After watching this Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft narrated battle play out I am much more interested in this games release. Since it will be free to play, the barrier to entry is pretty low and I am curious to see how this will play on the PC and iPad.

I really likens the back and forth between the players and its different enough from Magic The Gathering to be compelling. I wasn't sure based on that video when its ok to target minions VS players though. Hopefully the game comes with a fairly length tutorial.

Will you check out Heroes of Warcraft when it launches?

On a lark yesterday I decided to start a game of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I was kind of deciding between games and picked out a classic. At first I thought I might really only play it for a few minutes of nostalgia, but after I beat the intro I decided I was up for more.

As I have been playing more modern indie titles that use pixel-art or try and riff the Zelda motif I have noticed they do quite a good job of harnessing that tone and style. After playing the first bits of Link to the Past these games seem a bit further away from the absolute amazingness of this game in particular. I am not saying modern indie takes on the retro 2D games are bad, far from it. But there is a level of polish with this game that few games achieve and its worth noting that even 22 years later that still comes across strongly.

I never noticed this before, but as I first entered Kakariko Village, the game gives you waypoints of sorts. Zelda didn't invent this perhaps, but I can't remember a ton of games that did this before Zelda and they are super useful. Not that I need them, so far I have completed much on pure reflex memory alone, but they are interesting to see and compare to games made now.

The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past was one of the triple A releases of the day and as such the level of polish and game design is superb. Blowing the game up on my widescreen TV(but in fullscreen aspect ratio of course) I can see more detail than I otherwise did on my ol CRT. Since I am not a barbarian, I don't set the pixels to smooth out and experience the game in all its blocky pixel glory.

The superior game design comes across right at the start of the game in how it guides you along and teaches you the gameplay as you go. Feeding you easy puzzles that teach you the basics as it slightly changes them is a really nice touch. As a kid I flew through the dialog and now find myself reading it more now and taking it in at level I didn't really appreciate as a youngster. Not that the writing is very good, its passable, but I want to soak in more of the game and its interesting to take in the words in a way I haven't before.

My one complaint about the game, if its even a complaint, is the game isn't as deep in lore and story and I would like a bit more. Opting instead to have the player mostly piece the story together based on what they do, the game delivers you a great couch and popcorn experience but I am finding I want a little bit more "Hyrule by campfire."

Before I started the first light world dungeon I had already collected 5 hearts, 2 bottles, the net, bag of magic, bombs and the lantern. As I was coming up to the first dungeon I realized Link was moving rather slowly and one of the things you get after the first dungeon is the boots that allow you to sprint. Again, more absolutely awesome polish here because just as you start to realize you move slowly you get the ability to sprint.

I plan on posting more of my thoughts as I continue my quest through Hyrule. As I was considering what to screenshot for this post I decided to do the flute boy. I couldn't snap the picture with all the animals around the trunk, but got him as he was fading from view. By the end of my first playthrough I completed the first dungeon and just nabbed the icerod. I also am nearly maxxed out on Rupees, those really were fairly plentiful in Link to the Past.

In this latest Terraria Talk video they are given an exclusive screenshot of the new content coming in Terraria 1.2. What it includes:

• Sandstone bricks, backdrop and furniture.


• Cannons


• PvP


• Jungle Trees can be harvested for Mahogany wood


• New banner designs


• New armor and vanity sets including an Eskimo Suit


• Cactus building sets w tables and chairs


• Steampunk armor/vanity set


• More I may have missed

Really looking for this update to drop. Right now there is no ETA on release but when I hear something you will be the first to know about it.

"We at Nintendo sincerely thank you for your continued patronage of our company’s products. We would like to inform you that a portion of the online services offered through the Wii console will be discontinued from 28th June 2013. We apologise to those of you currently using these services."

Specifically they are discontinuing:

- Nintendo Channel
- News Channel
- Forecast Channel
- Everybody Votes Channel
- Mii Contest Channel
- Data exchange with Wii Friends via WiiConnect24*

I view modern consoles in the same way I view computers, but it doesn't seem console makers do. The Internet Channel is still available so you can get news and the forecast from that, but its still feels strange Nintendo is shutting this stuff off.

http://www.nintendo.com.au/index.php?action=news&nid=2841&pageID=6\

*edit* added the full list of features to be removed.

One task on my list for this month was to add in new Game Platforms to Cheerful Ghost in Linux, Mac and more. I also added the Platform sections so you can get a breakdown on the most popular games for those platforms.

Since the site's launch we imported our games list from various un-awesome sources. It required a ton of manual cleaning and pruning of bad games in the list. We also had to add a __TON__ of games by hand. So I retired the old game importing routines and started afresh. I also decided to ditch our old game list sources and go primary so we now import direct from Steam, Android Store, iOS Store and the Wii U. As new consoles are released ill add support for them as well, it wasn't hard to add the Wii U all told.

One nice thing about importing directly from Steam and the new Linux and Mac support is that these platforms are getting better over time. For instance, the Linux and Mac platform pages list many more popular games than they once did:

http://cheerfulghost.com/platform/linux
http://cheerfulghost.com/platform/mac

At the end of the day this means that our Steam importers will get more of your games and you will spend less time sending us messages about games we don't have in the system. :D

With the new system in place that brings our total tracked games to 21,897.

"Games with roguelike elements have recently had a large jump in popularity. However, most players find these games hard to get into: they are usually exceedingly complex in UI and game rules. Risk of Rain is an action platformer with roguelike elements aimed to revitalize the genre with stylized graphics and an intuitive gameplay scheme that teaches itself, rather than having to be taught."

Risk of Rain is a new platforming rogue-like on Kickstarter. Unlike other Kickstarter projects they link to a demo you can play. The demo doesn't contain music or sound but that's one of the reasons for the Kickstarter.

The game has an Out of the World vibe to it and I appreciate how simple it is to pick-up. I played as the Commando and had four abilities. The base machine gun attack, a shot gun blast, a duck and roll that can get you out of tight spots and a ultra-machine gun attack. The base attack is always available to you but the others are cool-down abilities. I picked the casual game mode and even as such the game is challenging, which is as one would expect with a rogue-like.

If you are interested in giving Risk of Rain a go, checkout the Kickstarter page and download the demo.

Eric Barone has been hard at work on Stardew Valley since our interview with him a while back. I still am very excited about this game and want to let you know how its shaping up:

"I’ve made a bunch of progress on character customization, and I’d like to share some of the results with you! Above, you can see just a few of the many possible combinations for your character. After you’ve created your starting look, there’s nothing stopping you from getting a haircut or changing your outfit in the future. Below is the unfinished character customization screen. You won’t have access to all clothes when you first start your character, but over time you’ll be able to put together a pretty sharp wardrobe!"

Eric also released some HD wallpapers of the game and I set it to my current desktop. Very beautiful pixel-art and I recommend you check it out if you are curious.

http://stardewvalley.net/mini-dev-update-2/
http://stardewvalley.net/new-wallpaper/

You can also read my interview with Eric as well:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1005

The Starbound pre-order just dropped and the minute I heard about it I pre-ordered my copy, downloaded the soundtrack and put it on my phone. You should too, the game looks wicked awesome.

The first few pre-order levels:

Pixel Tier:

• Copy of Starbound + Steam Key


• Beta Access


• Soundtrack

Silver Tier:

• Copy of Starbound + Steam Key


• Beta Access


• Soundtrack


• Tier 1 Forum Badge

You can check out the rest on the pre-order site. It goes up from there and maxes out at the Impervium Tier that only costs $2k but you get an in game statue, name in the credits, tier 6 forum badge & your name in the NPC generation routine.

It's only been available for a few minutes and they have already made $43k on the pre-order. I wish them well to a speedy beta!

http://playstarbound.com/store/
http://playstarbound.com/store/faq.php

"For the last 15 years, as I served as the constant whipping post for thousands...nay, MILLIONS of pathetic worms who have plundered my depths and banished me and my brothers to the soulstones time and time again! NO LONGER! On May 15 in the year of the Panda, 2012, my plan to claim victory over the Nine Hells and the High Heavens has come to fruition! Behold, the chronicle of my journey thus far!"

This might be known to some of you already, but I just found "Diablo's" review of Diablo III on Amazon. Its really funny and sums up the initial problems with the game.

"Day 1: Millions of hapless insects gathered with their gold in hand and their steel drawn as they prepared to storm my doorstep, thinking that I, the Lord of Terror, would stand idly by as you farmed me for loot. Little did you suspect that my secret weapon "error 3007" would lay you all low! Those of you that happened to slip by my net came face to face with my uberlieutenants-- Lagmodan, The Serverbreaker,and Archbishop Disconnectus."

Hahaha, awesome.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2E1992AEAUA8Z/ref=cm_cr_dp_title

I nabbed The Legend of Dungeon off the humble store and have been playing it a bit over the last few days. Its a really fun hack-n-slash roguelike with a really beautiful pixel-art tone. I am not amazing yet, as seen in this video but its a pretty good walkthrough of how the game plays and how awesome it looks.

Like most roguelikes you can spend a few minutes playing or hours, its really up to you how many times you want to keep playing.

http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757