ill put a dog unit at the front of my prison to keep the escape attempts down as well. LONG LIVE DOG ARCHITECT!

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=44984

Last night the Terraria 1.2 update hit and after playing it for a few hours I can say that it is a great update. A few stand out elements of the patch are the new map system, tier 1 armor, snow and cactus crafting. Plus there are just a ton of other little changes that make the update really awesome for long time Terraria fans. I haven't seen anything quite like this in terms of a free content update and Re-Logic is really showing its focus on the game community here.

As such @Travis and I spent some time last night setting up the new Cheerful Ghost server and it is ready for people to play. If you haven't already, check out the event and join up. We will be co-ordinating all aspects of the games run from the event so make sure to stop by from time to time to see how things are going.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/events/39

You can update the game to the latest version by opening up Steam and having it do it's auto-update magic. While you are waiting, check out the list of changes to the game.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nubZZSGBoUiuKFKzWT7raMrPI35MQtDWSsL-MbHFgqs/preview?sle=true

I recently wanted to play a new game from my Steam catalog so I picked a game from the Humble Bundle 8: Little Inferno. I knew a bit about the game before I started, the basic premise is that you burn things in your fireplace. I thought that sounded interesting enough and so I installed it on my Mac and gave it a go. For the next three hours and twelve minutes I was hooked to my computer until I finally completed the game. My experience with the game was nothing short of magical and I seriously recommend you beat this game. It's not enough to simply play the the game halfway, this game needs you to finish it. I'll try and explain why without spoiling it, but really, to experience the full majesty of Little Inferno you really ought to complete it.

the tone

This game's universe and story are strange. But strange in a very dystopian, future telling, environmental, fun and magical way. The game isn't preachy but it does have something to say about combustion and consumerism. Again, the game never really comes out and states one way or the other about it, but it paints a picture of a world where people consume things to destroy them and shows off what that may actually look like. In a way, Little Inferno is even a bit meta about gaming in what you are doing and how you progress. I am leaving out some key details, but I am trying to keep this all spoiler free.

That all said, the games tone is really unique and is somewhere between one of the best Tim Burton films coupled with some magical dystopian future.

what this game is all about

The majority of Little Inferno has you burning things to make money, find combos to unlock the ability to buy and burn more things. During your search for combos and making money you are sent letters by your neighbor and messages from The Weatherman. The game has a very compelling story but this is where I stop talking about it, because again, it should be experienced all the way to the end, spoiler free.

the music

Kyle Gabler wrote the music for Little Inferno and because of his efforts he just went on my list of game composers to follow. The score to Little Inferno really helps the magical tone of the game come to light in a way that makes everything it is trying to do click. Coupled with the lush and beautiful art direction, the score accentuates the games flavor. Since I picked up Little Inferno in the Humble Bundle 8, it came with the score and it even up outside the game too.

final thoughts

For me, Little Inferno ranks as high as some of the most magical movies I have seen in terms of its power to captivate my imagination. It does so much with so little and that is a real accomplishment given many large studios march to huge budget shooter titles. Little Inferno also shows me just how imaginative and awesome the Indie Game revolution really is. Where many Indie Games are repeating beats from the past, Little Inferno takes us in a new direction that feels familiar and then spins the game around and ends on such a beautiful and touching note.

I'll end with a quote from the games end as best as I can remember it, because it has stuck with me ever since.

"But what happens when you have achieved your dreams? Well, then it's time to get bigger dreams."

I hope Tomorrow Corporation, the developers of Little Inferno keep dreaming.

http://tomorrowcorporation.com/

The folks that made Indie Game: The Movie have released this excerpt from the special edition focusing on Edmund and The Binding of Issac. It's a really great 30 minute doc short on why Edmund decided to make the game and it getting huge in the YouTube Let's Play community.

I really appreciate Edmund's honesty and his though process that went into making this really compelling game. It surprised me to learn that the game only took 3 months start to finish.

I think if the Indie Game: The Movie people keep interviewing and releasing indie game videos the universe would be a little bit better for it.

I booted my PC recently to play some games I don't have access to on my Mac. One of the games I opened was Skyrim. I was walking around and found a random Stormcloak camp. To this point I haven't taken sides yet but I want to either support the Stormcloaks or Imperials. Thing is, I was talking to the Stormcloaks and I wasn't too impressed with them. They were talking a big game about Skyrim being for the Nords only and seriously hinted at slaughtering the Elves. I am not down with that and I am seriously considering backing the Imperials.

Thoughts? I sort of don't want to back "The Empire" but the Stormcloaks seem pretty evil. The Imperials are not much better I guess but at least they are not talking race slaughter.

"Filmed before the launch of the Kickstarter and leading up to its release, Keiji Inafune talks openly about his past and hopes for the future, as well as introducing us to the crack team of veteran developers assembled for Mighty No. 9."

So there was this little Kickstarter that launched a little less than a month ago. Apparently Keiji Inafune had an idea for a new game that bears a striking resemblance to Mega Man. Yeah, well apparently they raised 2.6 million dollars and as part of that they promised to release a documentary covering the entire process. Since the game has been such a smashing success they are releasing the documentary in bits, to everyone. This documentary is beautifully shot and chronicles the game from concept to its Kickstarter launch at PAX East. Can't wait for more game documentary releases, this was fantastic.


The Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter is 3 days away from finishing up and they seem to be going out with a bang. I am super excited for this game to ship and, because they are awesome, the game will ship on Linux, Mac, PC, PS3 & XBox 360. Hopefully this game ships around the same time as when I get my Steam Machine, i'd love to take this game for a spin on the new Valve Controller.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9

This image is so large(5.1 Megs) that I am just going to link it here for you to checkout. Well worth your time if you are into that sort of thing. Starcraft ships are included!

http://bitcast-a-sm.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/ZZ0908720A.jpg

"Escape Goat is a puzzle platforming game where you take on the role of a goat who was imprisoned for witchcraft. Take heart, for a friendly magic mouse accompanies you, and he can help in the most unexpected ways. Together you must solve the myriad rooms of the treacherous Prison of Agnus in order to escape."

If I could hand out awards for unique concepts and game names, Escape Goat would be one of those games. Taking the fairly battle tested platforming mechanic and putting it's own spin on things, Escape Goat looks pretty awesome.

You can purchase Escape Goat on GOG right now and the developers are bringing it to Steam very soon.

http://www.gog.com/game/escape_goat

@WhiteboySlim and I finished our FTL pairing session the other night and I wanted to share it with everyone that was curious how it would turn out. It was a good build concept but in the end I think we failed because we just didn't hit the boss hard enough. We could take enough punishment, we just didn't do much in the way of damage.

Looking forward to trying this build if I can get more powerful drones. That said, for my next game I am going to try the boarding mechanic. Seems like a hell of a lot of fun.

Make sure you watch part one first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYQLSUO7jiE

If you watch Game Videos online, chances are you've watched The Angry Video Game Nerd. His shows are funny and pretty entertaining. If you haven't seen them, head over to The Nerds site and check them out.

That said, The Nerd recently released The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures and it looks pretty interesting. Happy to see that he didn't take the parts of games that suck ass and put them in his game. Yeah, it looks pretty hard but many awesome NES games were.

If you picked this up and have given it a try, let me know what you think in the comments.

http://cinemassacre.com/