Cheerful Ghost Roundtable Episode 4 takes a bit of a different turn as @Travis, @CapnCurry and @scrypt are away with bubonic cancer. @WhiteboySlim and I talk about some really interesting game news bits and show off what we are playing!

show notes

• Humble Indie Bundle 9: https://www.humblebundle.com/


• Vita TV: http://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/1597


• 2DS: http://www.nintendo.com/3ds/new/


• @Blue_Element's comment of the week: http://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/1597#comment6395


• Steam Family Sharing: http://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/1601


• Terraria 1.2 drops October 1st: https://twitter.com/IndieGameHQ/statuses/377918648935251968


• Prison Architect: http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1587


• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: http://www.swtor.com/


• Delver: http://www.delvergame.com/

The sequel to one of the most beloved NES games is finally being made! Conatus Creative looks like it is really taking the the spirit of the original to heart too.

"We've set out to create a sequel worthy of the name, paying homage to the original while recapturing its charm and gameplay innovation. This is our love letter to River City Ransom, Technōs Japan, and the epic fighting and wrestling games of the 80's and 90's. We're pushing the envelope of all two dimensions with this ambitious retro revival. "

If you are interested in seeing this project funded, check out the Kickstarter!

I agree, this is awesome.

Waiting patiently for Cookie Clicker in Skyrim.

I recently came across a Kickstarter for a very interesting new game called Octopus City Blues. It's a really unique adventure game that's hard to describe so I recommend you watch the Kickstarter video.

"Assume the role of Kaf Kafkaryan, a cowardly middle-aged octopus blood junkie and tentacle trimmer, living in a city built around a giant octopus. Kaf has been experiencing bizarre dreams about a world populated by twisted creatures. To help the inhabitants of his dreams, he must learn more about the people of the city and explore the underside of the towering metropolis. Along the way he becomes entangled in a conspiracy with far-reaching implications for Octopus City."

The game has now made double over it's current Kickstarter backing level but if you are interested in getting in on some of the goodies, check it out.

At the end of last month Terraria came to the iPhone and iPad. 505 Games, the company that ported Terraria to iOS plans to bring the game to Android but right now, it's only available on Apple devices. Since I love Terraria and have an iPhone, I bought the game the second it dropped in the iTunes store.

I don't have much luck with games I love being ported to the iPhone. That said, 505 Games has really done a great job with the Mobile port as it really captures much of the fun of Terraria. My only major gripe is that the game is not quite as easy to control as the PC version, but its pretty damn good considering the touch only interface. But don't take my word for it, check out the iTunes reviews. The game is doing so well it has become an iTunes Editors Choice game, which is to say, it has turned quite a few heads.

That said, the port aint perfect and occasionally it's hard to jump or navigate the world. I have run into a few bugs and work around them, but the vast majority of my experience with Terraria on mobile is good.

the changes

You can't port a PC game to mobile without making changes or else the game would be bad. Terraria is no different here and the changes are noticeable. All told, they are mostly all for the better but it's good to know what they are. The game is quite a bit easier on mobile. On PC if you don't build a house in your first night, you will die. The mobile version spawns less slimes and zombies such that night isn't that much of a problem.

Your player emits a pretty bright light at all times making it less useful to drop torches. I still drop torches, but the bright light emitted from the player really doesn't make them as useful. (The screenshot I took in my game above, illustrates what I mean)

I have also found that resources seem much more plentiful in the mobile version. This isn't a huge deal because I imagine people are less inclined to want to spend hours digging on a phone.

Doors automagically open for you and you auto jump when you reach terrain you cant walk over. This basically means you can hold down the left direction to move and you auto jump over anything easily. This is a really nice feature as the left screen is for movement and the right screen is for digging or attack. Swiping up jumps you but I don't do that as often as I thought i'd have to with auto jump.

world spawns

This is far from empirical data, but I have created 6 worlds now and none of them start with anything close to a flat surface at the spawn zone. In fact, the world generation seems much more apt to create some very rough terrain than I recall in the PC version. I wonder what your experience with your maps have been, does the game spawn you a uneven forest zone? Terraria on PC could create some really unique forest topography but much of it was flat that contained some up and down, on mobile that doesn't seem true.

final thoughts

If you love Terraria and want to play it anywhere, Terraria on iOS is for you. So far Terraria has been ported to PS3, XBox 360 and iPhone and iPad. Clearly porting the game to other platforms is possible so I really hope to see it ported to Mac and Linux someday.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/terraria/id640364616?mt=8

Delver is a new first person Roguelike created by Chad Cuddigan. The game is heavily influenced by Ultima, Hack, Rogue and ... Minecraft. Which is to say, the game looks awesome.

Delver is currently out on Steam Early access, the Humble Store and Android.

The premise for Cookie Clicker is fairly simple. Click the cookie to get cookies. Save cookies to buy things that help you get more cookies. Buy powerups with Cookies to get more Cookies. Rinse repeat till you have zillions of Cookies.

The game is very simple, yet terribly addicting. The game stores its state in your browser and keeping it open for longer nets you more cookies. I've shared my progress above, how are you doing with your Cookie empire? Or are you going to skip this entirely?

pro tip: Keep a look out for the golden cookie, if you click it awesome things happen.

http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/

Our friends over at Night Dive Studios recently released the classic adventure game, "I have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" on GOG.com. Based on Harlan Ellison's book, this game takes the players through a dystopian world where a rouge AI kills all but 5 people. Over the course of the game you have to make choices that prove humanity's superiority to computers. It's a really compelling game that weaves in lots of social elements to make this very interesting classic game.

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

Death Road to Canada was one of those games I was very impressed with at PAX 2013. It has 21 days to for its Kickstarter and it is doing quite well. I want to give the game more exposure on the site because this game needs to be made.

I want to thank Kepa Auwae and Rocketcat Games for doing the interview and I wish them to a speedy game launch and Kickstarter funding!

jdodson: For me, Death Road To Canada was one of the most compelling games at PAX. How did your experience at PAX 2013 go and how do you think people responded to the game? Did Tarn and Zach bring the star-power the booth needed?

Kepa Auwae: Thanks, glad you liked it! PAX 2013 did really well. Got to meet a lot of people and other developers, and people seemed to respond well to the game due to the promises of teaching dogs how to drive cars. Tarn and Zach were a huge help, especially since my voice gave out halfway through.

jdodson: Where did the inspiration for Death Road to Canada come from?

Kepa Auwae: Initially it was going to be similar to Sarah Northway's "Rebuild", so that was the initial spark. But then we decided to make it more of a road trip, like Oregon trail but with way more focus on the Choose Your Own Adventure stuff and with new action-adventure city exploration. Wasteland Kings was also an inspiration for the animations, and then there's stuff like River City Ransom and Walking Dead and older zombie movies where you have the group conflicts.

jdodson: Rocketcat Games is made up of 3 guys that all live in different states. How did you guys meet and at what point did you decide you needed to start making games?

Kepa Auwae: We met through an old MMO called Asheron's Call. Long after we stopped playing that game, we still hung out in a chat channel we made for it. I just kind of arbitrarily decided to make games one night, probably due to working swing shifts. I convinced the others and we just went for it. Some time later I learned of Paul Pridham through his work, and we made Punch Quest together.

jdodson: Death Road to Canada boasts that some sections will feature 200 Zombies on screen all trying for your brains. I am curious if the game will require you to kill them before you progress or if avoiding them can be a viable strategy as well?

Kepa Auwae: Avoidance is usually a better strategy than killing them. Killing them can waste time and make noise, attracting more zombies. You really want to dash through the city, fighting when you must, as you grab whatever loot you can. When you get to 200 zombies onscreen you're probably not going to survive, so it's best to get out before that happens.

jdodson: In the Kickstarter video you mention you guys wanted to add more in game content. I am curious what you have planned here?

Kepa Auwae: We want lots of different Choose Your Own Adventure events. We also want to do more survivor personality types, more Unique Survivors, and some rare locations. We'd also like to do rare easter eggs you can find in the cities while exploring. Mostly we want to make it so you can play the game many times over, and still find weird little surprises.

jdodson: One feature of Death Road to Canada is the ability to randomly acquire characters for your party. Wondering if these characters will have set abilities or if they will be randomized somewhat? Also, how will the Mounty, Panda Bear or Elvis play compared to each other?

Kepa Auwae: Many party members are randomized. Random faces, bodies, accessories, names, traits, and personalities mixed and matched to make a person. Then there are rarer Unique Survivors, that have set attributes and names and apperances. These include Mounty, Panda Bear, and Elvis. The Uniques have their own CYOA events and story events, while normal survivors have their events determined by their personality.

jdodson: How did the Zombie-pocalypse come about in the story for Death Road To Canada?

Kepa Auwae: The old classic explanation: no one knows. All the undead simply rose up from the ground, in massive numbers.

jdodson: Any chance Santa Claus may show up as an in game event and fly you to the North Pole? I imagine part of the charm could be a mini game where you make toys for the worlds remaining children. Since the world has been savaged by Zombies I don’t imagine you would have to make many toys.

Kepa Auwae: No minigames, making toys for children would be handled through a complex sequence of decision making through Choose Your Own Adventure events.

jdodson: For you guys, what games are you playing right now? Anything you have enjoyed recently that you recommend people check out?

Kepa Auwae: I haven't really played anything recently but Dark Souls. Check out Dark Souls if you haven't already. Oh and 868-Hack on iOS came out recently, that's a really good strategy game.

jdodson: What is the worst Zombie movie you’ve seen? I don’t mean campy awesome, I mean terrible.

Kepa Auwae: There was a later Romero movie where the zombies were slaves and the lead zombie was wearing a mechanic jumpsuit and leading a zombie gang and they were all slowly learning how to use weapons. That was pretty bad.

jdodson: Death Road to Canada looks like a game that would really work well with controllers, any thought to adding support for them in the PC version?

Kepa Auwae: Yeah, we plan to have controller support. Xbox controller support seems really common now.

jdodson: I have one suggestion for a random character for Death Road To Canada. Canadian born William Shatner. It might make sense to have him in a faux Star Fleet uniform so people could recognize him.

Kepa Auwae: I don't know if we could afford William Shatner. We'd probably need a bigger Kickstarter.

jdodson: When do you anticipate we might see the Kickstarter Beta for Death Road and the final game launch?

Kepa Auwae: We're shooting for the end of Fall for the final game launch, and a late beta of about a month or so before launch. Maybe a little longer beta if there are problems.

http://www.rocketcat-games.com/

"The idea of watching a stranger play a video game for hours seems counterintuitive to many. But they are actually quite popular. HUGELY POPULAR, in fact. Let's Play Video creator Pewdiepie currently holds the record for most subscribers, with over 12 MILLION!!! Considering that people could just play the games themselves, what's behind the immense popularity of Let's Play Videos? Is it about learning game strategies? Entertainment? Community? Mind Control?! Watch the episode and find out!"

New episode of Game/Show drops and talks about the Let's Play epidemic and why it's so big. I they were big, but I didn't know they were that big. Game/Show really digs in on the topic and as with the first episode, this one is great.

One really cool element of Game/Show episode 2 is that for the last half of the video, Jamin Warren responds to some of the YouTube comments. I love this addition to the show and his comments are really poignant and respectful. Kind of love how PBS is elevating the game discussion with Game/Show and doing something new as well.