To celebrate Back to School Blizzard is dropping the price on Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty for 50% off and Heart of the Swarm for 50% off on Battle.net. So yeah, celebrating starting school back up with one of the greatest time sinks around!

Additionally this week you will be able to earn some exclusive badges as well, so if you are into that, check it out!

If you are interested, check out my thoughts on Heart of the Swarm.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1100

Lot's of videos have surfaced outlining many of the changes in Terraria 1.2. The above video features wooden & cactus armor and the ones below feature a new NPC The Steampunker as well as rope and rope coil. Very excited about the full set of wooden armor as that means that you can outfit your character very early on in the game. The only downside is that if you start a server(like ours) the trees will get dropped pretty fast. That said, we should all be re-planting so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

That said, I am now curious. Will you be going Wood or Cactus armor to start?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2kn1IWFfQ (The new NPC The Steampunker)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlDJXkn1oPA (Rope & Rope Coil)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkwmSAFvhk (Campfire)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lh4lMW4d5A (Tin ore)

Terraria 1.2 drops October 2nd.

"Sexism in game culture is back in the spotlight. As seen in the comment section of Carolyn Petit's recent review of GTA 5 and, of course, the hate spewed toward Anita Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency, there is a strong undercurrent of anti-woman sentiment that has surfaced in the gamer community. Why? Because there are those who believe that women can never be "true gamers." But there are those that are fighting back!!! So does that make Anita a video game Rosa Parks? Watch the episode to find out!"

Latest episode of Game/Show is a good one, this time discussing games and feminism. I like the take on it here, its a even discussion that gives the issue a fair shake. And I agree with it, we need voices in the gaming community like Anita.

Back in July, Chroma Squad was successfully Kickstarted. This made me happy as Behold Studios, the company behind the magic, is setting out to do something pretty unique. Chroma Squad is a tactical turn-based game where you manage your set of heroes as well as TV studio. The concept is really quite innovative and I have been wanting to talk to the developers about it. As luck would have it, they had some time to talk with me and I want to thank them for doing the interview and wish them well in finishing the game!

jdodson: The game was successfully Kickstarted last month and was recently Greenlit on Steam, which is pretty awesome. How has development on the game been going? On track for the Kickstarter backer beta in October?

Gui: Well thanks, we were reeeeeally happy and excited with our kickstarter campaign and being greenlit on steam! I believe taking 20 days to answer your interview confirms my point that we are hard working on the game haha! We are making our final adjustments to submit Chroma Squad to IGF so yeah, everything sounds like we'll have a beta late October.

jdodson: Chroma Squad allows you to play though episodes of your show as a way to progress through the game. Curious how many episodes will ship with the core game? Will the game feature a mode to keep going with your show indefinitely?

Gui: A good amount of episodes are definitely one of the great features in Chroma Squad, I can't really say how many will be but there will be a good amount of them, all of them unique. We are planning a really nice and funny way to make the game cycle "infinite", some sort of reboot on your series or who knows? I can't really tell you, otherwise it'll be spoilers.

jdodson: Behold Studios was founded back in 2009 and you went on to make The Grave Digger, Save My Telly and The Knights of Pen and Paper and a few others. How do you look back at the start of the studio and launching your first game to Knights of Pen and Paper and then Chroma Squad?

Gui: We feel that we learned a lot after Knights of Pen and Paper development and we feel that we can make even a better game now with Chroma Squad. We are working our best to make it even better than Knights of Pen and Paper too.

jdodson: One of the Kickstarter Stretch Goals was for the Episode Editor and it wasn’t met, but it was very close. I am curious if you have plans to drop the episode editor and open up the Steam Workshop at some point after launch?

Gui: Yes we do have future plans but we first need to ship Chroma Squad haha We didn't drop the idea because it was too good to let it aside and the community loved it so much that we can't really say 'no' since that same community made the development of Chroma Squad available. So maybe after launch? Yeah, we will totally think of that.

jdodson: Rita Repulsa and Lord Zed are iconic Power Ranger arch enemies. Could you give us a preview of the villains we can expect to see in Chroma Squad?

Gui: We want our game to remind us of our childhood and how much fun we had while watching these series (not just power rangers). The arch enemies were evil enough but some of them had their comedy. So we want to make a satire of that. I can't really say who it will be our arch enemy but all I may say is that it's inspired by a real world character.

jdodson: How will chroma key, microphones and camera upgrades affect the in game battles?

Gui: As long as you upgrade or have them, they will provide extra buffs to your party. You will get more audience points for using props beucase it delights your telespectators. So you will have to worry about how your audience is doing instead of just finishing enemies off in a easy way and these props will help you to do it.

jdodson: What suggestions do you have for people wanting to make games? Is there any aspect of making games you would recommend people get into that doesn’t have many people doing it?

Gui: This is something I say to everyone, 'the excuse/obstacle is in you', we live in a world that too many people are connected via the internet and too much information is shared. I remember when I was a kid, if I wanted information about something I had to go to the big books or a library and hope to find something related, today you just need to write what you want to find and click on 'search'. So if you don't know how to do it, search for it, if you don't have a place to do it, go to a public cafe, if you don't have a salary, well... get another job that may pay for your bills and do it in your free time. And if I say this is because we've been through all of it and we know that as long as people really want it, people actually can do it.

jdodson: What’s the tech you are using for Chroma Squad to get it ported to PC, Mac, Linux, mobile and consoles?

Gui: We are using the same engine of all our previous games, Unity3D.

jdodson: The story in the Chroma Squad Comic book is of Stunt Men working for the “BIG STUDIO” and decide to strike out and make their own Indie Show. I am curious if the story of the game mirrors Behold Studios experience in the game industry somewhat?

Gui: Haha, I actually never thought about the story being mirrored but somehow I might say that it looks like that for a few of us. It's not like we worked in a previous game company before but some of us had boring/annoying jobs or had to work on terrible time-prize freelances, and etc. So yes, for sure!

jdodson: You mentioned you want to take Chroma Squad to consoles, but it will be a matter of how easy it is to work with manufacturers. Have you talked to any of the consoles about porting the game and have an idea which versions may be a priority? With that, since Chroma Squad is coming to Android devices any thought to an Ouya port?

Gui: All we actually want is to spread our game the furthest we can. First we are heading for the pc (mac/win/linux) versions and then other platforms. We've been trying to reach the big consoles and we really hope to port Chroma Squad like we want. So yeah, we know that it's not simple like "works on android? well then a version of ouya is coming!" because we need to make sure the controller experience should be good but as long as we are heading for consoles, it should just take some time before an Ouya port.

jdodson: Will we see any updates after the official game launch adding new episodes and game options as DLC or expansion?

Gui: Certainly! As long as the community wants it, we will probably do it. Knights of Pen and Paper had almost an year full of patches with quests, items, bugs, features, requests, etc, and we want to do the same with Chroma Squad.

jdodson: For you, what’s the coolest experience you have had playing Chroma Squad so far?

Gui: I'm in deep love with the episode battles.

jdodson: Thank you for answering my questions, I can’t wait to play the game when it drops later this year. Is there anything you want to say before we finish up?

Gui: We love to play our own games after development so I keep asking my teammates if the game is ready because I want to play too. hahah Keep an eye on our facebook page, any announcements (which are not "backers only") will be made there and soon enough we will be all playing it! Thanks a lot for the interview, I had a good time answering the questions.

http://beholdstudios.com.br/
https://www.facebook.com/BeholdStudios

Just wanted to let you know about some awesome stuff. October 5th - 6th is the Portland Retro Gaming Expo and I am happy to report that Cheerful Ghost will be showing this year. We will have a booth to showcase the site, sell Cheerful Ghost swag packs and are stuffing free stickers in each attendee bag. I am also excited to say that as a special bonus, we are sharing the table with Sleep Ninja Games, the awesome folks making the crazy great game "Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake."

I seriously encourage anyone living in Portland or its surrounding territories that loves retro games to stop by the booth and say hi. Not only will you be able to get an above average dose of the Ghost but @CapnCurry and @scrypt from The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable will also be present. Oh right and you can also meet Sleep Ninja Games and experience the game before it drops.

See you soon!

http://retrogamingexpo.com/
http://www.sleepninjagames.com/

I just found out about a cool new retro system coming out this December called the Retron 5. It sports compatabiliy for the NES, SNES, SFC, Genesis, Famicom, Gameboy, Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance. It will be available at launch for $99 and will support scaled output at 720p over HDMI.

I know what just got added to my Christmas list!

http://hyperkin.com/blog/2013/09/hyperkin-to-release-retron-5-on-december-10-2013/

Diablo III released on console recently and like many people that have it on PC, I didn't buy it. I have been curious to try it as Blizzard made many changes to it that are not in the PC version. I was able to do that because Blizzard added a Diablo III demo to PS3 and XBox 360 which takes you all the way to the Skeleton King. I have been playing the PS3 demo over the last couple of days and wanted to write a bit about the differences between the console and PC version.

the long road to the controller

Originally I figured porting Diablo III to consoles would be strange because of the game controls. Diablo III has a pretty rich interface with hotkeys, character customization and I thought it wouldn't translate well to a controller. I was wrong, Blizzard has done a great job porting the game to consoles and making it accessible. In fact, the game might be more fun because it requires a bit less effort to play. To "fix" the no mouse support on consoles, Blizzard implemented a locking auto-aim feature that makes things much simpler. The game is still challenging, but if you are not 100% accurate with your shots, the game will help you out a bit. This made the whole couch experience much nicer. I really felt at home kicking back and slaying monsters. Some might relish the precision of the mouse, but you can play the PC version for that.

Blizzard added a roll / evade move to each class that is really useful. The game is harder on the console because you can't click around to evade things like the PC version so they added evade. It's a nice mechanic and I found it useful for fights with many enemies and tough bad guys. They haven't ruled out bringing evasion to the PC, but I don't think its something the PC version needs.

difficulty modes

The PC version of Diablo III shipped with a static difficulty based on the game mode you were in. So if it was your first play through, you were at Normal difficulty. If you killed Diablo you went to Nightmare and then Hell and finally Inferno. Diablo III on console has these modes as well but you can also specify a difficulty within each mode. So in the demo they allow you to select the difficulty mode for your character in easy, medium and hard. There are two other options but they are not available in the demo. I selected medium and it was much more challenging that what I experienced in the PC version in Normal mode. Enemies were much tougher to take down and there were more of them. I never felt like Normal mode with Diablo III on PC was hard and bordered on too easy. The console version on Medium provides a much appreciated challenge. I can only imagine hard and beyond is even more so.

the look and feel of the game

I am a PC gamer. A few years ago I jumped back to my PC and I haven't missed a beat. One of the great features of PC gaming is graphics and play control. That said, Diablo III on console doesn't really suffer in terms of play control or graphics, its just different. One very noticeable element of the presentation of Diablo III on console is the anti-aliasing, it doesn't look like it's turned on at all. Basically what this means is the game looks "jaggy" or everything looks like it has a rough edge. Anti-aliasing takes some horsepower to pull off so many console games drop it. Compared to the beautiful lush textures of the PC version, the console version suffers here some as well. That said, the game still looks stunning and beautiful and I didn't feel like this was "muddy Diablo III." It is just Diablo III paired down to what the PS3 can handle well.

I have a 5.1 Dolby system in my living room so the audio for this environment was appreciated. The great score really comes to life on my speakers and I would say the console version provides a marked improvement over my 2.1 PC speakers.

conclusion: it's a hell of a lot of fun

If you can't play the free Diablo III demo on PC because you are console bound you need to download the demo. Hell, if you own it on PC and just want to try it out you should do that too. The game really comes to life on the console and in some ways is a better presentation of the game. And at the end of the day, it still lets you kick Diablo's ass and that's what its all about right?

I made a Let's Play for Delver, a new 2D retro styled Rouge-like. It's all fun and games till I get wiped out by a Teleport switch. I plan on doing a few more of these to see how far I can get.

Someone awesome person decided to create a map of the entire overworld of Link's Awakening. Looking at it all in its Gameboy pixel glory is pretty awesome to behold but I also realize how small the overworld really is. That said, it takes quite some time before you have the ability to go everywhere and in the game it really does feel larger than it actually is.

Hand's the best part of the overworld in Link's Awakening was Animal Village. I also had a pretty high appreciation for the part where you collect leaves to enter the slime dungeon.

Some really interesting bits of trivia about one of Biowares best games. Did you play Knight of the Old Republic on XBox or PC? What did you think of it?