"You and up to three companions are looking for treasure and glory in a dark flickering dungeon full of deadly. Legend has it there is a massive treasure all the way down on the 26th floor. Your quest: get the treasure, and make it back alive. Which you won't, you'll die...
...the game is about dying, and treasure!"

After being successfully Kickstarted, The Legend of Dungeon needs a few Greenlight votes to make it to Steam. This game looks like a really awesome retro roguelike that has an really interesting dark pixel style.

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

You can also pick the game up for $10 on Robot Loves Kitty website which gets you the current alpha build, final build and 2 game expansions! For an extra $5 you get the score as well.

Works on Mac, Linux & Windows.

http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/

FTL is one of the most unique games I've played in the last few years. Many gamers started following the game since its successful Kickstarter till now. Being a huge fan of the game myself, I contacted the FTL folks to ask them a few questions about the game and how things have gone since launching it. I want to thank Matthew Davis and the FTL team for taking time to talk to me and for also making such an awesome game.

Thanks to @scrypt & @CapnCurry for adding questions to the interview!

jdodson: FTL was successfully Kickstarted, has been reviewed very well by gamers and recently you guys won an award at GDC. How as all the attention been and what has been the one thing that surprised you about it all?

Matthew Davis: All of the attention has been surreal. We never expected that FTL would turn into the success that it has been. One small surprising thing happened after we won our IGF awards. I was carrying a trophy to get dinner at Chipotle and the cashier bought me a burrito as a congratulations. Indie development success has perks!

jdodson: In a world of soul destroying roguelikes, FTL dares to be fun. FTL is hard, but not impossible as it allows you some great runs and a bit more luck than I have experienced with other games. I wonder for you, what did you add to make FTL a bit more fun than soul crushing compared to the typical roguelikes?

Matthew Davis: I don't think we set out to specifically make FTL 'more fun' than typical roguelikes. I think that we probably set out to make it slightly more accessible (which isn't always a dirty word for hardcore games) by just having a functional graphical UI and an overall simpler game than most roguelikes. That probably made it easier for most people to give the game a shot and find the fun.

jdodson: I wonder what you would do in the following situation:

“You find a number of ships fleeing from a small space station. You hail them, asking what's wrong: "Help! We're being overrun by some sort of giant alien spiders!”

1. Land on the planet to investigate, spiders kill one crew member no matter what.


2. Land on the planet to investigate, spiders kill everyone except Ripley, Hicks, Newt and Bishop “GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER.”


3. Remove spider code from game because the loss of life has been too great.

Matthew Davis: Haha. That event is no more dangerous than most! But I still never land on the planet, giant alien spiders are no joke.

CapnCurry: FTL is unapologetically difficult, and that was clearly a deliberate design decision - no saving games, no second chances, and a difficulty progression that's meant to restrict victory to the narrowest cases. It definitely works, and part of the game's fun is in knowing that there's no looking back and that today is probably not the day you save the Federation. In an era where even "limited continues" is often considered a rigorous difficulty feature, how and why did you decide on this level of challenge?

Matthew Davis: We grew up playing difficult PC games and just prefer the challenge. We never intended FTL to actually reach a large audience, so we were designing for the small group of players that like to be repeatedly beat down! With a game like FTL, the playthroughs are so short that you can get away with it being a lot harder. Permanent game over is more difficult to stomach after 20 hours, but if you've only put an hour into it you just hit reset and start again!

jdodson: Do you have any kind of statistics as to the amount of players that beat normal mode compared easy?

Matthew Davis: We don't have any statistics at all. And I wouldn't even be able to make a very educated guess on that... it seems like 50/50 people play normal vs. easy.

jdodson: What games are you playing right now?

Matthew Davis: Working my way through Bioshock Infinite on 1999 Mode. Also playing Tribes: Ascend, Starcraft II, and SimCity.

scrypt: As a Kickstarter backer, it was interesting to see how the game evolved from what you had at that point, and what FTL became. It seemed like the feedback you received from each build had a definite impact on what was released to the public. How was your experience with that, and the Kickstarter process in general, and is it something you would consider doing again?

Matthew Davis: The Kickstarter experience was rather terrifying. Having that many people watching you and depending on you to make a great product is a lot of stress. I'm glad you felt that the feedback was reflected in the game, we worked very hard to listen to everyone and try to make the best game we could. FTL is a much better game for the Kickstarter and we appreciate that immensely. That said, I think we would be hesitant to use it again. The stress levels were too high and we prefer to work quietly in a cave.

jdodson: I wonder what you would do in the following situation:

“You have released FTL to critical acclaim and financial success. You won a few awards even, YAY! After you buy your second Ferrari and new winter home in Tuscani do you...”

1. Work on a game DLC to extend the FTL experience.


2. Work on your next game. You know, Minecraft with Dinosaurs but without all the building and stuff.


3. Retire young and laugh at all the suckers that have “day jobs.”


4. Take offer and work for EA to lead the team working on the next FIFA title. GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLL!

Matthew Davis: Ideally #2. But we're still busy with potential tablet ports, patches, and some Kickstarter rewards to actually get going on it! We're happy with the final product of FTL and would get more excitement out of something new rather than expanding on the old.

jdodson: If at some point there is to be an FTL 2, I wonder what you would like to see in it?

Matthew Davis: There were a thousand things left on the cutting room floor that I would've loved to see, but FTL 2 would probably require a much bigger change rather than just some expanding content on the original. The most common requests are co-op and open world gameplay, which would definitely be two things we'd consider. But there are no plans for an FTL 2 any time soon.

jdodson: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions today, before we wrap things up is there anything you want to mention?

Matthew Davis: Thanks for taking the time to play and enjoy FTL!

To celebrate today's retro Tuesday I decided to dust off a DOS classic, ZZT. ZZT isn't one of those classic retro DOS games that garners a ton of critical acclaim like Commander Keen, Warcraft or Doom but that doesn't mean I don't look back on it fondly. As most DOS games at the time were moving on to CGA, EGA and the super-ultra-deluxe-epic VGA graphics, ZZT games lived entirely in ANSI. When ZZT came out, it wasn't entirely original as the ANSI style was pioneered in other games like The Kingdom of Kroz and others. I really enjoyed Kroz, but the quirky nature of the ZZT kept me coming back to it. Well that and they were all available as some form of shareware.

I heavily played the original ZZT and Super ZZT the most. As they were both Shareware, I never did actually beat them but played the hell out of what the shareware versions did include. I always dreamt about making my own levels in the "for pay" version but never had the money to actually spring for it.

I think one of the reasons I love MUDS, ANSI adventure games like ZZT and the like and find more modern incarnations in games like Dwarf Fortress is because of the imagination you have to bring to the game. When the player is a simple smile on a screen the epicness of what you are doing lies in your mind. Another reason these games are awesome is because they are often simple to play.

One awesome trival-bit about ZZT is that it was made by Tim Sweeney and a very early Epic MegaGames. Yes, ZZT was made by THAT Tim Sweeney and THAT Epic Games... the folks that brought us Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. Kind of awesome to see how far the company came from making ANSI based adventure games to writing the tech that powers the majority of triple A games in the industry.

To many ZZT wasn't a huge footnote in gaming for them, but for me it was a pretty large DOS staple back in the day. If you could download it off a BBS in an hour or less I played it and ZZT was one of those games I played the hell out of.

Since launching the site I realize the stuff I do might seem a bit out of reach to some. Over the last bit I have improved as a write and I am getting better at sharing content that people want to read. One thing that I started doing over the course of the site was to send interviews to people in gaming I respected. I was really nervous giving the first couple, but after that it got easier.

If you have been considering sending out a gaming related interview, I recommend you do so and as such want to help the process for you. I have a few thoughts that might things a bit easier so you can publish your first interview.

whom to talk to?

First off you might have an idea of someone or some company you want to interview. Understand that not all companies and people in gaming will grant your request for an interview. Some people are pretty big in gaming and some companies won't make the time for you because you don't work for PC Gamer or Kotaku. Try not to let it get you down, you can still get in touch with people making awesome stuff.

organize your list

Whenever I play an awesome game or see some information about a cool game on Kickstarter I make a note to myself of someone to contact. I keep a list of people and companies to email and then pick one off the stack. I don't put interviews on the list I am not REALLY excited about and I recommend you don't either, just do stuff about things you dig. In fact, I don't write about anything on the site I am not really excited about either.

reaching out

After I realize what interview I want to do next I make the initial contact. This can get tricky depending on whom you want to talk to. If its a game company they have a website and usually a contact form or a press email. If its a person, that can get harder. Occasionally the company or person simply has a facebook page so I message them on that. A few times some of the companies I have tried to contact have no contact information at all so I submitted a help ticket :D A bit of persistence can pay off and in the case of the help ticket, it turned out into a VERY awesome interview. Its ok to be creative in reaching out, but be respectful and don't break any laws :D

keep poking a few times

Sometimes you get a response right away and sometimes you don't. If I don't get a response within a week I poke them again. After about three attempts I stop all attempts. I am persistent but people are busy or might not be interested in responding at all. No harm, I just take the interview off my list.

after you get your yes, how do you do the interview?

Awesome, they agreed! I would recommend keeping your first interviews simple. Tell them you will write up the questions and send them over and they can respond. This is the simplest way to do your first interview and I seriously recommend it. It might seem rad to do a Skype interview but unless your interview is going to be audio only or some kind of video interview, transcribing all that text to written form could be very cumbersome. That said, there is nothing stopping you from doing that but I would start out doing something simple to start.

Coming up with interview questions is the real work of the process but if you are intimately familiar with the subject, its not too hard. If you read over the interviews (hit the interview tab above) you can get a sense for how Travis and I set up our questions. We both have our own style and if you want to take some of the questions we ask and re-phrase them a bit, feel free.

shipping the interview

After you send over the questions it can take a few days to hear back. Sometimes it can take weeks and sometimes you don't hear back at all. I follow the 3 email rule after an interview in that if after 3 attempts to contact them over 3 weeks if I don't hear back I let it go. Sad, but it happens as people are super busy and things fall off their radar.

After I get the interview back I format it for the site and post it under "interviews" and to do that all you need to do is add "Interviews" to your game list. Each person can format their interview differently, but its nice to have names of whom is saying what so people can follow along easily. After I post it to the site I share it on Twitter, Facebook and relevant sub-reddits if they apply.

no magic, just persistence

There is no real magic to it, just the doing and a bit of persistence. The coolest part is the amount of people I have been able to talk to doing awesome stuff I love. I consider doing interviews to be one of the coolest things i've done on the site and look forward to doing many more. If you have any questions hit up the comment thread or contact me direct. If you want to have me help you with anything about a interview with someone in gaming, hit me up id love to help you out!

Look forwarding to seeing your first awesome interview on the site!

Just curious what everyone is playing right now?

What I have been playing over the last few days:

• Spaceward Ho on my iPhone


• FTL


• Age of Empires Online

Age of Empires Online came to Steam a bit ago and after that really hasn't received as much attention as it should. Its a shame really because its a unique take on the traditional MMO. Its a free to play game available in Steam, so if you haven't checked it out yet, I recommend you do. I reviewed it a bit ago and you can check that out here:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/557

One glaring problem of Age of Empires is how hard it is to install. After you install it in Steam, it requires you to create a Microsoft Live account and obtain an install key to plug in to Age of Empires Online. Creating a Microsoft Live account is trivial, getting the Age of Empires Online key is very hard to figure out but if you read the steps in this thread you should be cooking:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110825013159AAmC32E

After playing Age of Empires Online recently I have noticed many updates that streamlines the experience and makes things simpler. There are more races to play as and its not hard to buy them or gain points to get them for free. Age of Empires Online keeps all the stuff you love from the Age of Empires 2 core gameplay with a very beautiful graphics overhaul, which is worth the price of admission alone. After the recent set of core upgrades to the gameplay I think giving this game another shot is well worth your time.

Matthew Davis, one of the designers of FTL just agreed to doing an interview with us. I am wondering if anyone has any questions they want me to ship over with the interview? Id like everyone to submit their questions in the comments by Sunday.

Woop!

I have a desire to own a well made gameboy styled handheld that I can do with what I wish. After searching for a bit about what was available the recently Kickstarted GCW Zero caught my attention. As such I asked them if they would answer a few of my questions about it and the retro community that surrounds its potential awesomeness.

jdodson: For you, what is the coolest thing the GCW Zero does?

GCW Zero: It allows people to do things for free gaming wise they would normally have to pay more then they can Afford and if a cost is involved it is so low it won't hit you in the bank where it hurts most.

jdodson: I find that touch games just don’t draw me in when compared to something like Tetris or Link’s Awakening with thumb controls. I am not saying some stand out games don’t break the mold here, Sword & Sworcery being one such example. For you, do you think the analog controls offer a better experience over what a touch interface can provide?

GCW Zero: Yes that was one of the reasonings behind not putting a touch screen on the device beyond just wanting to stay more retro.

jdodson: How does the GCW Zero set itself apart from the PSP, Canoo, DS or Pandora?

GCW Zero: It's cheaper or very comparable in price and it is open source so the sky is the limit on what you can do with it or use it for.

jdodson: How is the March 26th deadline for shipping to your Kickstarter backers going? With that, I wasn’t a Kickstarter backer, when can I order one to partake in the GCW love?

GCW Zero: We plan to have them out before May 2013 for the Kickstarter orders and Mid May for retail release.

jdodson: Will the GCW Zero come with any sort of App Store or ability or the community have a place to discover and buy new games?

GCW Zero: We are working on the app store and numerous licensings deals we already have made some C-64, Amiga, and Apogee/3D Realms.

jdodson: What have some of the challenges working with hardware manufacturers been? Anything crop up you didn’t expect?

GCW Zero: This whole experience over all is great I've learned delays happen and all you can do is roll with the punches get backup and make it work and make it right.

jdodson: What game have you played on the GCW Zero that showcases the best of what the GCW offers?

GCW Zero: Duke3D, Rise Of The Triad, and the device has even more potential once we have OpenGL.

jdodson: What Super Nintendo Emulator does the GCW Zero ship with? For you, how are the games running?

GCW Zero: It does not ship with any emulators some like DosBox can be downloaded free after you get it and C-64 and Amiga will be sold on the app store. That is not to say that numerous 3rd Party developers have not developed great emulators and they will be available on third party repo's.

jdodson: Even with the advancement of video game technology seen in such huge titles as Skyrim and more recently with Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, retro games are still very popular. It seems many Indie Games are trying to ride this wave of awesome too. I wonder what your thoughts are on this aspect of gaming?

GCW Zero: We very much embrace the Indie scene that is where all the new innovate games with new ideas and strategies are coming from. Big studios are just cranking out repeats of old IP one after the other with a small new twist. We have a great Indie game coming to the GCW Zero from Ackk Studios called Two Brothers.

jdodson: For you, who would win in the following matchups?

Han Solo VS Indiana Jones?

GCW Zero: Han Solo

Michael Jackson VS Prince?

GCW Zero: Prince

Gameboy Prime VS GCW Zero?

GCW Zero: GCW Zero

iPhone Hipster VS Android Hipster?

GCW Zero: Android

Ocarina of Time VS Link to the Past?

GCW Zero: Link to The Past

Sonic VS Luigi?

GCW Zero: Sonic

Coffee VS Tea?

GCW Zero: Tea

Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace VS Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cystal Skull?

GCW Zero: Star Wars

I want to thank the GCW team for taking the time to talk with me today and I am very excited about its release next month!

http://www.gcw-zero.com/
http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1096

Starcrafts Season 2 will begin April 27th and each episode will drop on Saturdays. Looking forward to the new season and since I dig zerg, the new focus should be awesome :D

Some rumors surfaced that the next console by Microsoft would require you to be "always online" to use it. Kotaku started things off with the first "insider source leak."

http://kotaku.com/the-next-xbox-will-require-an-internet-connection-to-st-470062456

When I heard the news I wasn't really surprised. After the news broke a Microsoft Studio rep exchanged tweets with a few people that were not received well. Telling people to "just deal with it" over the always online requirement apparently didn't go over well with folks.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/05/microsoft-response-to-always-online-xbox-rumours-is-dealwithit-3584410/

The rep Tweeted:

"Sorry, I don’t get the drama around having an ‘always online’ console’. He then followed that up with: ‘Every device now is ‘always on’. That’s the world we live in. #dealwithit."

I would have said that differently if I were him, but he isn't half wrong ... sort of anyway.

I was thinking about the the idea that all our stuff is always online and for the most part its true but not from the angle he means and not in the way Microsoft will build the NextBox. My iPhone is connected to the ol' Internet 99.99999% of the time. Occasionally I reboot it for fun OR on my commute to work on the Max(Portland light rail) I go through a tunnel and it is disconnected for a few minutes. It stops working during that time in that I can't make a phone call or surf the web. That said, I can still listen to music, play a game and compose and read emails. I can also even take pictures, thumb through my photos and do a ton of other awesome shit. My iPhone is practically speaking always online but that doesn't mean it shits the bed when I go through a tunnel or travel on an airplane. In fact my iPhone still operates awesomely during a flight as I listen to music, watch video podcasts and even... play games...

So yeah, when a random Microsoft rep says we live 99% of the time online they are correct. We do. Its just how things are and I love it. Thing is, my phone is still amazingly useful on a flight and in a tunnel. It doesn't shit the bed when I lose my internet connection, it doesn't warn me the world ended, it just keeps doing its thing. So why can't the NextBox do that too? I get that the NextBox couldn't download a new game or stream something, but it has a big ass harddrive right? So... can't it work like my iPhone or my laptop? Steam has an offline mode where I can still play my games, why can't the NextBox?

The problem with the "always online" requirement for anything isn't the headache that it causes today, its the impossibility of tomorrow. What I mean by that is yeah, yeah Simcity 5 sucks for a week or something but eventually EA will sort that out and the game will work fine. The problem isn't right now with Simcity 5 or even the NextBox with this "always online" stuff. The problem is when EA and Microsoft decide tomorrow that thing you use will no longer keep working. Which is essentially the problem with DRM in general. Its not the immediate that is really the problem its always tomorrow. Yeah sure you can use your shit now, but what about tomorrow?

I bought some DRM songs on iTunes years ago before I knew what DRM was. That crap is totally unusable to me now and as such I just tossed it away as a really bad purchase. Partly the reason I still buy CD's even now as I don't have to toss my 320k MP3's because they still just work.

That said I have jumped head first into the Steam-a-palooza and haven't looked back too often. Am I am bit nervous that I put all my eggs in one basket this way? Yep. Do I trust Valve? Hell yes I do. So really, if you are going to jump into a situation where your money is being put somewhere, I recommend you invest in a company that deserves your trust. I am not particularly endorsing Steam but perhaps asking a question. "What company do you trust with your gaming dollar to do right by you tomorrow?"

One could simply buy games direct from Indie companies and maintain all the installers on some kind of portable harddrive. Thats a fine option. But if you want to partake in the new BioShock or Borderlands games you need to jump into some kind of ecosystem. I have a Playstation 3 and a PC. Right now the PC looks like the best investment for my gaming dollar. If the Playstation 4 comes out and all my games "just work" on it then it might look like a better deal, but that remains to be seen how that will pan out. Frankly I don't trust Sony with my gaming dollar tomorrow, they proved the PS2 wasn't important to them as my PS3 doesn't play those games.

At the end of the day I am really guarded to what ecosystem I am going to jump into with my gaming dollar. Just realize that whomever owns the digital bits we buy controls how and when we play our games. Remember, we are just buying bits to download now, we don't actually buy game discs anymore. Hear me out though, I think Steam is awesome and I prefer downloading games to getting a boxed game 99% of the time. But at the end of the day what company do you trust to do right by your gaming dollar tomorrow?

**EDIT**

Thought this was pretty funny and illustrates the point I was trying to make pretty well.

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3tq5xe/